Re: Ambiguous or just uncertain

Daniel Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Wed, 3 Jun 1998 20:10:13 -0400 (EDT)


On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, John K Clark wrote:

> >From this perspective, it seems that all you have to do is ask the
> >right question and truth and falsehood become completely meaningless.
> >indeed, one might argue that this is the whole point of the koan.
>
>
> I like it, very good point.

Er, by this do you mean that you think that truth and falsehood CAN be
collapsed in this way? I had meant it as a reductio ad absurdum.

> The observations are certainly true and they are consistent in the sense that
> they are repeatable, but they are not consistent with the way our everyday
> macro world seems to operate nor are they consistent with the classical laws
> of logic as Aristotle understood them.

I presume you are referring to the notion that the photon can "pass
through the left slot" and not "pass through the left slot" at the same
time. In this case, I want to assert again that this question is
gibberish from the perspective of quantum physics. That it disagrees with
the macro world as described by Newton is isn't really relevant to this
point.