QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

influence of the observer, could be eliminated from theories. For his part, Bohr did not believe
that the influence of a conscious subject could be removed from the process of description: he
created a wide general rationalisation from the experience that was then available. 734 According
to classical assumptions, improved theory resulted in more-accurate representation and the
unconscious manifestation of human-centredness could be eliminated, but Bohr’s objectivity
came to mean inter-subjectivity and unambiguous communicativity. To him, the history of
science appeared to be the understanding of our concepts and experiences with an everincreasing
degree of finesse. The observer’s metaphysical independence of the world being
investigated is seen as a requirement for the separability demanded by Einstein. 735 In contrast to
classical physics, however, quantum mechanics appears to prohibit separability: two systems
which have interacted at an earlier point in time are described in a combined state, even though
the systems are widely separated from each other.
Since quantum theory did not completely satisfy the ideals of classical physics regarding
description, it was Bohr’s opinion that generalisation of the whole of the earlier classical
framework of description, the one familiar from its use of causal space-time description, was
required. 736 In his framework of complementarity, Bohr viewed human being as being
conditioned by their experiences: they were not equipped with language suited to all levels of
reality. Bohr did not believe that by using language developed to portray the macroscopic world,
humans would also be able to shape a ”correct” visualisation of the microscopic world. On the
other hand, he was of the opinion that even though we do not have any guarantee of the efficacy
of language or its true correspondence to the world, we can, step by step, through our
experiences and the use of complementary models, compose an ever-improving portrayal of the
world that we influence.
In his unified theory, Einstein was clearly searching for a model which could once again
overcome the doubts raised by quantum theory concerning the influence of humans. Obviously,
both measurement and observations should, in the final analysis, form part of this theory in some
way, and we would have to be able to portray our own activity from an external viewpoint in an
absolute manner. This was something that Bohr considered to be impossible. Humans are bound
to and dependent on the whole world system at a fundamental level. According to his son, Bohr
even doubted whether science and mathematics would some day discover ”The Answer” (a
734 Hooker 1991, 507.
735 Howard 1994, 206.
736 Folse 1985, 222.
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