QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

Socio-biology or Evolutionary psychology can be seen as continuations of this materialistic
trend. Humans are viewed as complicated automata in a world which has no place for real
freedom.
Even though some of our brain activity can be modelled using computers, the analogy which
portrays humans as passive machines is only considered a suitable one by a minority. We
conceive ourselves as active agents, something that classical physics’ conception of the world
does not recognize. The great system-building philosophers of the modern age such as Leibnitz,
Spinoza and Kant saw that conscious, willing and knowing humans could not be reduced to
matter, even though they cannot be fully separated from it. In humanist circles, it has always
been emphasised that the theories of classical physics are unable to directly model even the
biology of living beings, let alone explanation of the nature or development of mental states or
social constructions. The mechanistic-deterministic frame of reference can be viewed as
basically deficient in its understanding of these phenomena. This does not however mean that
humans and the activities they engage in cannot be approached by using scientific tools within a
more-extensive framework.
In western philosophy, doctrines in which humans are allocated the position of being a
fundamental part of reality have, in the last century, been presented by Marxists and Pragmatists.
Quantum mechanics has not had a great influence on the formation of these doctrines, even
though, for example, when giving the Gifford Lecture in 1929, John Dewey offered the opinion
that Werner Heisenberg had liberated us from the limits that clockwork-like reality established in
the 1600s when the Cartesian division between nature and humanity, matter and mind, was
established. 806 Also Karl Popper, who in addition to physical and organic worlds attempted to
outline the development of a world of social and cultural entities. Popper’s thinking illuminates
the fact that paying attention to the influence of humans does not require the abandonment of
either Realism or the idea of nature’s objective lawfulness. The indeterministic conformity to
laws in quantum mechanics allows allows humans a place as part of reality. 807
From both a detailed and more natural-scientific point of view, the portrayal of humanity as
located within reality has been attempted by Michale Polanyi and Ragnar Granit. In his Personal
Knowledge, Michael Polanyi rejected the ideal of scientific detachment. He considers that while
this false ideal may perhaps be harmless in the exact sciences, it exercises a destructive influence
806 Toulmin 278-280. Dewey also criticised modern philosophy’s search for certainty.
313