| Phi 272 Fall 2013 |
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This assignment concerns a theoretical result in quantum mechanics known as Bell’s theorem. Mermin’s main focus is the argument for the theorem and the experimental confirmation of its prediction, but he also has a few suggestions regarding its philosophical implications. On Friday we will look at one way of setting the issues it raises in a broader philosophical setting.
Mermin (1935-) is a solid-state physicist who has offered expositions of material well beyond his specialty. He published accounts of Bell’s theorem for physicists and for philosophers around the same time. What you are reading is the second of his accounts for physicists. Although it has physicists as its intended audience, it presupposes little or no specific knowledge of physics apart from one short section, titled “One way to do it,” on pp. 44-45, and you can skip that without any loss.
Mermin’s discussion of philosophical issues is limited to suggestions at the beginning and end. These suggestions center around Einstein’s reference to “spooky actions at a distance” and an unwillingness to confront the issue that Mermin saw in some physicists. He linked these two points in one of his articles for philosophers:
As far as I can tell, physicists live with the existence of the device by implicitly (or even explicitly) denying the absence of connections between its pieces. References are made to the “wholeness” of nature: particles, detectors, and box can be considered only in their totality; the triggering and flashing of detector A cannot be considered in isolation from the triggering and flashing of detector B—both are part of a single indivisible process.This attitude is sometimes tinged with Eastern mysticism, sometimes with Western know-nothingism, but, common to either point of view, as well as to the less trivial but considerably more obscure position of Bohr, is the sense that strange connections are there. The connections are strange because they play no explicit role in the theory: they are associated with no particles or fields and cannot be used to send any kinds of signals. They are there for one and only one reason: to relieve the perplexity engendered by the insistence that there are no connections.
“Quantum Mysteries for Anyone,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 78 (1981), pp. 397-408 (on JSTOR at 2026482).
The issues concerning “holism” that this suggests will be discussed more explicitly in the reading for Friday.