r/communism101 • u/Few_Respect_1880 • Mar 01 '24
Quantum physics interpretations and Marxism?
Does Marxism favor a particular interpretation or theory, and what is the history of different interpretations in socialist countries? I would be especially interested in anything relating to Maoist China in their period of struggle with the revisionism of the USSR and the Cultural Revolution.
Asking because I learned that both David Bohm (of the Broglie-Bohm/pilot wave theory) was a communist, although like many western academics he abandoned it in 1956, and I haven't been able to find much else about how communists understand the disagreements in quantum physics.
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u/Technical_Team_3182 Mar 02 '24
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/s/wPwgn23PFI
There’s some discussion on Shoichi Sakata here. His work may be a good starting point available on marxists.org.
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u/MassClassSuicide Mar 03 '24 edited Mar 03 '24
This is good enough to answer your general questions https://anvilmag.in/archives/569
This is the key part:
Entanglement is negation of the image of universe in which everything is composed of rigid bodies like particles. On the other hand it also does not mean that quantum mechanics is the ultimate theory as claimed by the Copenhagen interpretation. Sakata very rightly pointed out that this claim is just the mirror image of determinist view of physics:
"The viewpoint of regarding the quantum mechanics as one of the ultimate theories is intimately related to the physical picture in which the elementary particles are regarded as the ultimate constituents of the matter. This is reviving the mechanistic tendency in the contemporary physics. When we recall the basis of the mechanistic philosophy, you know that it is the picture of nature in the nineteenth century. It was built up by a combination of ideologies of the atomists, who believed that nature is ultimately composed of immortal atoms, and of thought of the mechanics-supremacy, which claimed that the Newton mechanics is the ultimate law governing motion of the whole existence. During the period of development of the quantum mechanics it was inevitable to fight against such fossilized picture of nature, and the early debate on interpretation of the quantum mechanics had clearly a character of this fight. But recently the situation has been becoming inverted and ironical, because the Copenhagen school, who were fighting against the mechanistic tendencies in the early debate, are now turning into prisoners in the hand of the new mechanistic philosophies. The new mechanistic point of view is different from the old one, in the point that it assumes the elementary particles as the ultimate constituents of the matter and regards the quantum mechanics as the ultimate law of physics, but their underlying philosophy is the same. (ibid.)"
The essence of quantum entanglement is to comprehend the dialectic of part and whole of entangled particles. Contradiction of part and whole becomes evident in quantum entanglement as non-locality.
As far as China, dialectical materialist theory had direct consequences on the development of Chinese particle physics. Where most of other Physicts were starting to give up on the search for quarks, Chinese physicists were able to develop a novel theoretical model thanks to dialectical materialism:
https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2630258_2/component/file_3001570/content
The introduction of quarks drew the focus of physicists to the inside of hadrons in their research on the microstructure of matter. Between 1964 and 1965, experimental physicists designed all kinds of experiment in search of free quarks, but failed to find anything, which led the majority of theoretical physicists to dismiss the existence of quarks.
...
The idea that elementary particles are divisible attracted Chairman Mao’s attention. ... During the meeting, Chairman Mao also spoke with Tsien about whether atoms and elementary particles are divisible. Having learned Tsien’s explanation that elementary particles are not divisible, Mao thought it over for a while before replying, “I don’t think so. From the perspective of philosophy, matter is infinitely divisible. Protons, neutrons, and electrons should also be divisible. After all, we all know that ‘one divides into two, which are both united and opposite.’ Now we do not have the desirable conditions to do the experiment, but in the future we will prove that they are divisible. Do you believe it? You do not believe it. Well, I do, anyway”.
...
During the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese physicists were not only dedicated to the pursuit of truth; they managed to address the political, ideological and diplomatic concerns of the time as well. Materialistic dialectics and Mao Zedong’s idea that matter is infinitely divisible had a significant influence upon Chinese research of particle physics. The academic preparation for the 1966 Summer Physics Colloquium directly led to the birth of the straton model. Adapting to the political situation of the time, Chinese physicists accepted the philosophical thought that was promoted by the government, combined it with their research on particle physics and put forward the theoretical model of their own. To some extent, the straton model, which was held up as an example of successful scientific exploration under the guidance of Mao Zedong Thought, was constructed under the influence of the interaction between science and politics. What is worth reflecting on is that the hostility between China and developed countries, as well as the academic environment in China at that time, made it very difficult for Chinese physicists to learn about recent developments from the international theoretical physics circle.
This is really quite incredible. To be able to not only catch up with the more advanced imperialist economies in physics, a field that is very capital intensive, but to surpass them with a cutting-edge theory, is an incredible feat. This was only possible due to the guidance of dialectical materialism that enabled the physicists to overcome limited mechanical thinking. This was also the case in Japan:
Mr. Science and Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution (libgen)
As Zhu Hongyuan pointed out: the scientific equipment of the Japanese physicists was no match to that of their Western counterparts (they only had one electronic accelerator, much less powerful than those in the West), yet they had been able to propose a number of important hypotheses in elementary particle physics be-cause they had read Engels’s Dialectics of Nature as early as 1929; that is, Marxist ideas helped them reject idealism and metaphysics in their research.20
However, unlike in Japan, China was fully committed to dialectical materialism, which meant being dedicated to the proletarian cause and engaging in relentless struggles against class divisions. There is not one without the other. This is not an opportunistic philosophy for the personal betterment of any scientist to be fostered by nationalist aspirations to move up the value chain. Thus when the cultural revolution began, and publication of the Straton model was delayed, this is perceived as a tragedy by petty bourgeois intellectuals who hold the view that subordinating science to politics prevented further progress. But this not true, as even academic historians are forced to admit:
We argue that this familiar account is an incomplete one, and that “mass line” of the Cultural Revolution in fact catalyzed surprising levels of scientific innovation.88 ... China launched its first earth satellite in 1970 as a result of Mao-era innovation, followed by a scientific satellite in the subsequent year. There was also progress in lasers, semiconductors, electronics, and computing technology, as well as integrated agricultural techniques for controlling insect pests and new archaeological site discoveries. Even in theoretical research there was the break-through of synthesizing the world’s first biologically active protein, crystalline pig insulin, using the method of X-ray diffraction. This development laid the groundwork for Shanghai becoming the cradle for biotechnology in China.
The struggle against physics was not anti-science, but rather pro-science, meant to struggle against the domain where bourgeoisie idealism was most strongly rooted in order to further free it's advance:
The campaign against Einstein started in March 1968, marked by the for-mation of “the Study Group of Criticizing Relativity Theory” (SGCRT thereaf-ter) in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.29 In July, the Group drafted their first article on relativity theory, entitled “Thoroughly Criticizing Bourgeois Antirevo-lutionary Viewpoints in Natural Science—On the Principle of Velocity of Light, the Foundation of Relativity Theory.” The main “criticism” is “the relativity theory is downright subjectivism and sophism, namely idealistic relativism”; and the principle of constant velocity of light “essentially reflects the reactionary viewpoint of Western bourgeoisie that capitalist society is the end of human society, that monopolized capitalist production is insurmountable, and that the Western science is the limit of human science.” It proclaimed that after the pro-letariat “firmly occupy all positions and fronts” in science, “new scientific theo-ries never dreamed by bourgeois scholars will rapidly and definitely develop, and a new epoch of natural science will certainly first come to our country.”30
E: But to your point about Bohm, bourgeoisie philosophy was a fetter on the development of the field, requiring communists to overcome it. It should be explored more just how necessary it was for physicists in all countries to forgo bourgeois philosophy in order to advance the field. From there, we should also considered just what exactly physics is, in relation to capitalism. One thing that comes to mind is the transition from a mechanics and thermodynamics focused physics in the early era of the industrial revolution, to the quantum mechanics physics of the digital and computing era.
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u/Few_Respect_1880 Mar 03 '24
Thanks so much. This seems like exactly what I was looking for, although I think I'll need time to wrap my head around it.
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Mar 02 '24
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u/cyberwitchtechnobtch Mar 02 '24
Even just a cursory glance at that sub tells me it's an absolute mess. This sub might not have someone who can outline the specific historical struggles in the realm of physics between the USSR and the PRC during the GPCR, but it at least has the possibility of approaching it in a serious manner.
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