Customer Reviews:
 a breath of fresh air June 9, 2007
As a graduate student in Physics, I can attest that this is an great book. Smith, who has evidently made much effort to study eastern and western philosophy in addition to physics, is able to do something so many other writers fail to do. In this volume, he succesfully separates good science-quantum mechanics-from bad metascience-the Cartesian dualism that splits the mind forever from the body, in addition to the embarrasing pseudo-philosophy of many physicists). If anything, this book shows how fallacious it is to assume that science has totally replaced philosophy. There are always metaphysical and logical assumptions underlying theory of natural science, even if we refuse to admit as much. The only caveat is that someone should have some familiarity with basic topic in quantum mechanics before trying to read this book.
 Unlocking the Quantum Mysteries October 19, 2006
It is a strange but true fact that quantum mechanics is both the most experimentally verified and the least understood branch of modern physics. It is used as the theoretical basis for everthing from modern weaponry to consumer electronics and no one can seriously question its predictive value but explaining it is an entirely different matter. It's central reliance on indeterminism and nonlocality fly in the face of both "common sense" and the philosophical basis of modernism that had held sway since Descartes. Many have argued that it calls for a complete switch in paradigms for how we understand the universe and calls for both a new view of physics and a new underlying logic.
In The Quantum Enigma, philosopher/physicist Wolfgang Smith takes an entirely different approach and claims the understanding of the challenges of quantum theory are not to be found in a new philosophy but in a new application of the perennial philosophy best exampled in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Attempts to apply the foundational insights of the great classical and scholastic philosophers to modern physics is not necessarily new - some such work was done during the Neo-Thomist movement that faded in the wake of Vatican II. However, this work was largely done by those who had a background in philosophy but were not well versed in the revolution going on in physics. Smith, on the other hand, is both a philosopher and a physicist of note and has a thorough understanding of the issues involved.
Smith's provocative thesis is that the problems of quantum theory evaporate once one understands their cause. He places this in the implicit assumption beginning with Descartes that there is a bifurcation principle operating in the underlying assumptions of modern physics that separates those properties of objects considered quantitative and those that are qualitative. The former are considered objective and thus in the proper realm of science while the latter are treated as subjective and discarded. Smith contends this Cartesian distinction is completely artificial and yet so ingrained (even among those who reject Cartesian dualism) that no one notices. The result is that the "objects" of the physicists are not the objects of our experience (although there is a correspondence).
Throughout the book, Smith reworks quantum theory's implications by keeping the weeding out the unwanted assumptions of the bifurcatiin principle and taming many of the theory's odd assumptions. There is certainly no return to a purely deterministic outlook but this is not a drawback as it was a byproduct of post-Cartesian modernism and not the reworked Aristotelianism that he supports.
There are a few minor issues to be taken. It is not clear exactly how such classical qualitative properties such as "color" are to be thought of as objective or whether a new class of qualitative properties would arise. Without a better fleshing out of this part of his theory, there will no doubt be little support within the scientific community. Still, his insight that the mathematical constructions of the physicists are not isomorphic in all properties to the objects of experience must be given stong consideration.
For those interested, Smith adds a mathematical introduction to quantum theory as an appendix but this may be safely ignored by those not so inclined. Overall, Smith seems to perhaps herald a new meeting of philosophy in the classical/scholastic tradition and modern science and perhaps can breathe some new life in a worldview that has been largely neglected even by Catholic philosophers who have historically been its greatest defenders. Regardless, his work is a powerful challenge to the most basic assumptions of modernist science.
Can Intelligent Design Solve the Most Fundamental Questions in Physics? June 22, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Quantum physics is not usually accessible to the lay reader. In this case, physicist Wolfgang Smith, who graduated from Cornell University at age eighteen with majors in physics, philosophy, and mathematics, before going on to earn his Ph.D., provides a treatise that can be read not only by scientists but also by readers unacquainted with the technical literature on quantum reality. This book is a must read for those interested in how intelligent design can apply to major questions facing contemporary physicists.
Following the overthrow of classical physics by the findings of quantum mechanics, physicists have proposed a broad gamut of alternative theories. This book begins with the major recognition that each of these solutions suffers from a certain "residual Cartesianism" that has been smuggled in unconsciously. Smith explains that the moment one discards this hidden and problematic premise, quantum theory begins to "make sense" in a way that it never has before.
Smith explains ways to integrate the findings of quantum physics into a worldview that is neither forced nor ad hoc, but conforms to the permanent intuitions of humankind. In particular, Smith notes that quantum mechanics has invalidated "determinism, the notion that the state of the universe at any initial moment of time determines its future states." (pg. 109) According to Smith, the principles of quantum dynamics imply a transcendent reality which is above our own, and governs it. Thus there exists "a primary causality which acts, not in some distant past, but in every here and now" for "space and time are not only brought into being, but held in existence, by this primary causation." (pg. 114) Smith terms the nature of this causation "vertical," implying an intelligent agent is at work.
 A review of Quantum Engima August 11, 1999
6 out of 16 found this review helpful
In this scholarly, yet accessible book, Wolfgang Smith draws a distinction between his own philosophical views and those of Werner Heisenberg's. Believing that quantity and scale alone do not distinguish the quantum world from the everyday macro world of classical physics, Smith rejects Heisenberg's view and aligns himself with the philosophy of Niels Bohr who once made the assertion that there is no quantum world. Rather, Smith arbitrarily divides the world into three separate categories: The corporeal, the subcorporeal and the transcorporeal. The corporeal world is that which we perceive with our senses, our everyday reality of sight, sound, touch, and smell. Corporeal objects Smith maintains are not anything like the physical world, but merely occupy the same space. Thought most idealist and representationalist philosophers beginning with Descartes and John Locke and continuing to the present consider secondary qualities such as taste, sight, and sound subjective attributes imparted by the observer, Smith considers these qualities just as objective as mass and quantity, while maintaining, if not incredibly, that even the red color of an apple is an objective quality independent of observation. This corporeal world of the senses is presented by the physical or subcorporeal world--Plato's universal forms (nature in and of itself)--perfectly described by mathematics yet imperceptible to the senses. Atomic and subatomic particles--the transcorporeal world--can never be perceive and must be measured by a subcorporeal measuring device, such as a geiger counter, or bubble chamber. These devices, in turn, make a presentation of themselves by making a transformation into the corporeal world of perception. There is no indeterminacy as suggested by Heisenberg, nor is there any wave/particle duality or quantum measurement problem as described by Bohr. Smith maintains that the state vector collapse does not happen at the level of the atom, but occurs the moment a subcorporeal object passes into the corporeal domain. Macroscopic objects of classical physics are every bit as "potential" as subatomic particles and it is measurement that actualizes the "potentia" from the physical into the corporeal level of reality. As a result, Smith believes that there is no mystery in the Schrodinger's Cat paradox. It is not necessary he claims, for the observer to peer into the box to determine if the cat is dead or alive, since the cat, which belongs to the corporeal world, collapses its own state vector. Just how the transition from the subcorporeal to the corporeal world is achieved isn't addressed directly, but once must infer from statements such as "the entire universe is created for us," that he is an adherent to the strong anthropic principle. As a result, the quantum measurement problem is not solved but instead, is merely shifted from the quantum domain to a supposed transformation between the subcorporeal and corporeal domains under equally mysterious circumstances. Smith beieves that "God plays dice" and that it is only an averaging effect of large numbers at the classical level of nature that accounts for the deterministic appearance of reality. In the end Smith disappoints somewhat by reverting to a deity to explain what is at present still misunderstood, betraying his rational sensibility.
Traditional ontology applied to quantum questions July 13, 1999
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
In this little book, Wolfgang Smith argues against Cartesian bifurcationism, which distinguishes sharply between the inner realm of perceptual phenomena and the external, "noumenal" world. Bifurcationism, says Smith, lies at the very heart of the ontological paradoxes of quantum theory which have prompted many leading scientists to concur with Richard Feynman's cry that "...no one understands quantum mechanics." It is not the mathematical formalism, but rather the prevailing Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, that renders quantum "strangeness" ontologically incomprehensible. Hence, Smith replaces bifurcationism with an ontology that has its roots in Aristotle and Aquinas, showing how such an ontological overhaul can dispel quantum mysteries such as those exemplified by the Schrodinger's cat experiment. I found this book to be a refreshing and insightful challenge to methodological orthoxody in physics, and it offers a very helpful appendix in which Smith (former UCLA and MIT professor of math) gives a somewhat technical but readable introduction to quantum formalism. Smith's ideas are too sophisticated to be dismissed--he forces a reconsideration of this traditional ontology by showing how it contextualizes scientific hypotheses in such a way as to bolster their explanatory power, especially at the quantum level. I highly recommend this book.
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