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Again I suggest a third road. It is a matter of complementarity of observables. E.g. the biological definition of "alive" for Schrodinger's cat is complementary to observing superpositions of "cat states" (which would entail statistical experiments on large numbers of identically prepared cats, which in turn would need to be cooled to near absolute zero.)bohm2 said:I find this topic both interesting and confusing. A reductionist can always argue that the reason why full reduction (really unification) is not possible at present is because the "foundational" branch (e.g. physics) is not yet complete. Or due to our own cognitive limitations ( limitation of observer).
The physics can be complete (q-complete i.e. maximal) but micro-scale complementarity can also manifest on the macro-scale. I think this may be a fundamental aspect of emergence.
Thus, a reductionist can claim that because we still lack these micro-dispositions (e.g. physics is not completed) strong emergence with its dualist flavour is really an illusion.
Don't get me started on Bell, EPR and non-locality. Non-separability yes, but locality in the premise of Bell's derivation is simply a means to assure a reasonable assumption of non-causal interaction between measurement processes. Focusing too much on this causation business (typically due to improper reification of the system representation) distracts from the real implications of QM entanglement.But others suspect that the non-locality and non-separability/contextuality implied by Bell's, Kochen–Specker (KS) theorem, etc. can be interpreted as a good argument for strong emergence and bi-directional causality as argued here:
It is again an issue of complementarity. Here it is between the observed q-correlation we define as "entanglement" and the separation of the composite system into a specific pair of component systems.
This discussion has me thinking then... of the possibility of putting some rigor into some definitions in the emergence camp by invoking complementarity. Hmmm...