12 Issues for the Future
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domain. Hopefully the new logic, being unhindered by an anthropocentric root, would open us up to a simpler and more natural understanding
of modern science and, as a consequence, to new discoveries. Perhaps in
the new logic even the contradiction implicit in Goedel’s Incompleteness
Theorem, which naively appears to be a logical demonstration of its own
logical indemonstrability, would disappear. From such a logic we might be
able to derive, as a particular case, our conventional and well established logic,
in the same manner that Newton’s mechanics is a particular case of Einstein’s
Theory of Relativity.
The first steps towards developing a Quantum Logic were taken in 1936
by Garrett Birkhoff and John Von Neumann [16]. In the intervening decades
considerable work has been done by many to explore various non-classical
logics. Noted American philosopher, Hilary Putnam, was a strong advocate of
a non-classical logic. In 1968 he wrote [17]: Logic is as empirical as geometry.
… We live in a world with a non-classical logic. However, during his career,
he underwent a change of heart, and in 2005, he recanted [18]: (In 1968)
I even proposed an interpretation which involved a non-standard logic, but, as
I explained [19] (in 1994), that interpretation collapsed. … More recently,
however, it has occurred to me that I should instead attempt to classify all possible
interpretations (or all possible interpretations that do not involve giving up classical logic), since I had satisfied myself that the approach via a non-standard logic
would not work.
Whatever the eventual outcome of research in this area, it is certainly a
possibility that aliens (if they exist at all) may well think quite differently
from us. For instance, perhaps their pattern-recognition capabilities will be
far more developed than ours, enabling them to discover in an instant “truths”
about their world that our one-step-at-a-time, logical approach fails to reveal.
All this is speculation, but it is useful to remind ourselves from time to time
of how insignificant we are, and how we have a history of allowing our
anthropocentric viewpoint to distort our interpretation of the universe.
12.7 The Multiverse: Physics or Metaphysics?
The idea that there exists a multiverse, or large number of parallel universes,
has been around for a long time in many different fields. It is a common
theme in the Science Fiction genre, and has been proposed in a number
of different areas of physics. Schrödinger, in a 1952 lecture, suggested that
the alternative histories implied by his equations in QM might actually be
realised in other parallel universes.
253
domain. Hopefully the new logic, being unhindered by an anthropocentric root, would open us up to a simpler and more natural understanding
of modern science and, as a consequence, to new discoveries. Perhaps in
the new logic even the contradiction implicit in Goedel’s Incompleteness
Theorem, which naively appears to be a logical demonstration of its own
logical indemonstrability, would disappear. From such a logic we might be
able to derive, as a particular case, our conventional and well established logic,
in the same manner that Newton’s mechanics is a particular case of Einstein’s
Theory of Relativity.
The first steps towards developing a Quantum Logic were taken in 1936
by Garrett Birkhoff and John Von Neumann [16]. In the intervening decades
considerable work has been done by many to explore various non-classical
logics. Noted American philosopher, Hilary Putnam, was a strong advocate of
a non-classical logic. In 1968 he wrote [17]: Logic is as empirical as geometry.
… We live in a world with a non-classical logic. However, during his career,
he underwent a change of heart, and in 2005, he recanted [18]: (In 1968)
I even proposed an interpretation which involved a non-standard logic, but, as
I explained [19] (in 1994), that interpretation collapsed. … More recently,
however, it has occurred to me that I should instead attempt to classify all possible
interpretations (or all possible interpretations that do not involve giving up classical logic), since I had satisfied myself that the approach via a non-standard logic
would not work.
Whatever the eventual outcome of research in this area, it is certainly a
possibility that aliens (if they exist at all) may well think quite differently
from us. For instance, perhaps their pattern-recognition capabilities will be
far more developed than ours, enabling them to discover in an instant “truths”
about their world that our one-step-at-a-time, logical approach fails to reveal.
All this is speculation, but it is useful to remind ourselves from time to time
of how insignificant we are, and how we have a history of allowing our
anthropocentric viewpoint to distort our interpretation of the universe.
12.7 The Multiverse: Physics or Metaphysics?
The idea that there exists a multiverse, or large number of parallel universes,
has been around for a long time in many different fields. It is a common
theme in the Science Fiction genre, and has been proposed in a number
of different areas of physics. Schrödinger, in a 1952 lecture, suggested that
the alternative histories implied by his equations in QM might actually be
realised in other parallel universes.