philosophy of uncertainty principle.

This thought came to me from a discussion in my British literature class, of all places. We were discussing science and the implications of the new exciting discoveries that led to doubts and loss of confidence in our knowledge of the world: evolution, machines, PROGRESS.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that both the position and momentum of a particle cannot be determined, or that more precisely one is measured the less precise becomes the measuring of the other. This is because when attempting to measure either the position or the particle using radiation, the observer alters the state of the particle, thus becoming part of the observed system: objective measurements are impossible.

Think about that for a second.

This implies that no information is neutral and the ultimate truth may be unattainable. Our view of reality becomes one unknown element out of a set of possibilities. Oh, particle, why won't you simply surrender the mysteries of your being to us?

I love how this quantum physics-principle seeps into a bigger question about the objectivity and goal of physics, other science, and expands into (somewhat loosely though, since particles are not the same thing as everyday objects, but the implication persists!) questions of perception, truth, and reality. Drop a dot of ink on a wet paper towel.

But it's fun to draw parallels of this fact into bigger life schemes: ex, Valentine's Day: doesn't the fact that you tell A you like him affect your feelings for A? Or his feelings for you which may affect your feelings for him?

by John Richardson in Physics World

Perhaps we can appreciate an answer by returning to literature. John Keats on negative capability:

I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason - Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates every other consideration.