Oxymorons and
quantum mechanics
I wish I could claim to have writer’s block, but I’m not a writer…so that won’t work. The best I can do is claim blogger’s block – which, at least, is alliterative.
I could add that I’m a great fan of Procrastination. If it
were a country, I would be a shoo-in for the post of King.
Further, I was already well aware about dolce far niente,
but I’ve recently made the acquaintance of the Dutch art of niksen [1] and the
Japanese art of boketto [2].
Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good: I have always
thought I would wait and polish the material some more before blogging about
it. However, I now intend to lower the tennis net to the floor (with profound
apologies to Robert Frost!).
Anyway, as my French teacher would say, revenons a nos moutons (let us return to our sheep).
The topic is oxymorons and quantum mechanics. How did I get
stuck with it?
I happened to read a reference to Noam Chomsky’s sentence,
that he created to show the inadequacy of existing language models: “Colourless
green ideas sleep furiously.”
Admittedly the topic
does not follow logically from Chomsky’s sentence…but it does raise the
possibility.
The simplest example I can think of is “light darkness”.
This sounds very much like a quantum-mechanical duality, to me, at least.
I figured this possibility must have occurred to somebody
already, since quantum mechanics has been around for around a century. After
googling it, all I could find a paper by Overstreet [3]. Sadly, it is paywalled
by JSTOR. I could only see the preview of the first page, which defines the
oxymoron but not its connection with quantum mechanics, other than the ‘yoking’
of ‘discrete opposites’.
Of course, a perusal of lists of oxymorons [4,5] makes it
clear that not all oxymorons are going to correlate with quantum mechanics. On the contrary, at least 99% will not correlate.
But we could describe Schrodinger’s Cat as an example of the
‘living dead’ [5]. I probably should compile a list of quantum mechanical
oxymorons… and I will, some day.
Another question that occurred to me: are oxymorons peculiar
to English (since they are both somewhat peculiar), or do we find them in other
languages too? I found one paper discussing oxymorons in Arabic poetry [6], and
other mentions of oxymorons in German [7], in Spanish [8] and in Dutch [8]:
“Oxymorons exist in other languages as well. ‘Random order’
is one example that is also known in Dutch, and likely as well in other
languages (since it just means the order type is 'random', as
opposed to 'alphabetical order' or 'order of appearance' etc.).”
I am going out on a limb and conclude that the oxymoron
exists in all languages, but they are known by other names, like just a
‘contradiction in terms’.
The question about oxymorons and quantum mechanics may seem
quirky (or, literally, ‘pointedly foolish’ from the Greek), but there is a back-story: Niels Bohr
and others averred that ordinary language – crafted by us to deal with
macroscopic reality – is inadequate to deal with microscopic reality. For
example, the very notion of the trajectory of a classical particle is
inapplicable to microscopic particles. We only know where they are when we
measure their location (and then their momentum is undefined, by Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty Principle). So Reichenbach tried to create a 3-valued quantum logic
[9] and von Weiszacker a quantum
language [10]. It is interesting that this paper [10] refers to Burridan’s ass
that starves between two equally tempting piles of hay, unable to decide which
one eat. Unfortunately, quantum mechanics cannot save the ass since it is a
macroscopic object [11]. Imagine putting Burridan’s Ass next to Schrodinger’s
Cat (maybe overkill?). Of course, if it is zombies we want, we could always
summon Wigner’s friend [12].
Since I am not an expert, I would be unable to claim that
existing languages already have the resources (like oxymorons) to deal with
quantum mechanics – at least until I find out what Overstreet wrote. And I
could not find anyone other than him who saw a connection between oxymorons and
quantum mechanics.
But there are three obvious reasons why oxymorons have not
been referred to in the context of quantum mechanics. Firstly, the word ‘paradox’
has been used historically and serves much the same purpose. Secondly, an
oxymoron is a ‘contradiction in terms’ and Bohr was keen to de-emphasize ‘contradiction’
and propagate ‘complementarity’ instead. Thirdly, Einstein emphasized the idea
of resolving any proposed paradox, to reach a higher level of understanding. Nobody talks about resolving an
oxymoron! Finally, why associate with any kind of moron, anyway?
2) 2) https://womenwhowinatlife.com/boketto-the-interesting-japanese-art-of-non-doing/
3) 3) D.Overstreet, “Oxymoronic Language and Logic
in Quantum Mechanics and James Joyce”, SubStance 9(3) (1980) 37-59 (Johns
Hopkins University Press) https://doi.org/10.2307/3683904
4) 4) https://www.vappingo.com/word-blog/64-examples-of-oxymorons-in-sentences/
5) 5) https://www.thoughtco.com/awfully-good-examples-of-oxymorons-1691814
6) 6) Fida Al-Mawla and Besma Majid Falih, “Oxymoron
in English and Modern Arabic poetry”, International
Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, 24 (9) (2020)
7) 7) https://amp.dw.com/en/german-words-that-contradict-themselves/a-37145955
9) 9) Hans Reichenbach Dialectica 2 (2007) 337-350
10 10) Daniel Perrochia, “On von Weiszacker’s
Philosophy of quantum mechanics”, arXiv 2103.0731 v1 (9th March
2021)
1111) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass
