Dialectical Materialism, Marxist Realism and Quantum Mechanics

Cosmopod

Djamil and Rudy sit down for a hardcore episode on the interaction between Soviet diamat philosophy and Quantum Mechanics. We discuss the analytic core of dialectical materialism through the lens of the philosophy of science and the position of scientific realism. We analyze the main propositions of this core in an attempt to extract what is best, and most relevant to physics: those propositions and thematics which will play heavily in formulating and advancing soviet physics. We discuss what realism is within this framework, how Lenin understood it, and how that informed his debates with the neo-positivists. We continue by outlining what parts of quantum mechanics tend to go against our most basic intuitions, the Copenhagen interpretation and its neo-positivist roots, and how that informed the reception of quantum mechanics in the USSR. We finish with V. A. Fock's efforts to give a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics consistent with dialectic materialism which managed to change Niels Bohr's mind, which sets a prime example for the successful application of dialectical materialism to science.

Further reading: L. V. Tarasov – Basic Concepts of Quantum Mechanics Loren R. Graham – Quantum Mechanics and Dialectical Materialism D. Z. Albert – Quantum Mechanics and Experience