John von Neumann
Nicholas A. Wheeler (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691178561
- eISBN:
- 9781400889921
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691178561.003.0007
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
This chapter argues that, first, it is inherently correct that measurement or the related process of subjective perception is a new entity relative to the physical environment, and is not reducible ...
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This chapter argues that, first, it is inherently correct that measurement or the related process of subjective perception is a new entity relative to the physical environment, and is not reducible to the latter. Indeed, subjective perception leads one into the intellectual inner life of the individual, which is extra-observational by its very nature, since it must be taken for granted by any conceivable observation or experiment. Nevertheless, it is a fundamental requirement of the scientific viewpoint—the so-called principle of psycho-physical parallelism—that it must be possible so to describe the extra-physical process of subjective perception as if it were in the reality of the physical world; i.e., to assign to its parts equivalent physical processes in the objective environment, in ordinary space.Less
This chapter argues that, first, it is inherently correct that measurement or the related process of subjective perception is a new entity relative to the physical environment, and is not reducible to the latter. Indeed, subjective perception leads one into the intellectual inner life of the individual, which is extra-observational by its very nature, since it must be taken for granted by any conceivable observation or experiment. Nevertheless, it is a fundamental requirement of the scientific viewpoint—the so-called principle of psycho-physical parallelism—that it must be possible so to describe the extra-physical process of subjective perception as if it were in the reality of the physical world; i.e., to assign to its parts equivalent physical processes in the objective environment, in ordinary space.
