[OPE-L:4811] Re: Re: eigen-values

From: Rakesh Narpat Bhandari (rakeshb@Stanford.EDU)
Date: Tue Jan 30 2001 - 06:14:07 EST


re Steve's 4810

>Hi Jerry,
>
>I think the eigenstate concept Rakesh is referring to is rather different
>in spirit from the eigenvalue-vector analysis to which you refer. Matrix
>methods do form part of quantum mechanics, but the overall package is quite
>a different ballgame from Leontief.


Steve,
I wouldn't know  the difference. In my analogy, the commodity is 
collapsed into one of two eigenstates. If |x1> is the eigenstate of 
value--that is, if through measurement a commodity collapses into 
this state--we could represent the magnitude of that value by 
allowing this vector to assume various coefficients or eigenvalues (a 
commodity's value could then be represented by the length of this 
eigenvector). But again it is impossible to go simply from the money 
price at which a commodity sells to determinate knowledge of its 
value even though a commodity only comes to be a value once it is 
sold for a money price.  So in terms of my analogy there really are 
no determinate eigenvalues, simply changes in the "state" of a 
commodity through monetary measurement.

>Albert's book is well worth reading for anyone with a passing interest in
>quantum mechanics, as it provides a deterministic alternative to the
>Copenhagen interpretation of quantum uncertainty--one of many these days,
>it seems, but this is the earliest, stemming from the work of Bohm in the
>1950s.


What then do you make of the criticisms of Bohm's 
information-theoretic, pilot wave theory later developed by Roland 
Omnes and reprised by David Lindley (Where does the Weirdness Go?) Is 
there a Marxist or dialectical materialist or critical realist 
position on wave mechanics? I hope not...

Yours, Rakesh



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