Copenhagen Discussion, part 2

Continuing comments on the "Freedom and Authority" discussion on 10/11/08 at Colorado College about the play Copenhagen...

The discussion in my small group centered on three topics: morality, friendship and loyalty, and uncertainty.

I did not find the discussion of the first two topics interesting. There was much talk, but no enlightenment.

The discussion of uncertainty was more interesting. Quantum mechanics introduced a paradigm shift in the world. Before quantum mechanics, we thought the world was deterministic. After quantum mechanics, specifically Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, it appears likely that it is not. (Although Einstein did not agree with that conclusion, as Brian wrote about in a comment on this post. We did not get into any discussion of Einstein's views.)

A theme of uncertainty runs through the play: the uncertainty of our thoughts, intentions, memories. On this theme, one woman in our discussion group said that if you have ever kept a diary at any point in your life, and then you go back to read it years later, you will find that it is not what you keep in your head as memories from that time. I have noticed this myself when reading something that I wrote years earlier. Sometimes we remember incorrectly, but more often we simply forget. And if we cannot always remember accurately things that we took the trouble to write about at the time, how much less accurate is our memory of things that we didn't bother to write about at the time?