Uncertainty

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is one you often encounter if you should try to learn about quantum physics, one of the most profound intellectual achievements of the 20th century. In a nutshell it states that the more you know about the particle nature of light the less you know about its wave nature. You can observe light as a wave and make a statement about it, in which case you will not be able to observe it as a particle. Or you can make an experiment on a light particle in which case you will not be able to make a statement about it's wave nature. At least that's the best I can do to grasp the idea. Because light has two natures, almost in the same way as a living thing can be thought of as a single thing- your dog Betsy, for instance, or as a Labrador retriever. You who have known Betsy since she was a puppy will be able to enumerate the individual traits she has that make her different than any other Labrador in the world. But if you want to know what it is that makes Betsy a Labrador instead of a border collie you will have to look for commonalities she has with labradors which distinguish her from a border collie while ignoring the traits they have in common.
I doubt that I really understand the Uncertainty Principle as it pertains to quantum mechanics, but as a fact of everyday life it makes perfect sense to me. It wasn't until I read about the principle that I really began to think about it. Now most people would scoff at the notion that an esoteric idea from a field of knowledge that even baffles the scientists who are intimately familiar with it could have anything to do with everyday life. And what could it possibly have to do with the topics I've been writing about since I began this blog?
Well, it turns out there are a lot of situations where the more you know about one thing the less you know about another. Take a map, for instance. A Google map will do quite well. Pick out a town, any town and type it in. Franklin County, Virginia, for instance. Google will immediately present you with a very detailed map of said community, but if you are unfamiliar with the Eastern Seaboard of the US it will not be very enlightening. Where is it, exactly? You will have to pull back to find out how far it is from the Cumberland Gap. And you can do a lot of zooming in and out before you get a very good picture in your mind of the geography of Franklin County, Virginia. Because the more detail gained of the local area the more information lost about the bigger picture of the surrounding area. And if you zoom out to get an idea of the bigger picture you lose knowledge of finer detail. This is a (nearly) inescapable fact that anyone knows who has ever used a map but because it's such a common experience nobody ever really thinks about it. But what if this everyday experience was an instance of a fundamental law that applies to the whole universe?
Interestingly, the Heisenberg Principle doesn't only invoke the subject of the observation, light, but it requires an observer. The observer's decision to make the observation is essential to the experiment. Without that decision the experiment, and therefore the action would not take place. Now if you think of your life and life itself as a constant experiment, with every move made being a step into the unknown, then what is the significance of 'deciding'? According to quantum theory the decision itself has to be factored into any analysis of real physical events. The decision is what made the event take place.
Does this arcane principle of quantum physics have an equivalent in everyday life? Obviously, our entire panoply of technological civilization consisting of cars, ships computers, roads could hardly exist without first taking shape as templates in the human mind. Now that these material objects do exist, they are subject to our purposes and could do nothing otherwise. They are agents of our will. A car does not become a car until someone gets in the driver's seat and drives.
Conventional scientific materialism, it should be noted, also requires an actor as well as an acted upon. But it isn't noted, neither is it ever asked what exactly is being acted upon. Is it because language deals so well with nouns that we have this penchant for naming things? Does this facility lead us astray as some philosophers theorize? t, inserts a key in the ignition, and drives off. Isn't this a lot like the way our physical bodies, those internal chemical factories, work? This idea is anathema to modern science. It implies that teleological forces are at work, and that just can't be, can it?