This page in one paragraph
On this page we ask: if what is seen in Dost takes shape according to where the seer stands, is there any closeness between that and the places in physics where the measurement setup determines the result? The row that stands closest is the setup determining which property will come out, set beside Dost's saying that "the same thing is seen differently according to the seer's position"; but even this is a closeness we can only describe as "greeting from a distance". In physics the one who looks can be an instrument, and it does not follow that the past is rewritten; in Dost the one who looks is the servant, and it is said «Realities do not change»; this is where they part. We did not look here at the joint truth of opposite judgments, nor at knowledge and recognition; those belong to other forms. Most of the 224 items did not match anything in physics, and the biggest question stayed open: can the difference between the choice of an instrument and the rank of a servant close, or do the two "lookings" share only the same letters?
What is this form?
We look at something and suppose we see it "as it is". In Dost's pages something else often meets us: what is seen takes shape according to where the seer stands, according to rank, according to belief. And this does not remain as simple as saying "everyone sees what they already know". The seer and the seen seem not to be strictly separable; it goes as far as "one can only see oneself of al-Haqq".
We call this form Viewpoint. The idea of seeing according to one's viewpoint exists in other traditions too; we did not test that separately, we only looked at the way it is put in Dost. In Dost it met us most often in these places: the same object looking different to different onlookers, two opposite judgments both being held true, the seer being the very thing that is seen, the veil not lifting but only changing. In our reading 224 items fell under this form. All of them are items drawn from our reading summary; we did not look at the Arabic.
In physics the sentence "the look determines what is seen" can slip at once to a frightening place: "consciousness creates reality". We do not want to go there. On this page we will walk more slowly: we will look at the places in physics where observation, or rather the measurement setup, really affects what comes out; then we will ask how close this comes to what Dost says, and how far it does not.
What does Dost say?
The first saying is from the story of the column. When Uleym al-Aswad strikes a marble column it turns into gold, and the righteous man beside him sees gold. Uleym says to him:
«Man! Realities do not change. You see it this way because of your reality before your Lord. In truth the matter is not so.» (c2k21, p. 218)
Two things are said here at once: the reality does not change, but what is seen changes. The image forms according to the onlooker's own reality; "in truth the matter is not so" is said, but what the truth is is not said either. The thing stays the same, the appearance changes according to the seer, and which of them is "true" is set aside.
The second story takes place in a mosque. The madman looks at the columns and sees them as men remembering Allah. Others see marble columns. The madman says:
«or are you blind, that you do not see these columns as men?» (c2k23, p. 264)
The same object is marble for one and a person remembering for another. The story first leaves open the question "who is blind", then settles it with a judgment. The two viewpoints say to each other "you cannot see", and the seer and the one who does not see can swap places. We can ask whether this is close to the places in physics that say "when the measurement setup is different, something different is seen"; we could not openly see that in this story.
The third saying concerns passing judgment:
«You should know that judgment about Allah comes about according to the form in which He discloses Himself in you.» (c16k222, p. 218)
The knower passes judgment on what is known in the form in which it appeared within him. So the shape of the judgment follows the vessel the self-disclosure came to. "What is known" and "how it is known" cannot be separated. This saying sounds close to the sentence "the result of a measurement depends on the setup"; but what is being spoken of here is judgment about Allah, not a laboratory.
The fourth saying is the weightiest; Dost relays it as "al-Haqq said so", and we did not look at the saying's status (hadith or unveiling):
«Whoever is to see Me can see only with Me. Whoever sees Me with his own eye has seen only himself; for I disclosed Myself to him in his own form.» (c15k172)
The seer sees his own form; but the one who appears in that form is al-Haqq (the saying says "I disclosed Myself"). This sentence says more than "everyone sees what they know": seeing is tied to a source that does not belong to the seer. Here al-Haqq's place between the seer and the seen should not be read as the place of an observer or an instrument; al-Haqq and the servant are not in the same category.
The fifth saying goes the same way:
«So the human who sees, wherever he sees, can see only himself of al-Haqq.» (c10k130, p. 266-267)
In the same place this is also said: «For it is not possible for the One to be seen in absolute oneness» (c10k130, p. 266-267). That is, seeing asks for reciprocity, and the servant can see of al-Haqq only what his own capacity shows.
The sixth saying is from the dream comparison:
«the forms in the dream too are states of the seer, they are nothing other than him» (c8k117, p. 334)
The things we see in a dream stand before us like beings outside, yet they are the seer's states. The text likens the forms of the world to this dream condition. What to note: it is said that what stands outside is in fact from within the seer; but "the world does not exist" is not said, "everything other than al-Haqq is a veil" is said. Here we approach any link with physics with caution.
What is there in physics?
Gerlach 1922 — Silver atoms splitting in a magnetic field
Which way can an atom be turned as it passes through a magnetic field? By old physics every direction was possible; the atoms should have spread over the screen like a smear. Gerlach and Stern sent silver atoms through a non-uniform magnetic field. The expected smear did not come: two separate marks appeared on the screen, as though the atoms were splitting into just two directions. This is called quantization of direction. The real cause of this, the electron's spin, was not known at the time; it was understood a few years later. When a measurement is made, the results come out discrete, not continuous. The experimental result is firm; its first interpretation differed from today's explanation. What matters for us: two results come out along each axis; the axis of the setup determines which property is measured. [Gerlach 1922]
Englert 1996 — The limit between path information and interference
In a double-slit experiment a particle can pass by both paths, and an interference pattern of light and dark lines appears on the screen. The question is: what happens to the pattern if we try to learn which path it took? Englert described this with an inequality. How sharp the lines are and how much "which path" information can be obtained can together reach at most a certain limit. The clearer the pattern, the less path information; as path information grows, the pattern fades. This turns the "wave-particle duality", once stated in words, into a measurable relation. A notable side: the derivation does not rest on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This is a theoretical result; the question "what is this an expression of" stays open as a matter of interpretation. [Englert 1996]
Kim 2000 — The delayed-choice quantum eraser
A particle of light passing through two slits forms an interference pattern; if we try to find out which slit it went through, the pattern is lost. The question was: what if this information is erased afterwards, even after the photon has hit the screen? The team used entangled photon pairs. One is recorded on the screen, its twin later reaches a splitter and there either gives away or erases the path information. When the records were later brought together, the photons matching twins whose path information was erased showed an interference pattern among themselves, and those whose information was revealed did not. The important point: looking at all photons together there is no pattern; the pattern emerges only when they are sorted according to the twin's result. So the experiment does not change the past; saying so is a common misunderstanding. The experimental result is firm; "influence on the past" is an interpretation. [Kim 2000]
Jacques 2007 — Wheeler's delayed choice, with single photons
In a setup that a photon enters by two paths, it can appear both as a wave (by both paths together, interference) and as a particle (which path it took is definite). Which one we will see depends on the choice of setup. Wheeler had asked: "what if the choice is made after the photon has entered the setup?" Jacques and colleagues carried this out with single photons. The choice of an open or closed setup was made with a random number generator, at a moment so far removed from the photon's entry that it could not be communicated at the speed of light. The result agreed with the theory's prediction: even a late choice determined the outcome. The arresting side is that the photon appears not to have decided "what it is" before entry. What this means changes from interpretation to interpretation, and no one has to say "we changed the past". [Jacques 2007]
Ma 2016 — A review of delayed-choice experiments
When light or a particle enters a device through which it passes by one of two paths, whether it will behave like a wave or like a particle depends on what is measured at the end of the device. This review article tells the history of the "delayed choice" idea and collects the forms of the idea realised in the laboratory, such as having the choice made by a fast random number generator. The finding: the results come out as the theory predicts, and whether interference appears or not agrees with the last choice. What stops one is that this can be read as "changing the past". The article objects to this reading: the experimental result is firm, but "influencing the past" is an interpretation and the ordinary theory has no need of it. [Ma 2016]
Joos and Zeh 1985 — A body in conversation with its environment becomes classical
If the smallest things can carry two states at once according to quantum theory, why does a speck of dust on a table, or a cat, never look like that? Joos and Zeh calculated that a body unavoidably "converses" with its surroundings, that is, with light, air, temperature. Every photon or molecule that comes from the environment and strikes the body carries away a trace of where the body is. For this reason the interference between the body's states of being "here and there together" becomes invisible in a very short time. This is called decoherence: the state in which two possibilities enter the account together disperses into the environment and is lost. This is a theoretical calculation and has later been supported by experiments. But this calculation does not by itself explain why a single outcome is realised; that is still a debate among interpretations. [Joos 1985]
Zurek 2003 — The environment makes a selection
Quantum theory describes the world of atoms; yet the tables and cats around us appear in "either this or that" states, not both at once. How does this transition happen? Zurek collects works arguing that it comes largely from interaction with the environment. The environment constantly "watches" the system; because of this the fine coherence of the states in which possibilities enter the account together is broken. A few stable states that the environment does not disturb remain, and they look like the states we see in the classical world. Zurek calls this "einselection" (the selection made by the environment). The real debate is whether this explains why a single result comes out in a measurement. [Zurek 2003]
Schlosshauer 2005 — What decoherence solves, what it does not
According to quantum theory a system, before being measured, can be in a state in which several possibilities enter the account together. But when we measure we always see a single result; this discrepancy is called the measurement problem. Schlosshauer's article is an assessment of the phenomenon called decoherence and how much it helps with this problem. A small system unavoidably interacts with its environment and interference is erased very quickly. This is a matter of experiment and calculation, and it is well understood. The article also asks whether this explains the "single result" question and examines the main interpretive approaches (Copenhagen, many worlds, hidden variables and others) one by one in this frame. Where it arrives: decoherence explains why the results look classical, but does not by itself close the question "why only one"; that part depends on interpretation. [Schlosshauer 2005]
Rovelli 1996 — Relational quantum mechanics (an interpretive proposal)
Rovelli asks: does quantum theory describe a system's state "on its own", or a system's relation to another system? His proposal: the properties of a thing exist not absolutely but relative to another system that observes it or interacts with it. For the same event two different observers, both in keeping with the rules, may say different things. The author argues that the strange sides of quantum theory follow naturally from this idea of "being relative to a viewpoint". This is not an experiment but a proposal about the interpretation of the theory, and it is as disputed as the other interpretations; no experiment has decided between one and another. The appealing and unsettling side of the approach is that it puts the sentence "it is so according to this" in place of the sentence "the world is like this". [Rovelli 1996]
Fuchs 2014 — QBism (a defence of an interpretation)
In quantum mechanics, is a "wave function", or quantum state, directly a state of the world, or an expression of the knowledge and expectation of the person who uses it? The interpretation called QBism says the latter: a quantum state is an agent's (observer's) personal belief about probabilities, and a measurement is that agent's gaining of experience. In the article Fuchs introduces this interpretation and shows an application: he explains why the idea of "quantum nonlocality", a mysterious link between two distant measurements, is not a problem in this interpretation. This is a defence of an interpretation, not an experimental result. The other interpretations give the same predictions with the same mathematics, and QBism's claims are disputed. What stops one is taking seriously the question of where the line between "reality" and "knowledge" runs in quantum theory. [Fuchs 2014]
Looking side by side
Dost's "the same thing is seen differently according to the seer's position" and physics' "the setup determines which property will come out": they greet each other from a distance. What they share is this: on both sides the result cannot be thought apart from how we look. In Dost the column looks different according to the onlooker's reality (c2k21); in physics, whichever axis the spin is measured on, one of that axis's two results comes out [Gerlach 1922]; if path information is taken the interference is erased [Englert 1996], and even if the choice is made late the result agrees with the setup's choice [Kim 2000; Jacques 2007; Ma 2016]. Where they part is large: in physics the "one who looks" is an instrument, and it need not be a conscious person; and it does not follow that the past is rewritten. In Dost the one who looks is the servant, and what is seen is related to his rank. Where could a seer notice a difference? For the column in Dost it is said «Realities do not change», that is, the look does not change the reality; in physics, though, the result of the measurement depends on the setup. For this reason we pull the likeness back a step. The open question: can the difference between the choice of the instrument and the rank of the servant close, or do these two words "looking" share only the same letters?
Opposite judgments being held true together and complementarity: we did not look at this door on this page. Dost's holding both "they are He" and "they are not He" true (c16k211) is the work of the Both-and form; complementarity, sought as its physics counterpart, was dealt with there. We do not repeat it here and leave it to the Both-and page.
The seer, the seen and the owner of seeing, and the measurement problem: they greet each other from a distance. What they share is this: in both, the assumption "I can strictly separate the one who looks from the one looked at" is shaken. In physics, because the measuring instrument is also a quantum system, where to cut the chain stays unclear. In Dost the distinction between seer and seen dissolves: «al-Haqq is the seen in every being, the seer in every existent.» (c17k224). Where they part: in Dost the place where this saying is spoken is al-Haqq's self-disclosure and the servant's relation; in physics the instrument and the observer cannot be placed in the same category as al-Haqq. The risk of forcing is high. Where could a seer notice a difference? Perhaps by looking at the relational interpretation [Rovelli 1996] and QBism, the nearest counterparts in physics to "seeing oneself"; in both, the state is not absolute but according to a viewpoint. But these are interpretive proposals, not experiments [Fuchs 2014]. The open question: is there a link between Dost's idea of the "owner of seeing" and these interpretations' idea of "viewpoint", or are we just being caught by words?
Veil, concealment, manifestation and decoherence: they greet each other from a distance. What they share is this: in one a veil covers what is not seen, in the other the environment covers interference. Decoherence is the trace of possibilities standing together being quickly erased when a system interacts with its environment [Joos 1985; Zurek 2003; Schlosshauer 2005]. This does not require the observer to be conscious. Where they part: decoherence hides only interference; in Dost the veil can be both a protection and self-disclosure itself (the veil not lifting but only changing, c15k193). Where could a seer notice a difference? Perhaps in the form "the cover does not destroy a thing, it only makes it inaccessible". The open question: is there a closeness between Dost's saying "the cover is a passing from one veil to another" and the trace of information the environment gives in physics, or is the veil here a different kind of thing?
Knowledge and recognition; the recognition of al-Haqq according to forms: we did not look at this door on this page. These themes belong to the Knowledge form; they were worked there.
Imagination and dream, the relation of act and worship, limit and time, direction and nearness: we did not look at these doors. These either do not exist as categories in physics or are the subject of another form. This too is a result: most of the 224 items in Viewpoint did not match anything in physics, and only a part gave rise to a question.
Questions we are left with
- Can the difference between Dost's "the look determines what is seen" and physics' "the setup determines which property will be seen" (the one who looks: the servant; the setup: the instrument) close, or are two separate things being said?
- In physics the "observer" need not be conscious; why, in Dost, is the seer's rank so important? Is this a sign that the two sides use the same word in different places?
- That only one theme out of 224 items could be set beside physics, does it show that Viewpoint's weight in Dost is not proportional to its weight in physics?
- While the relational interpretation and QBism say "it is so according to this", to which of these interpretations, or to neither, does Dost's sentence "whoever sees al-Haqq sees himself" come closer?
- Is there a similarity in form between decoherence's picture "only some states survive" and Dost's picture "the veil changes, it does not lift", or do only the images resemble each other?
What did we not do?
We did not compare Dost's words with the Arabic original; what we read is the site's Turkish section summary. Nor did we read the physics sources from beginning to end like an expert; we wrote the summaries in our own words.
We do not declare one the counterpart of the other; nor do we say that one confirms the other. What we do here is to set side by side the places on the two sides that are found incomprehensible and say "what if?". We do not understand Dost; and we do not give up trying to understand.