This page in one paragraph
Only one thing is asked here: is what we know the known itself, or our way of reaching it? In Dost, knowledge in one place veils the known, and in another place becomes subject to the state of the known; the text holds both as they are. The line that stands closest is "Two-facedness: knowledge both veils and is the state of the known", because in physics too, whether a state is information or reality can be read in two directions. The line that stands farthest is "Knowledge is subject to the known", whose directions come out opposite: in Dost the known determines knowledge, in Kochen–Specker the measurement context determines the outcome. What remains open is whether the question "information or reality", which narrows through experiment in physics, has to narrow in Dost, and that this reading rests on the Turkish summary: whether the most secret items should be tested by returning to the translation's own text.
What is this form?
Is knowing something the same as possessing that thing itself? In daily life we live as if we answer "yes". We say we know a friend, we know a city. But if we stop and look, we see that what we hold is a recognition, an impression, a calculation. Somewhere, knowledge steps in between the known and us.
In Dost's text this situation comes up again and again and from various directions. In one direction knowledge veils: what we know seems less to have reached the known than to be something stretched in front of it. In the other direction, the known determines knowledge by its own state. Both directions stand in the Futuhat (in different sections), and the text does not choose one and leave the other. We call this form "Knowledge". We can draw its boundary in one sentence: the distance between knowing and the known is not closed by knowledge.
In physics a similar question is asked in a very concrete place. In quantum theory there is something called the "state" of a system. Is this state a real condition of the world, or a summary of what we know about that system? Physicists did not leave this as a dispute of interpretation; they carried it into mathematical theorems and laboratory experiments. Here we place these two questions side by side. We do not claim they are the same. We ask whether their forms look at each other.
What does Dost say?
All the quotations below are taken verbatim from the Turkish reading summaries on the site. The section number (c12k143) indicates volume and section; its explanation is on the introduction page.
«To know Him is not to know Him.» (c12k143, p. 57-58)
The sentence is short but opens the door at once: the end point of knowing arrives at the same place as not being able to know. This should not be read as "ignorance is beautiful". The text says there is an inability to know within knowing. What to notice is that the sentence does not move the two opposite ends ("knowing" and "not knowing") apart but unites them in the same sentence.
«Allah Most High did not create for you a veil other than yourself!» (c12k145, p. 142-143)
According to the reading summary, the greatest of the veils is ignorance and the state in which a person finds himself. That is, the obstacle is not a wall standing outside but the state of the one who looks. What to notice: the place of the veil changes. What lies between the known and the knower is not thought of apart from the knower.
«Look at the form seen by the eye in a polished body, and think well about what you have seen!» … «Consequently he has seen the cosmos only as cosmos, but in the Real; he has not seen the Real, or seen with the Real» (c11k140, p. 249)
Here there is a mirror example: what we see in the mirror is less the thing we see itself than the form given to it in the mirror. From this the text draws the conclusion that the seer is content with seeing something and does not reach the seen itself. What to notice: "I saw" and "I reached it" are separated, but seeing is not counted as nothing.
«They have appeared in existence according to their states subject to the known; the known is not subject to knowledge.» (c15k168)
The direction here turns around. The known, that is the "maluum", determines knowledge. Knowledge has to conform to the known, not the known to knowledge. What to notice: in the previous quotation knowledge veiled the known; here the known's own state shapes knowledge. The two directions are stated in separate sections; the Futuhat carries both.
«Does not my knowledge of you depend on the state you are in yourself?» (c15k168)
The reading summary says this occurs in a kind of dialogue: the answer given to the servant's objection "your knowledge compels me to be like this". The answer says that knowledge is not a force compelling the known but something that looks at the state of the known. What to notice: knowledge here stands not as a cause but as a kind of witnessing.
«Then in this matter Allah is knowledge, the knower and the known!» (c15k173)
Three things become one: knowledge, the knower and the known. The text here also says that this knowledge is a secret that cannot be grasped by reason or by witnessing in individual forms. What to notice: the triad knower–knowledge–known is thought of as separate in the theory of knowledge. Here their separation is rejected.
Taken as a whole, these quotations do not show only one thing. The first half looks to the side "knowledge veils the known", the second half to the side "knowledge is the state of the known". The text does not try to resolve this tension; it holds it as it is.
What is there in physics?
Spekkens 2007 — A toy theory
Spekkens built a model that is not quantum mechanics but behaves similarly to it. The model's single rule is this: even when we have the most information we can about a system, half of the questions that could be asked remain unanswered. That is, our knowledge itself is limited knowledge. With this single rule, many of the oddities belonging to quantum reappear in the model: the dependence of measurements on order, interference, the impossibility of copying an unknown state, teleportation and the like. The author thinks that so many similarities can be counted as support for the view that quantum states are states of incomplete knowledge, not states of the world. But there are also things the model cannot reproduce: the violation of Bell's inequality and the Kochen–Specker theorem. This is a model study, not a firm claim about nature. What stops us is how much of a quantum appearance not-knowing can give when it is structured by a particular rule. [Spekkens 2007]
Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph 2012 — Can the state be only information?
What is called the wave function gives the state of a system. The question is whether this is a description of something that really exists in the world, or a summary of our knowledge about that system. The three authors put forward a theorem: if we assume that systems have a definite state of their own independent of measurement, and that independently prepared systems carry independent states, then the wave function being merely information is incompatible with these assumptions. That is, under these assumptions the state has to be an aspect of reality. The mathematics of the theorem is exact. What is debated is whether these assumptions are reasonable. [Pusey 2012]
Harrigan and Spekkens 2010 — Einstein's objection
There are two views on the same question. If the state describes a real thing it is called "ontic", if it describes information, "epistemic". Harrigan and Spekkens read Einstein's objection to quantum theory in this framework: when Einstein says "the theory is incomplete", he comes close to the thought that the state is a description of our knowledge, not reality itself. The article defines the two views within a classification of models and sets criteria to tell them apart. This is a theoretical and conceptual study, not an experiment. What stops us is that the distinction between "knowing" and "being" enters physics this deeply. [Harrigan 2010]
Leifer 2014 — A survey of the subject
The question whether the state is real or information is old, but at the end of 2011 the theorem of Pusey and colleagues brought it new interest. Leifer's long survey first presents the background, then presents the theorem in clear language, then reviews the work done afterwards. It defines what it means for a state to be "ontic" or "epistemic" and lists the arguments for and against from before the theorem. An important point is this: showing the reality of the state means a very severe constraint on realist theories. This is a survey, not an experiment. What is certain is the mathematics of the theorems. What is debated is whether the assumptions are in place and what follows from this. [Leifer 2014]
Ringbauer and colleagues 2015 — The question comes down to the laboratory
Theoretical work had made this question testable by experiment. Ringbauer and colleagues did an experiment with photons, that is, particles of light, and looked at whether models of different "kinds of information" agree with quantum predictions. In general outline the finding is this: some strong forms of models saying that the quantum state is only information do not agree with the experiment. What is certain is the experimental data. How much the result supports which interpretation is debated, because every interpretation depends on some assumptions. What stops us is that the distinction between interpretations has come down from the philosophy desk to the laboratory. [Ringbauer 2015]
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Quantum Bayesianism (QBism)
This entry describes views that read quantum theory not as a description that directly narrates the world, but as a description of our observation, our knowledge or our interaction with the world. The idea has been said in various forms since the 1920s. The entry's focus is a more recent branch: Quantum Bayesianism, QBism for short. There a quantum state is not the world itself but a belief showing what a person making a measurement expects from the measurement. The entry also takes up the common objections to this view. This is neither an experiment nor a theory but a summary of the interpretation literature, and the debate continues. What stops us is that in this view the "measurement outcome" and "the person making the prediction" become inseparable. [SEP: Quantum-Bayesian and Pragmatist Views of Quantum Theory]
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Relational quantum mechanics
This entry is an introduction to an interpretation, not an experiment. The interpretation was put forward in 1996. Its starting point is this: the confusion in quantum theory is not resolved by adding a new equation or an inaccessible reality; it is said that the theory proposes to us a radical renewal of our framework of thought. According to the entry, the role of the "observer" in the traditional account can be played not only by large, classical bodies but by every physical system. So the value of a property is spoken of not alone but together with which system it is relative to. This is an interpretive proposal, cannot be distinguished by experiment, and is not generally accepted among physicists. The entry does not tell us that it is true, but what it says. [SEP: Relational Quantum Mechanics]
The Kochen–Specker theorem — Does measurement only read what exists?
There is an idea of a "hidden variable": even before measurement every measurable quantity has a definite value, and measurement only brings it out. The Kochen–Specker theorem shows that in systems of three or more dimensions, if you try to assign values to all quantities at once and independently of the way of measurement, you fall into contradiction with the rules of quantum theory. This is a mathematical result, not an experiment, but some aspects of it have later been tested by experiments too. The important detail is the concept of "context": the value of a quantity can depend on which other measurements are made together with it. What stops us is that the intuition "measurement only reads what exists" cannot be preserved in this form. [SEP: The Kochen-Specker Theorem]
A saying attributed to Bohr — One who is not astonished has not understood
This is not an article but a saying attributed to Niels Bohr: one who is not astonished before quantum theory has not understood it. Barad relays the saying; its exact source is uncertain and there are different forms of its telling. For this reason we cite it not as Bohr's definite word but as a saying attributed to him. The saying is neither an experiment nor a theory but an attitude voicing that even those who founded quantum physics did not understand it comfortably. Similar sentences are attributed to Feynman too. What stops us is that the founders of the field made looking at the work with astonishment a criterion. [Bohr 2007]
What does the secondary literature say?
According to the SEP entry, what Ibn Arabi calls the immutable entities are things found in Allah's knowledge: they do not exist by themselves, they are fixed only in the knowledge of the Real from eternity to eternity. The entry relays that there is no difference in quiddity between the fixed entity and the existent entity, that the latter is the same thing in its state of having come forth by the command "Be!"; for this reason it finds the translation "archetype" misleading. The entry also notes that the distinction between entity (ayn) and essence (dhat) is important, and that translating ayn as "essence" hides this distinction. This paragraph is not Dost's word; it is the account of the secondary literature. [SEP: Ibn 'Arabi]
Looking side by side
What is reached is knowledge, not the known itself — greeting each other from a distance. What is common is this: in Dost a distance enters between knowledge and the known; in the mirror example what is seen is not the seen itself. In physics it is said that through measurement we reach only results, and what the state is "in itself" remains open [Spekkens 2007; Harrigan 2010]. Where they part is important: in Dost the known is the Real and the subject is ontological, theological. In physics the question is what the state is at the level of the model. Physics tries to narrow this open question by experiment [Ringbauer 2015]; on the Dost side nothing is being narrowed. There is also a presupposition: the idea that "the state has an ontic condition in itself" stands as an assumption on the physics side too; this line does not count it as proven. One who sees could look at it from this angle: on both sides the distinction "whether what we hold is reality itself or our way of reaching it" stands at the center. The question we are left with: could a sentence of the kind «You only knew knowledge» and the sentence "we know only measurement results, not what the state is" be two answers to the same question?
Two-facedness: knowledge both veils and is the state of the known — standing close. What is common is this: both directions are in the Futuhat (veiling in c12k145, being subject to the known in c15k168; separate sections, separate subjects). In physics too the same subject is open to both an information (epistemic) and a reality (ontic) reading; the theorem of Pusey and colleagues closes only one class [Pusey 2012; Leifer 2014]. QBism reads the state as a belief [SEP: Quantum-Bayesian and Pragmatist Views of Quantum Theory], while the relational interpretation speaks of the value together with which system it is relative to [SEP: Relational Quantum Mechanics]. Where they part is distinct here: in physics the two readings are debated as each other's opposite and narrowed by experiment, in Dost both are said and one is not preferred to the other. One who sees could look at it from this angle: two directions that appear in physics as separate interpretations are carried side by side in two separate places in Dost; we do not say they are gathered into a single sentence. The question we are left with: does this separation change the question, or only the language?
To know is not to know — standing close. What is common is that neither side says "we have fully understood". In Dost the sentence is «To know Him is not to know Him.»; in physics the saying attributed to Bohr says that one who is not astonished has not understood [Bohr 2007]. Where they part: both voice an attitude, but one speaks about the structure of the known, the other about a theory's contradiction of intuition. The Bohr saying is second-hand, its exact source uncertain; we do not use it as proof. One who sees could look at it from this angle: in both places the one who knows most is the one who knows the limit best. The question we are left with: does this commonality rest only on the common ground of "saying we do not understand", or on something further?
Knowledge is subject to the known — greeting each other from a distance. The common direction: in Dost the state of the known determines knowledge; in Kochen–Specker the value of a quantity depends on which measurements it is asked together with, that is, on context [SEP: The Kochen-Specker Theorem]. Where they part: the directions are opposite. In Dost the known determines knowledge; in the theorem the measurement context determines the outcome. That is, one goes from the known to knowledge, the other from measurement to outcome. These two things may be different subjects. One who sees could look at it from this angle: on both sides there is the feeling that "the value is not given in advance, independent of the knower". We could not go beyond this surface. The question we are left with: is this resemblance of direction superficial, or the trace of a deep bond?
Bewilderment grows as knowledge grows — greeting each other from a distance. What is common is that the one with the most knowledge has the most bewilderment: in Dost «The strongest bewilderment about Allah occurs in those who know Allah» (c14k153), in physics those who know the theory best say "we do not understand". Where they part is this: this is a very general pattern; in almost every field the most knowledgeable person knows the limit best. One who sees could look at it from this angle: its being general does not make it worthless, but we do not count this form as a specific resemblance. The question we are left with: how do we tell a general pattern from a deep commonality?
Light is not seen, it enables seeing — we did not look at this door. In Dost light is that which enables seeing but cannot itself be seen. In physics light is a different subject; we did not want to carry this sentence there by force. If one who sees wants to look at this door, a new reading is needed.
Superposition = knowledge is a veil — tempting but we did not do it. We thought this pairing was only a resemblance of words and could not find a reason behind it, so we did not do it.
Knowledge is subject to the known = observer effect — tempting but we did not do it. The observer effect is mostly misread: interaction is enough, consciousness is not needed. So we did not link the two things.
Questions we are left with
- Could sentences of Dost such as «You only knew knowledge» and the sentence in physics "we know only measurement results, not what the state is" be two answers to the same question?
- The two directions that stand in separate sections in Dost (knowledge veils, knowledge is subject to the known) come out in physics as separate interpretations. Does this separation change the question, or only the language?
- In physics the question "information or reality" narrows through experiment; in Dost does this question have to narrow, or is its remaining open a property of the text?
- This side-by-side reading rests not on Dost's Arabic but on the Turkish summary. Should the most secret hundred or so items be tested by returning to the translation's own text?
What did we not do?
We did not compare Dost's text with the Arabic original; all quotations are from the site's Turkish reading summary. We do not know the exact source of the saying attributed to Bohr.
Here we do not declare the two sides identical, and we do not count anything as confirmed. Dost does not explain physics, physics does not support Dost. On both sides there is a place that does not fit in reason; we ask whether their forms resemble each other. We do not understand Dost, and we do not give up trying to understand.