Page:Astounding Science Fiction v54n06 (1955-02).djvu/7

 your feelings influence the problem.

You know, that works fine in mechanical engineering. It works fine in chemistry, too. But when you reach the level of atomic phenomena, it breaks down. It also breaks down badly in astronomical work. The atomic level is made unmanageable by the fact that the act of observing changes the situation observed. Watching an electric motor operate doesn't disturb it; the mere act of looking at an electron sends it high-tailing somewhere else. You never see where it is—just get an idea of where it was.

On the other extreme, using Earth as an observation post, to watch the motions of the planets causes trouble. We need Earth to retain the atmosphere we use for living, but unfortunately the presence of Earth upsets the motions of the other planets we're trying to observe.

The interesting result of that is that since our logical system seems to require an "objective" view of things—the viewpoint that viewing the system has no influence on the system—it works properly only for mechanical-level things! It works just dandy in science—until you hit the atomic level that is. Stick to pendulums, gears, and masses of a few million atoms minimum and it does a fine job.

But our logic-mathematics system has never been able to handle the problem of the motions of the planets decently; it's necessary to fiddle around taking two at a time, and making a series of approximations. Since each correction causes a correction in all the other orbital calculations, it's evidently an infinite series approximation. No matter how hard you try, you won't have the right answer, and you're going to have to tty a long, long time.

Now let's consider a human problem situation. Bill Blow and his wife, we'll say, have an argument. If our friend Bill tries figuring out how his dear Alary would feel if he weren't there disturbing the situation, he may get an answer, but it won't have anything to do with the problem he's trying to solve. The "objective viewpoint" makes nonsense. Grade A, in a human problem. To understand Alary's reactions, Bill's got to understand the following factors: The fact that 1 and 2 above are not identical means that Бary thinks she will have reaction R to Bill's doing X, but actually she'll have reaction R', which is quite different.

Now, if Bill is impatient, he'll say 

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