Quantum Mechanical Foundations of Epistemology

Abstract

Scholars of the history and philosophy of science have asked what would decolonized science would look like. This paper develops an answer by interrogating the assumption that observations need to be recorded and communicated using the language of classical physics. Niels Bohr held this assumption even though he recognized the fact that quantum phenomena cannot be analyzed on classical lines. Classical analysis requires the objectification of whatever is being observed so that it can be objectively described. Inherent in this analysis is the intellectual creation of a transcendental verity, a view from nowhere. In contrast, knowledge systems that predate European colonialism make use of the quantum nature of nature without constructing an objective model of it. This paper concludes that uncolonized knowledge systems differ from classical ones in that they are epistemically plural, accepting multiple true observations of the same phenomenon.