Ravi Gomatam

Ravi Veeraraghavan Gomatam (born 1950, in Chennai, India) is the Director of Bhaktivedanta Institute (Berkeley and Mumbai) and the newly formed Institute of Semantic Information Sciences and Technology (Berkeley and Mumbai). He teaches graduate level courses at these institutes. He was an Adjunct Professor at Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan, India (1993-2015).

Ravi Gomatam
Ravi Gomatam, June, 2011
Alma materAnnamalai University
BITS Pilani
University of Mumbai
Scientific career
FieldsQuantum physics

He has been made a visiting professor for the year 2016-2017 at the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR), a Government of India body, under the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

In January 1990, he organized a conference titled First International Conference on the Study of Consciousness within Science in San Francisco.[1] Subsequently, in 1997 Gomatam conceived and launched the world's first M.S./Ph.D. programs in "consciousness studies",[2] in collaboration with the Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani (one of India's foremost technological universities). "Consciousness Studies" is a developing, inter-disciplinary scientific field, which Gomatam has particularly re-conceived as a new way of studying matter.[3]

In 2015, the Institute of Semantic Information Sciences and Technology started offering M.A. (by research) and Ph.D. programs [4] in collaboration with the Mumbai University, India.

Gomatam’s own field of research is foundations of quantum mechanics, wherein he is introducing a few new ideas, including those of "Objective, Semantic Information" and a notion of "Relational Properties" that is different from that of Rovelli and others. His new ideas have received notice for their potential.[5] He has related research interests in semantic computation, systems sciences, artificial intelligence, philosophy of science and philosophy of language.[6]

Education
  • B.E. 1972 Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Annamalai University, India
  • M.E. 1974 Electronics Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India
  • Ph.D. 1998 Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Mumbai University, India. Dissertation Title: Toward a realist interpretation of quantum theory – Integrating Bohr and Einstein.

Early work in the industry

In the 1970s Gomatam worked with India’s international airline on their software development projects. He then moved to the USA and worked as a freelance consultant for a number of Fortune-500 companies including General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Burroughs and IBM in the areas of operating system design, data communications and very-large database design.[6]

Academic career

Starting from the early 1980s, Gomatam turned to fundamental scientific research, and started contributing to the development of the Bhaktivedanta Institute (B.I.) in Mumbai and Berkeley. Along the way, based on the work he was doing at B.I., he obtained his Ph.D. in the foundations of quantum mechanics.[6]

He has been a visiting scholar at University of Pretoria, South Africa and Loyola University, New Orleans, USA.[6]

Research

Gomatam’s primary area of research is in non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM), which emerged in 1925 with Erwin Schrödinger's derivation of the "wave equation".

Gomatam is developing his own approach to macroscopic quantum mechanics (MQM, applying the wave equation to the macroscopic regime), which is distinct from the ideas of ‘macroscopic dissipative systems’[7] and ‘macroscopic quantum coherence’,[8] developed in the early 80s by Anthony James Leggett.[9] In general, Leggett's attempt is to indirectly observe superposition at the macroscopic level by extending current microscopic quantum physics to the macroscopic level.

In contrast, Gomatam is attempting to develop MQM independent of the application of the Schrödinger equation to the micro regime, in such a manner that quantum superposition can be directly observed at the macroscopic level. This involves introducing a new notion of macroscopic objects as quantum kinds, instead of classical objects.[10] In this regard, he is also developing two further new ideas within physics: the ontology of "Objective, Semantic Information" (OSI) and corresponding "Relational Properties" (RPs).

As part of developing his version of MQM, Gomatam has related interests in exotic manifolds, semantic information processing, quantum computation, and philosophy of ordinary language.[6]

Selected papers
  • Niels Bohr's Interpretation and the Copenhagen Interpretation—Are the two incompatible?" [11] Here Gomatam contrasts Bohr's Interpretation with Copenhagen Interpretation (where Bohr is a co-author).[12] This paper was a required reading in a course in Quantum Mechanics at Brown University.[13]
  • Quantum Theory and the Observation Problem.[14] Michael Turvey credits Gomatam for labeling a key problem in quantum mechanics as "observation problem" which he says were only "implicit in deliberations of Bohr, Einstein, Bell and others: to identify a quantum-compatible nonclassical conception of everyday objects, one consonant with the principle of superposition."[15] Wolfgang Prinz,[16] M.W. Stuckey[17] and Panos Pardalos[18] cite this paper for its key contribution in the field of macroscopic quantum mechanics.
  • How Do Classical and Quantum Probabilities Differ?[19]
  • Macroscopic Quantum Mechanics and System of Systems Design Approach.[20]
  • Quantum Theory, the Chinese Room Argument and the Symbol Grounding Problem.[21]
  • Quantum Realism and Haecceity.[22]
  • Popper’s Propensity Interpretation and Heisenberg’s Potentia Interpretation — A comparative assessment.[23]
  • Do Hodgson's Propositions Uniquely Characterize Free Will? Invited commentary on a target paper, "A Plain Person's View of Free Will" by David Hodgson.[24]
  • Physics and Common Sense: Relearning the Connections in the Light of Quantum Theory.[25]

Activities and societies

References
  1. "The First International Conference for the Study of Consciousness within Science". Bhaktivedanta Institute. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
  2. "Graduate Studies". Bhaktivedanta Institute. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
  3. Gomatam, Ravi (12 June 2010). "What is Consciousness Studies?". Bhaktivedanta Institute. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
  4. "Institute of Semantic Information Sciences and Technology". InSIST. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  5. "Appreciations". Bhaktivedanta Institute. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  6. "Resume" (PDF). InSIST. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
  7. Caldeira, A. O.; Anthony Leggett (1981). "Influence of Dissipation on Quantum Tunneling in Macroscopic Systems". Physical Review Letters. 46 (4): 211–214. Bibcode:1981PhRvL..46..211C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.46.211.
  8. Leggett, Anthony; Anupam Garg (1985). "Quantum mechanics versus macroscopic realism: Is the flux there when nobody looks?". Physical Review Letters. 54 (9): 857–860. Bibcode:1985PhRvL..54..857L. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.54.857. PMID 10031639.
  9. Leggett, Anthony; Iguchi, E; Oohara, Y (2002). "Testing the limits of quantum mechanics: motivation, state of play, prospects". Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. 14 (15): R415–451. Bibcode:2002JPCM...14..415N. doi:10.1088/0953-8984/14/3/311.
  10. Gomatam, Ravi (17 September 2010). "Quantum Realism and Haecceity". In Partha Ghose (ed.). Materialism and Immaterialism in India and the West: Varying Vistas. New Delhi.
  11. Gomatam, Ravi (2007). "Niels Bohr's Interpretation and the Copenhagen Interpretation -- Are the two incompatible?". Philosophy of Science. 74 (5): 736–748. doi:10.1086/525618.
  12. "Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 24 July 2014. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  13. Kutach, Douglas (2010). "Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, Spring 2010". Assignment 2. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  14. Gomatam, Ravi (1999). "Quantum Theory and the Observation Problem". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 6 (11–12): 173–90. arXiv:0708.1587. Bibcode:2007arXiv0708.1587G.
  15. Turvey, Michael T. (2015). "Quantum-Like Issues at Nature's Ecological Scale (the Scale of Organisms and Their Environments)". Mind and Matter. 13 (1). Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  16. Prinz, Wolfgang; Beisert, Miriam; Herwig, Arvid (2013). Action Science: Foundations of an Emerging Discipline. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: MIT Press. p. 160. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  17. Stuckey, W.M.; Silberstein, Michael (2000). "Uniform Spaces in the Pregeometric Modeling of Quantum Non-Separability". International Journal of Theoretical Physics. arXiv:gr-qc/0003104. Bibcode:2000gr.qc.....3104S.
  18. Pardalos, Panos M.; Yatsekno, Vitaliy A. (2008). "Optimization And Control Of Quantum-Mechanical Processes". Optimization and Control of Bilinear Systems: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications. Springer Optimization and its Applications. 11. New York: Springer. p. 208. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-73669-3. ISBN 978-0-387-73669-3.
  19. Gomatam, Ravi (2011). "How Do Classical and Quantum Probabilities Differ?". In A. Khrennikov (ed.). Foundations of Probabilities and Physics - 6. AIP Conference Proceedings. 1424. American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings. pp. 105–110. doi:10.1063/1.3688958.
  20. Gomatam, Ravi (2010). "Macroscopic Quantum Mechanics and System of Systems Design Approach". Indo-US Workshop on Systems Engineering. India.
  21. Gomatam, Ravi (2009). "Quantum Theory, the Chinese Room Argument and the Symbol Grounding Problem". In P. Bruza; et al. (eds.). Quantum Interaction-2009, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 5494. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. pp. 174–183. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-00834-4_15. ISBN 978-3-642-00833-7.
  22. Gomatam, Ravi (2010). "Quantum Realism and Haecceity". In Partha Ghose (ed.). Levels of Reality: Part 5: Materialism and Immaterialism in India and the West: Varying Vistas, HSPCIC. 12. New Delhi, India: CSC, Indian Council of Philosophical Research. ISBN 978-8187586425.
  23. Gomatam, Ravi (2010). "Popper's Propensity Interpretation and Heisenberg's Potentia Interpretation — A comparative assessment". In Pradip K. Sengupta (ed.). History Of Science And Philosophy Of Science: A Historical Perspective of The Evolution of Ideas In Science. 13. New Delhi, India: CSC, Indian Council of Philosophical Research.
  24. Gomatam, Ravi (2005). "Do Hodgson's Propositions Uniquely Characterize Free Will?". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 12 (1): 32–40.
  25. Gomatam, Ravi (2004). "Physics and Common Sense: Relearning the Connections in the Light of Quantum Theory". In Chattopadhyaya, D.P.; Sen Gupta, A.K. (eds.). Philosophical Consciousness and Scientific Knowledge: Conceptual Linkages and Civilizational Background, HSPCIC. New Delhi: CSC, Indian Council of Philosophical Research.
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