Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 125. June 27, 2022 continued . . . .
Quantum Weirdness
Beyond Weird into the realm of Poetry
The Relativity & Quantum & Information revolutions in Science, at the beginning of the 20th century, introduced a new paradigm of Reality. It called into question many of the settled opinions of classical physics right up to the end of the 19th century. It was just as unsettling as the shift from the Ptolemaic geo-centric worldview to Gallileo’s helio-centric perspective. Now, most scientists assume that the universe has no center, and no stable boundary. Instead, it is expanding & evolving from a long-gone Singularity into an uncertain future. So, the current unstable state of the universe ranges from Random to Rigid⁴⁸ ; from Fluid to Fixed⁴⁹ ; from Entangled (whole) to Freewheeling (particular)⁵⁰, depending on how you look at it (relativity). Some even speculate that there are as many worlds as there are observers. All of which contributes to Phillip Ball’s title for his book : Beyond Weird. Perhaps, it’s a guide for the perplexed in the 21st century.
Even the notion of “facts” is questionable. “There is no fact of the matter outside the context in which that fact is inter-rogated”. For example, if our observable universe is taken as a fact, then the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Theory implies that there are infinite “factual universes”, including contradictory “truths”. “What we take to be common-sense logic and criteria for truth are in fact only criteria that (usually) emerge at the everyday scale”. Hence, “we can’t any longer talk about a ‘reality’”. And that calls into question all claims of Realism. So Ball quotes a “mischievous” statement by theoretical physicist John Bell : “Suppose that when formulation ‘for all practical purposes’ is attempted, we find an immovable finger obstinately pointing outside the subject, to the mind of the observer, to the Hindu scriptures, to God, or even only gravitation? Would that not be very interesting?”
One implication of this surreal reality is that it may “demand an almost poetic level of expression”. Which is why the Enformationism thesis does not shy away from using ancient philosophical & religious metaphors & analogies in its attempts to formulate a practical truth. For example Einstein described space-time metaphorically as the “fabric” of the universe. And physicist John A. Wheeler interpreted the Observer problem of Quantum Theory to imply that we live in a “participatory realism” where conscious minds are free to create their own mental models of reality. And others have speculated that the only true Reality exists in the Mind of the ultimate Observer, known to most people as G*D. Fortunately, in spite of the apparent weirdness of the world, Relativity & Acausality & Observer Causality imply that the questions determine the answer. Hence, we are free to ask anything, but Nature, like a genii-in-a-bottle, is constrained to answer lawfully.
49. Flowing Time vs Block Time : “It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)
50. Whole vs Part : “Entanglement is often regarded as a uniquely quantum-mechanical phenomenon, but it is not. In fact, it is enlightening, though somewhat unconventional, to consider a simple non-quantum (or “classical”) version of entanglement first. This enables us to pry the subtlety of entanglement itself apart from the general oddity of quantum theory.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/entanglement-made-simple-20160428/
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