Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Virtual Reality
How Close Can Physics Bring Us to a Truly Fundamental Understanding of the World?

George Musser
Scientific American magazine, Sept 2019

   Post 98. September 9, 2019

  Virtual Reality

   Scientific Ambiguity

 In his Scientific American article, science writer George Musser is talking about truth-seeking via analytical science. He begins with a common assertion of the superiority of science for revealing truths : “ Physics seems to be one of the only domains of human life where truth is clear-cut. The laws of physics describe hard reality. They are grounded in mathe-matical rigor and experimental proof. They give answers, not endless muddle.” That last remark may be aimed at wishy-washy Philosophy. But the confidence behind Musser’s introduction may be true for the 17th century physics of Isaac Newton, but doesn’t apply to 21st century Quantum Theory. Which is why this article is concerned with the uncertainty among physicists themselves. To wit, “Quantum mechanics is as well-tested a theory as can be, yet its interpretation remains inscrutable.” He then notes that “ As long as there have been physicists, there have been physicists who worry that their field has come up against an insuperable barrier.” A typical response to such roadblocks is to shrug and admit, like quantum physics pioneer Neils Bohr, “Our task is not to penetrate into the essence of things, the meaning of which we don’t know anyway.”

Delving into essences is the job of Philosophers. And Mathe-matics is about as essential as it gets. But even the math in Quantum Theory is fuzzy & statistical rather than “clear cut”. The facts in QT are often stated in soft-centered relative BothAnd terms (wavicles) instead of hard-edged absolute Either/Or terms (particles or waves). Since QT is as close as we have ever come to a “truly fundamental understanding of the world”, it must be distressing for pragmatic Physicists to be forced to join impractical Philosophers in resorting to fanciful metaphors instead of sensible definitions. Yet, as Musser admits, “For now they know of only one place where the ambiguity is resolved : in our own conscious perception.” Unlike the empirical experiments of Newtonian physics, quantum queerness can only be boiled down to “facts” in the form of opinions of subjective perception. The objective measurements of science don’t work on the quantum scale1.

Instead, “The mathematics of quantum theory jumbles  together subjective and objective elements.”  So, it doesn’t just describe the reality “out there”, it also involves some of the virtual reality “in here”. As a pragmatist philosopher con- cluded, “quantum theory is a representation not of the world but of the interface between the world and a human.” And the concept of superposition implies that it is “a theory of co-existing alternative realities”, sometimes called “parallel worlds”. Surprisingly, physicists have gotten used to such non-sense, and continue to rely on the theory for its real-world practical applications. Ironically, some religiously inclined thinkers accept the notion of layered reality as justification for their belief in a spectral plane of existence, where ghosts can hang around and bother those still bound to fleshly bodies. That is definitely not how the no-nonsense scientists interpret the evidence of their experiments. But if it’s a matter of opinion, who’s to say what’s true. So, which is it : physical reality, multiple realities, or both physical and spiritual realities?

Post 98 continued . . . click Next

1. Quantum Measurement :
“The measurement problem in quantum mechanics is the problem of how (or whether) wave function collapse occurs. The inability to observe such a collapse directly has given rise to different interpretations of quantum mechanics and poses a key set of questions that each interpretation must answer.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem

No Solid Ground?