Objective reality does not exist
From this article at MIT Technology Review:
“Massimiliano Proietti at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and a few colleagues say they have performed this experiment for the first time: they have created different realities and compared them. Their conclusion is that Wigner was correct—these realities can be made irreconcilable so that it is impossible to agree on objective facts about an experiment. .[…] ‘This calls into question the objective status of the facts established by the two observers,’ say Proietti and co.” […] Proietti and co’s result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions—the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality—must be wrong.”
Reading the article. I’ve never had this intuition before, and its not based on anything I’d call reason, but it seems inevitable to me that at some point when you drill down far enough into the subatomic / quantum world, that what can reasonably be called a reality would break down. Maybe it that you need enough complexity in any given physical world, or enough interacting components, for an objective reality to emerge?
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Reading the article, this happened: I’ve actually never had this intuition before, and its not based on anything I’d call reason, but as I sit here drinking whisky right now, it seems INEVITABLE to me that, at some point when you drill down far enough into the subatomic / quantum world, that what can reasonably be called a reality would break down. Maybe it is that you need enough complexity in any given physical world, or enough different interacting components, for an objective reality to emerge? Maybe the neural correlates of consciousness (whatever they may turn out to be, exactly)… Read more »
The results of the experiment also indicate to me that we can and do have different interpretations of empirical data. But that doesn’t necessitate that every interpretation is of equal value. Even supposing that we cannot fully know an objective reality, which is different than saying there is no objective reality, we must nevertheless decide intersub/objectively what is good and what makes progress toward that good. This will indeed include necessary value judgments based on those decisions to act accordingly. In that context it also behooves us to redefine subjective and objective reality. The presupposition of the experiment assumes that… Read more »
As I made the case in the power law religion thread, just assuming an axiom is correct (real) a priori and then logically inferring from there is also a circular argument. Instead we must choose axioms based on empirical evidence, But even axioms so based are also open to interpretation given the above. Again, we come back to what is most useful and beneficial to society based on what we as a society decide what is so. It is that legitimization process that is hashed out over time and experiment which fits our definitions of progress and evolution. As to… Read more »