I'm not claiming with absolute certainty that his claim is wrong, I just find it to be... mysterious. Would you say he's right though? Would you say that physics is more about what we experience rather than what things really are? He himself said something that goes against this when he said something about everything just being fluctuating quantum fields or something.
The arguments are there, and he made them better than I could.
I don't have a deep understanding of physics, just a cursory one. I would say yes, I agree with him.
Since you said you just skimmed, let me badly summarize:
The argument made is basically that things that don't exist on some minute scale, like mass (yes, mass doesn't exist), have an affect on things that do exist: ie an object will kill you even though its mass is an illusion. The point, essentially, being that the existence of a phenomenon on one scale, and its non-existence on another scale, does not make for a bulletproof argument. What are we really saying when we say its 'not real', when you can take literally any idea or concept and make it 'not real' in a specific enough circumstance?
(another quick example. No such thing as a circle, or a line. Just points drawing infinitely close together. Their shape arises by taking in the whole, and we can use the whole for meaningful purposes even though 'they don't exist'. We could go all day. Language a series of incomprehensible finite sounds. Music, a series of individual notes. The whole is not always equal to the sum of its parts.)
This is really kind of a God of the gaps argument, in the sense that because macroscale phenomena haven't been completely mapped out or aren't reducible to quantum mechanics for various reasons, that this allows things such as free will, which necessitate an ontological feature peculiar to humans (and perhaps other higher animals; you would never call a bacteria free, since everything it does can be pretty much explained by the machinations of molecular machinery) to exist. I don't understand your point about circles lines etc. These are mathematical concepts. There are no circles in R1.
Really whacky phenomenon do arise in quantum physics.
A human physically observing the double slit experiment, either directly or remotely without any interference whatsoever, physically changes the outcome. Not by interference, not by vibrations, or absorption, or throwing off the experiment in any measurable or discernible way. It simply is changed by the act of observation.
Billions of dollars are being spent on quantum computer research, and a huge part of that money is spent by keeping the weird super-imposed state of existence shielded from observance. IMO, its basically magic, and I've not heard an explanation that I can offer to you as to why.
But what makes the DSE so interesting is its simplicity and replicability. Why does looking at something stop it from existing? We don't know, AFAIK.
Is physics more about what we experience than what is? Yes. From my reading, there is not conflict in his statements throughout, its very consistent.
Does that mean he's right? Not at all, but it does make for a compelling argument.
From wikipedia:
In the basic version of this experiment, a coherent light source, such as a laser beam, illuminates a plate pierced by two parallel slits, and the light passing through the slits is observed on a screen behind the plate.[2][3] The wave nature of light causes the light waves passing through the two slits to interfere, producing bright and dark bands on the screen — a result that would not be expected if light consisted of classical particles.[2][4] However, the light is always found to be absorbed at the screen at discrete points, as individual particles (not waves), the interference pattern appearing via the varying density of these particle hits on the screen.[5] Furthermore, versions of the experiment that include detectors at the slits find that each detected photon passes through one slit (as would a classical particle), and not through both slits (as would a wave).[6][7][8][9][10] However, such experiments demonstrate that particles do not form the interference pattern if one detects which slit they pass through. These results demonstrate the principle of wave–particle duality.[11][12]
The experiment shows particle/wave duality, the probabilistic nature of nature, and that how we measure things can affect things. It's not about specific human consciousness observing the experiment changing the outcome.
In that case, there's no point going further with this one either, much to my chagrin 
.
What other evidence?
Lots in this thread, for one, that you haven't addressed but outright dismiss. You can't claim there isn't evidence, however you can rebuke. Objectively, there is plenty of evidence.
Feel free to point out a specific one. Let's take one example.
If you follow the chain that sometimes we discard experiences because of science, but science is ultimately justified by experience only, things start getting very very murky. I do not think one can automatically assume that the same deduction principles continue to hold - they have to be justified anew if applied to the mind. Especially because the mind is self-referencing, but several principles are known to break when applied to self-referencing systems. If psychologists would test the foundations of their own field with the same level of rigor they apply to, say, religious experiences, they'd be in for a bad surprise.
The argument is basically that (human) minds specifically are ontologically different because they are "self-referencing". It's another God of the gaps. To take examples from evolution again, this is the same thing that happens when some religious people accept that everything else in nature evolved "naturally", but that a scriptural God had a hand in designing humans. How else could our specialness be explained? Would you, or any other, have difficulty accepting that a worm doesn't have free will?
Would you say that a single protein flexing and vibrating, probing different conformations according to the thermodynamic potential is free?
Would I? No. But by that logic, medicines don't have potentiating affects (they do).
Wut.
If not, then how could an ensemble of such molecules become free?
In the same way that a multicellular organism exists as an accumulation of interconnected single cells. Complex phenomenons emerge from systems that you can't see if you look too closely.
Just because you can't see it or measure it at one level, doesn't mean its not there at another.
But this is just another God of the gaps. We are talking about a fundamental difference between humans and ALL other forms of matter here. Free will necessitates some kind of divine aspect, a soul, for how else could you explain that your molecules have agency while the molecules of everything else does not?
Ignorance doesn't a good argument make.
Right now, the jury is out. You could still find yourself on the flat earth side of the debate. Your certainty that you are correct doesn't make it so.
No hard feelings either way, Tleilaxu. I don't have much of a personal investment in this, in that my identity isn't tied closely to the results. I'm probably more on your side as it were, but I probably see more shades of grey.
The jury is still out because people have trouble accepting ideas that go against all their preconceptions. Again, the idea of evolution was and is still is a very sensitive topic, even though every biologist in the world assumes it to be 100% fact. The jury is still out, but will I find myself on the flat earth side? No.
That being said, if you could find strong evidence of the existence of a soul, I'd be open to change my stance.
TL, you express the seeds of your view's destruction - the fact you care that some don't "see the fact of the matter" proves you could be wrong - otherwise, it doesn't matter who accepts and who doesn't if we're simply complex machines with no soul. There is more to human reality than the complex assembly of quantum physics, for which if there wasn't, than the point of any of it would simply be to reduce human suffering - achievement, greatness, discovery, empowerment would all be for naught including the intellectuals' dismay at the more pedestrian minded. Other than the avoidance of pain ( quite the powerful evolutionary program ), nothing else matters given your view. Doesn't even matter if humanity suffers extinction since we're all just complex programming. So why does it matter so much to you if you know it's simply a "trick" of evolution making you think it should? You're "awareness" should dull your dismay.
That's actually a problem I have with this book. Every time the Argument is being talked about, the characters become furiously aggressive and respond with stuff like "b-but if nothing's real why does anything fucking matter, fuck you dude!".
Think, why should your programming cease to be because you realize you are programmed thus?
Tleilaxu, I am surprised by your questioning me as to why I think anything, since your deterministic stance should inform you that no one knows why one does anything. Correct?
Wat
Now that's terse!
You crashed my program.
Recent Posts