idealism + quantum interpretations
our reality and how it can be participatory ~
I’ve been reading and thinking about how quantum mechanics could influence how we think about our reality, and it’s so insane to me that our entire idea of reality could be changed by these random quantum phenomena.
Starting with the philosophical lenses we can choose to see reality through: one is idealism, where ideas are the only things that are real, rather than materials. An example of this thinking is Plato’s forms, where he’s like- real material trees change all the time so they must not be real, but the concept/idea of a tree doesn’t change, so this must be real, and the world is only a shadow of these forms.
Some branches of idealism are:
- subjective idealism: things only exist to the extent that they’re perceived by someone (are we living in a computer simulation??)
- objective idealism: things exist independent of our individual perception; there is an objective consciousness that causes the existence of objects (e.g. things exist if perceived by the consciousness of a society, not an individual)
- transcendental idealism (Kant): things exist the way they do because of our mental frameworks and the way we impose structure on the information we get from our senses- “if I remove the thinking subject, the whole material world must at once vanish because it is nothing but a phenomenal appearance in the sensibility of ourselves as a subject, and a manner or species of representation.”
Another idea for viewing reality is the idea of “it from bit,” coined by John Archibald Wheeler, who basically said that our reality is defined by our observation of it.
“It from bit symbolises the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.”
Wheeler’s “participatory universe” is one in which we contribute to reality by making measurements — just like in quantum mechanics. There’s a measurement barrier that causes things in the quantum realm to “collapse” into deterministic reality. Theoretically, we aren’t the only ones that can prompt this — it’s not like if humans didn’t exist to view the world then the world would be completely undetermined. But, it’s an interesting way to think about life.
One of my favorite ideas to talk about recently has been the idea of “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Basically, great art is made from taking something that exists already and changing it in a fundamental way or approaching it differently. In my Harvard class on entrepreneurial philosophy, we talked about the philosophy behind aesthetics and art, and how art makes you notice the world, and “aesthetics” is an experience that can be different for each of us every time we perceive something.
These two ideas come together for me with the concept that each one of us is able to perceive things a different way at any point in time, and this is how great innovations or art are made. And, this ties back to the view of a “participatory universe,” because in a way, when we view reality, we add something new to it every time. When we perceive something, we define its reality in a certain way.
And this is the way I want to live life. I want to have a fluid reality that changes and allows me to experience things and notice beauty for the first time, repeatedly.
Some of my favorite moments are when after interacting with someone, I start to view/notice things differently. For example, when my percussionist friend jams out to the percussion aspects of a song, and now I start appreciating the percussion I hadn’t noticed before in other songs. Or, after a conversation about human biases in the way we communicate ideas with the English language, that prompts me to become aware of this happening in my conversations constantly. Throughout my experiences living with different people over the past year, this is one of the things I’ve appreciated the most — a variety of interactions that give me the luxury of waking up to a new, exciting reality every day.
