There's No Objective Reality

[sun rise]

Apparently physics and mystics agree - there is no 'objective reality' or some other root assumption upon which physics is based such as locality is not true. Or maybe we don't have freedom of choice.

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities.
...
And today, 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.
...
But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality.

If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold.

But 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.

 

[Secret Chief]

Can I be the first to say I was already of this opinion?

 

[Viker]

Agreed.

 

[Nimos]

Apparently physics and mystics agree - there is no 'objective reality' or some other root assumption upon which physics is based such as locality is not true. Or maybe we don't have freedom of choice.

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities.
...
And today, 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.
...
But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality.

If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold.

But 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.

Not sure I really understand that or what they mean, does it only apply to quantum mechanics?

Lets say there is an apple on the table then what these people are saying is, that the objective reality of the apple being on the table is not really the case, for some people the apple is a banana?

 

[Wandering Monk]

Apparently physics and mystics agree - there is no 'objective reality' or some other root assumption upon which physics is based such as locality is not true. Or maybe we don't have freedom of choice.

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities.
...
And today, 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.
...
But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality.

If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold.

But 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.

How could there have been scientific progress if there is no agreement about reality?

 

[F1fan]

Not sure I really understand that or what they mean, does it only apply to quantum mechanics?

Lets say there is an apple on the table then what these people are saying is, that the objective reality of the apple being on the table is not really the case, for some people the apple is a banana?

Right. The OP might refer to some dilemma at a certain level and understanding of how things are, but our subjective experiences still are taken seriously, and have predictable cause and effect qualities.

Theists often argue against objective reality but this is usually a way to attack the accuracy and precision of science, and give them some gaps the squeeze in their version of God. What they don't realize is this attack on objectivity hurts their claims that much more. If we cannot know anything, then their claims of knowing a God exists is even farther away from being credible. Basically they just want to poke holes in the lifeboat so everyone goes down.

 

[Viker]

Not sure I really understand that or what they mean, does it only apply to quantum mechanics?

Lets say there is an apple on the table then what these people are saying is, that the objective reality of the apple being on the table is not really the case, for some people the apple is a banana?

It's more like, is the table on the apple?

 

[Valjean]

Not sure I really understand that or what they mean, does it only apply to quantum mechanics?

Lets say there is an apple on the table then what these people are saying is, that the objective reality of the apple being on the table is not really the case, for some people the apple is a banana?

For some both the apple, banana and tables are just dreams; "real" only as a dream.

There are levels of reality; a hierarchy. When discussing metaphysics, we need to specify which reality we're referring to, or confusion and contradiction will result.

According to the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta, there exists only a single, unitary consciousness, dreaming the universe. This, though, has always been a personal revelation; unevidenced, hence, outside the purview of science and apologetics.
Now, physics is catching up. Evidence is appearing.

 

[Nimos]

Right. The OP might refer to some dilemma at a certain level and understanding of how things are, but our subjective experiences still are taken seriously, and have predictable cause and effect qualities.

Theists often argue against objective reality but this is usually a way to attack the accuracy and precision of science, and give them some gaps the squeeze in their version of God. What they don't realize is this attack on objectivity hurts their claims that much more. If we cannot know anything, then their claims of knowing a God exists is even farther away from being credible. Basically they just want to poke holes in the lifeboat so everyone goes down.

I were not aiming for anything of a religious nature here, if the experiment is valid, then its valid despite of that, also didn't get the impression from the OP that this had anything to do with God or no God.

Anyway, I am simply trying to understand what is meant with the experiment

 

[Nimos]

It's more like, is the table on the apple?

Thanks

But still not really sure what the purpose of that is? Because what you are saying might make sense if they are talking some quantum mechanic thing, but reality when talking physical objects, if the apple is on top of the table and gravity make it stay there, reality is that the apple is on the table and that it is an apple. No one would come around and say "Look the apple is holding the table" or "Look there is a banana on the table"

And that is what I don't really get, when they say that it is not an objectively reality that it would be the case.

So what would an actual example be of what they are talking about, if you know of one, maybe that would help me understand it?

 

[Nimos]

For some both the apple, banana and tables are just dreams; "real" only in dream-state.

There are levels of reality; a hierarchy. When discussing metaphysics, we need to specify which reality we're referring to, or confusion and contradiction will result.

According to the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta, there exists only a single, unitary consciousness, dreaming the universe. This, though, has always been a personal revelation; unevidenced, hence, outside the purview of science and apologetics.
Now, physics is catching up. Evidence is appearing.

That might be the case, but in that case the experiment is invalid and pointless in my opinion, because they would make a claim based on a "dream-state", whatever that is or what some people believe is true or not.

Obviously such thing wouldn't fly in any scientific circles and especially not on a serious university.

 

[Windwalker]

Theists often argue against objective reality but this is usually a way to attack the accuracy and precision of science, and give them some gaps the squeeze in their version of God.

I'm not aware of a lot of theists who argue at that level, against claims of objective reality. In fact, most think their views are right and other views are wrong. That makes them asserting there is an objective reality, it's just theirs and not the other person's. It's still the same assumption though that reality is just laying around waiting to be discovered, or told to them via divine revelation.

That's what both quantum mechanics and the mystics have been saying for ages. Even our own ideas of reality, are maya, or illusion. The typical theist does not say this. They still are stuck in this "myth of the pregiven world", the same as modern science is. Atheism for instance, claims they have objective reality through science, the same way the theist does through divine revelation. It all sees reality as something outside of themselves. The mystic does not.

What they don't realize is this attack on objectivity hurts their claims that much more.

They know not that for which they argue. Methinks they are simply hearing the words and using them in an inappropriate way, co-opting them for their own agenda. They don't actually understand the basic concepts that all of reality to us, is a mediated affair, and therefore inherently tied to subjectivity. Not many atheists understand this either, as evidenced by their constant claims of evidence supporting objective reality, which they claim to embrace.

If we cannot know anything, then their claims of knowing a God exists is even farther away from being credible. Basically they just want to poke holes in the lifeboat so everyone goes down.

Yes, if a theist claims we cannot know anything, then they have graduated to mystic. But very few of them actually would actually say that about their own beliefs. They exclude those somehow. Anyone who claims that what they believe is objective reality in the absolute sense, is under the illusion of the mind, be they theists or atheists.

 

[F1fan]

I were not aiming for anything of a religious nature here, if the experiment is valid, then its valid despite of that, also didn't get the impression from the OP that this had anything to do with God or no God.

Anyway, I am simply trying to understand what is meant with the experiment

Forgive me for being suspicious.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Jump off a building. There is no arguing the objective reality of what will happen.
Things like satellites and our entire modern age depends on there being an objective reality that doesn't change. Doesn't matter if it's America or Russia, the laws of physics are the same when it comes to space travel.

 

[Revoltingest]

Apparently physics and mystics agree - there is no 'objective reality' or some other root assumption upon which physics is based such as locality is not true. Or maybe we don't have freedom of choice.

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities.
...
And today, 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.
...
But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality.

If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold.

But 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.

Objective reality just called....it says reports of its death are bonkers.
The biggest problem it faces is human senses & interpretation.
You've seen the things those primates have come up with, &
believed....whatever reality is, they're waging war against it.

 

[Stevicus]

Thanks

But still not really sure what the purpose of that is? Because what you are saying might make sense if they are talking some quantum mechanic thing, but reality when talking physical objects, if the apple is on top of the table and gravity make it stay there, reality is that the apple is on the table and that it is an apple. No one would come around and say "Look the apple is holding the table" or "Look there is a banana on the table"

And that is what I don't really get, when they say that it is not an objectively reality that it would be the case.

So what would an actual example be of what they are talking about, if you know of one, maybe that would help me understand it?

One thing that comes to mind when looking at this example is the imperfection of human language and how it structures the way we think. In another language, the same idea might be expressed ("the apple is on the table") but using different vocabulary, sentence structure, and other variations. Someone who didn't know what an apple or a table was, they might say "the thing is on the thing."

 

[Nimos]

Forgive me for being suspicious.

No worries, I am an atheist myself, but everything doesn't have religious motives, better to wait until a claim is made in my opinion, before jumping to conclusions

 

[Nimos]

One thing that comes to mind when looking at this example is the imperfection of human language and how it structures the way we think. In another language, the same idea might be expressed ("the apple is on the table") but using different vocabulary, sentence structure, and other variations. Someone who didn't know what an apple or a table was, they might say "the thing is on the thing."

But wouldn't that be an argument for our language being flawed and therefore have nothing to do with objective reality? If a person doesn't know what an apple or table is, or chooses to call them something else, doesn't change the fact that the apple is still on the table.

Obviously those making the experiment wouldn't base their experiment on that, as there wouldn't be any to begin with. It could be concluded without any testing at all

 

[RestlessSoul]

Not sure I really understand that or what they mean, does it only apply to quantum mechanics?

Lets say there is an apple on the table then what these people are saying is, that the objective reality of the apple being on the table is not really the case, for some people the apple is a banana?

In the relational interpretation of QM, the apple, the table, you the observer, and I, the interlocutor of the observer, have properties only in relation to each other. None of the qualities any of us exhibit in relation to the other, exist independently of the web of interactions.

That's one interpretation of QM. There are others, equally weird, equally incomplete, equally pointing to the insubstantiality of all natural phenomena. In the super determinist interpretation, espoused by David Bohm, you can conduct experiments to objectively establish the existence and nature of the apple, but the results of the experiments were predetermined from soon after the Big Bang, when every particle of every atom in existence interacted and became entangled with every other particle, in accordance with the immutable laws which determine the outcome of every eventuality; including your experiments with the apple.

 

[Magical Wand]

Apparently physics and mystics agree - there is no 'objective reality' or some other root assumption upon which physics is based such as locality is not true. Or maybe we don't have freedom of choice.

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities.
...
And today, 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.
...
But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality.

If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold.

But 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.

Refutation: Philosophers On a Physics Experiment that “Suggests There’s No Such Thing As Objective Reality” | Daily Nous