Is Reality A Game Of Quantum Mirrors? A New Theory Suggests It Might Be

 

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Consider sitting down and picking up your favourite book. As you flip through the pages, you glance at the image on the front cover, run your fingertips across the smooth book sleeve, and smell that familiar book smell. The book has a variety of sensory appearances to you.

However, you expect the book to have its own existence beneath those appearances. So you expect the book to look, feel, and smell the same when you put it down on the coffee table and walk into the kitchen or leave your house to go to work as it did when you were holding it.

Expecting objects to have their own independent life – separate from us and other objects – is a deeply held assumption about the world. This assumption dates back to the 17th century scientific revolution and is part of what is known as the mechanistic worldview. The world, according to this viewpoint, is a massive clockwork machine whose pieces are subject to predetermined laws of motion.

Since the 17th century, this worldview has been responsible for most of our scientific progress. Quantum theory – the physical theory that describes the cosmos at the tiniest scales – very likely exposes this worldview to be wrong, as Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli argues in his new book Helgoland. Rovelli proposes that we embrace a "relational" vision instead.

What does it mean to be relational?

During the scientific revolution, Isaac Newton, an English physicist, and Gottfried Leibniz, a German physicist, clashed on the nature of space and time.

Newton stated that space and time served as a "container" for the universe's contents. That is, if we were to eliminate all of the universe's contents - all of the planets, stars, and galaxies – we'd be left with nothing but empty space and time. The "absolute" conception of space and time is this.

On the other hand, Leibniz believed that space and time were nothing more than the sum of all the distances and durations between all the world's objects and events. We would lose space and time if we erased the contents of the universe. This is the "relational" perspective on space and time: they are nothing more than the spatial and temporal relationships between things and occurrences. When developing general relativity, Einstein was inspired by the relational view of space and time.

Rovelli employs this concept to comprehend quantum mechanics. He contends that quantum things like photons, electrons, and other fundamental particles are nothing more than the attributes they display when interacting with – and in relation to – other items.

The position, momentum, and energy of a quantum item are among the attributes that can be ascertained through experiment. They make up the state of a thing when put together.

These attributes are all there is to the object, according to Rovelli's relational interpretation: there is no underlying individual entity that "possess" the properties.

So how does this help us understand quantum theory?

Consider Schrödinger's cat, a well-known quantum problem. We place a cat in a box with a lethal agent (such as a vial of poison gas) that is triggered by a quantum process (such as the decay of a radioactive atom), then close the lid.

The quantum process is a random occurrence. We can't forecast it, but we can characterize it in terms of the varied chances of the atom decaying or not in a given amount of time. Because the decay will force the vial of poison gas to open, resulting in the cat's death, the cat's life or death is likewise a wholly random event.

The cat is neither dead nor alive, according to traditional quantum theory, until we open the box and see the system. The question of what it would be like for the cat to be neither dead nor living remains unanswered.

The state of every system, however, is always in connection to another system, according to the relational interpretation. As a result, the quantum process in the box may have an indefinite consequence for us, but a definite outcome for the cat.

As a result, it's totally logical for the cat to be neither dead nor living for us while also being dead or alive. One truth is true for us, while another truth is true for the cat. The state of the cat becomes defined for us when we open the box, but the cat was never in an uncertain state for itself.

There is no universal, "God's eye" vision of reality in the relational interpretation.

What does this tell us about reality?

Because our environment is fundamentally quantum, Rovelli contends that we should pay attention to these lessons. Items like your favourite book, for example, may only have attributes in connection to other objects, including you.

Thankfully, all other objects, such as your coffee table, are included. As a result, when you go to work, your favourite book appears exactly as it did when you were holding it. Nonetheless, this is a significant reassessment of reality's nature.

According to this viewpoint, the world is a complex web of interconnections in which objects no longer have their own separate existence from other objects — similar to a never-ending game of quantum mirrors. Furthermore, there may be no separate "metaphysical" substance that makes up our reality and resides beneath this web.

As Rovelli puts it:

We are nothing more than a collection of images. Reality, including ourselves, is nothing more than a thin, perilous barrier, beyond which... nothing exists.

Originally Published Here.