At least, that’s what we can assume from a failed effort to disprove physicist Eugene Wigner’s thought experiment
According
to prominent science writer John Horgan, a “radical quantum hypothesis” is
creating doubt about objective reality:
While
quantum physics has been validated by innumerable experiments as well as
computer chips, it "defies common sense," according to the author of
Mind-Body Problems. It does this by casting doubt on what "the facts"
are.
In 1961,
physicist Eugene Wigner proposed a thought experiment, similar to the more famous
Schrödinger’s Cat dilemma:
Imagine a
friend of Wigner inside a laboratory, monitoring a radioactive specimen,
instead of the famed cat in a box. A detector illuminates when the specimen
decays.
Assume
Wigner is now outside the lab. If the detector flashes, Wigner's companion
knows the specimen has decomposed. Standing outside the lab, though, Wigner
sees the specimen, his companion, and the entire lab as a haze of conceivable
states. Wigner and his companion appear to be in two different worlds.
Physicists
conducted a variation of Wigner's thought experiment in 2020 and found that his
intuitions were right. Physicist George Musser claims that the experiment
throws objectivity into doubt in a storey for Science titled "Quantum
paradox hints to fragile basis of reality." "It could indicate there
is no such thing as an absolute fact," Musser argues, "one that is
equally true for me and you."
In 2020,
researchers tested a variation of Wigner's thought experiment and discovered
that his intuitions were correct. They were disturbed by this truth.
Physics
reporter George Musser, author of Spooky Action at a Distance (2016), was quite
emphatic about the implications:
Now,
researchers in Australia and Taiwan have provided the clearest evidence yet
that Wigner's paradox exists. In a paper published this week in Nature Physics,
scientists turn the thought experiment into a mathematical theorem that proves
the scenario's irreconcilable contradiction. The team also conducts an
experiment to test the thesis, using photons as proxies for humans. While
Wigner argued that resolving the conundrum would need quantum mechanics
breaking down for huge systems like human observers, some of the authors of the
new study believe that something just as fundamental is on the verge of
breaking down: objectivity. It could imply that there is no such thing as an
absolute truth, one that holds true for both you and me.
“It’s a
bit disconcerting,” says co-author Nora Tischler of Griffith University. “A
measurement outcome is what science is based on. If somehow that’s not
absolute, it’s hard to imagine.”
The
entangled photons showed an “irreconcilable mismatch between the friends and
the Wigners.” Musser thinks that one of four basic assumptions in physics has
to give:
Superdeterminism,
according to a small number of physicists, could be to fault. Some perceive
locality as a flaw, but its failure would be catastrophic: Even over enormous
distances, one observer's actions would affect the results of another, a
stronger sort of nonlocality than that considered by quantum theorists. As a
result, some are doubting the assumption that observers may empirically pool
their measurements. According to research co-author and Griffith physicist
Howard Wiseman, "it could be that there are facts for one observer and
facts for another; they don't have to mesh." It's a radical relativism
that many people find perplexing. "What everyone sees is deemed objective,
regardless of what anyone else observes," Olimpia Lombardi, a philosopher
of physics at the University of Buenos Aires, explains.
Horgan
links the paradox to a newer approach to quantum mechanics:
QBism
(pronounced "Cubism," like the art movement) is a newer
interpretation of quantum physics that makes subjective experience the base of
knowledge and reality itself. A famous theorist, David Mermin, claims that
QBism can clear up the "confusion at the foundations of quantum
physics." All you have to do is acknowledge that "individual personal
experience" is the foundation of all knowledge.
References:
- “DOESQUANTUM MECHANICS REVEAL THAT LIFE IS BUT A DREAM?” AT SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (FEBRUARY 2, 2022)
- “QUANTUM PARADOX POINTS TO SHAKY FOUNDATIONS OF REALITY” AT SCIENCE (AUGUST 17, 2020) doi: 10.1126/science.abe3693
- Mermin, N. Physics: QBism puts the scientist back into science. Nature 507, 421–423 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/507421a
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