Monday, April 6, 2009

Oh Quantum How Strange Thou Art

A post on the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics over at reality base.

If quantum mechanics had not come along then we would all be less justified in thinking the world was a very strange place.

2 comments:

  1. I think, no matter what the ultimate “result” is in QM, it goes back to what you have been saying Adam, in your book and elsewhere, that the “lived experience is primary….irreducible.” Yes, irreducible, even to a math equation. What was quite telling to me in reading your interview with Max Tegmark was that in the end, his day to day life was about “taking out the trash”, having breakfast with his wife, and raising his kids. Ultimately, even if he is right and the universe is reduced to a math equation, we all have to LIVE that equation and not just merely on top of it but inside of it. And we will all live out that objective equation subjectively because none of us can get behind the mind of another and “see” things as others do. This is the reason your perspective is refreshing to me and I plan to read your book, having stumbled upon it indirectly via Tricyle and my interest in Buddhism. It was just one of the many “waves of possibilities” I suppose.

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  2. I think your perspective is dead on. There is what we do in our "theorizing" about the world but it always starts from what we experience. That return should never be forgotten. We have to come back to what what we actually encounter as embodied minds with all the mess and elemental mystery that entails.

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