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Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks

What Kind of World is This?

Robert Crawford

Published Jan 1, 1997• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We mentioned in Chapter 1 that many people believe that science deals in facts, laws and certainties that resolve the mysteries, superstitions and fantasies of religion, but Huxley asserts that science has explained nothing. His claim is exaggerated but as we enter the quantum world and hear about imaginary time, the difficulty of predicting how the smallest units of matter behave, black holes and various views of reality we will understand his bewilderment. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

DOI
10.1057/9780230509221_5

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We mentioned in Chapter 1 that many people believe that science deals in facts, laws and certainties that resolve the mysteries, superstitions and fantasies of religion, but Huxley asserts that science has explained nothing. His claim is exaggerated but as we enter the quantum world and hear about imaginary time, the difficulty of predicting how the smallest units of matter behave, black holes and various views of reality we will understand his bewilderment. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
An outline is given of the interpretation of quantum mechanical expressions if one assumes that what is called Quantum Mechanics today, refers to an underlying reality as in Chap. 2 , even if many authors claim to have evidence to the contrary, as is usually brought forward. If there exists a sub-microscopic classical world of real things, is that the same classical world as the world of large things such as planets, rocks and people? How does the notion of probability enter into quantum mechanics? These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The conclusion of Part I, the non-technical (or somewhat less technical) part of this book, is that a completely convincing model of our universe is lacking. This should be a model that shows how quantum mechanical behaviour, with all its mysteries and paradoxes, can emerge from a local, deterministic theory. Yet we also find that one can assume its existence to arrive at a picture of our quantum mechanical universe that makes perfect sense. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Most physicists currently believe they have the basic description of the universe [though they currently admit 90% to 99% of the universe is in the form of “dark matter” of which they know nothing except it has gravitational attraction]. You should realize in all of science there are only descriptions of how things happen and nothing about why they happen. Newton gave us the formula for how gravity worked, and he made no hypotheses as to what gravity really was, nor through what medium it worked, let alone why it worked. Indeed, he did not believe in “action at a distance”.
The fundamental laws of Nature that govern the physics of atoms, elementary particles, light quanta, and everything else that is small and light, have been found to fit in one grandiose framework called Quantum Mechanics. The internal logic of this framework appears to be counter intuitive and mysterious, while extremely coherent and effective. In this general introduction the author explains why he feels the need for expressing his views on how to understand these facts, even if many known scientists have already given extensive reviews of numerous ideas and approaches. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
It has become ever more clear over the past 70 years that reality is best described by a theory that no one fully understands and which cannot be applied to most everyday phenomena. Quantum theory has been subjected to many stringent tests and all of its predictions, however strange, have always been borne out. Originally developed to account for why atoms do not collapse and why they radiate and absorb energy in discrete amounts (quanta), it has now gone far beyond these rather simple beginnings. It is essentially a mathematical theory, so trying to describe it in words is analogous to transforming a picture into a poem. Inaccuracies, distortions and over-simplifications inevitably creep in. Nevertheless, one can convey the essence of the picture, and that is what is attempted here. Some grasp of what the material world is really like, and of the unfamiliar ways in which it can behave, is probably necessary to reaching an understanding of awareness and is certainly needed to comprehend the experimental evidence set out in Chapter 5.