What you experience may not exist. Inside the strange truth of reality

Gregor Weihs

Oleg V. Avchenko

Three quantum paradoxical experiments — (1) double-slit, (2) delayed choice, and (3) EPR paradox ones are considered. These experiments definitely indicate the inadequacy of the mate- rialist paradigm. The materialist doctrine can not describe, explain and predict phenomena and strangeness of quantum world, and the concept of matter is inconsistent at the quantum level. Doubtless, from the materialistic point of view, two propositions saying about that the physical properties of the system are in themselves, they are objective and independent of measurement (1) and measurement (observation) of one system does not affect the result of the measurement (observation) of another system (2) are not verified by the recent experiments confirming so- called quantum non-locality or non-local realism. In relation to this, we have to doubt the truth of materialist ontology which denies the existence of transcendental objects or any extrasensory phenomena with certainty. There should be set boundaries for the materialist paradigm, beyond which it can not be accepted. The poliontichny paradigm that considers reality in potential and actual modes is proposed as an alternative world view embracing both material and quantum world. The unity of the world is not denied but it can be distinguished by two structural levels — two modes of reality evidencing the dual nature of the Universe.

Carlo Rovelli C

Graham P. Smetham

The seemingly solid entities that sentient beings experience as the ‘truth’ or mode of apprehension of the everyday world can, seemingly, be broken down into increasingly small particles. The ‘ultimate’ truth, or ‘ultimate’ level of reality, would, perhaps, be found when there is a ‘particle’ which can no longer be divided, if such things ‘exist’ ultimately. If they do not … well then we arrive at the quantum level, or what Buddhist metaphysics calls ‘emptiness’. In this paper I will use the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti’s imaginative deconstruction of reality, in the context of quantum theory, to try to answer the question which seems to be posed by quantum theory: Is ‘Reality’ really real? In our search for the ultimate nature of reality we have to leave behind the ‘seeming’ appearances of the everyday world, however persuasive the appearance may be, and break through to a more ‘ultimate truth’ concerning the nature of reality. We shall discover that Dharmakirti’s philosophical analysis, alongside other Buddhist insights, which lead to the ‘ultimate’ realm of ‘empty’ Mindnature, prefigures modern quantum discoveries, particularly the notion of an ‘Epiontic Universe’ which derives from the ‘quantum Darwinism’ perspective suggested by Wojciech H. Zurek.

Claude Phipps

John M. Koller