Why would we need a new world view? The only possible reason is if the old one is failing, and let’s be realistic: our classic, Newtonian, deterministic view of reality has been hugely successful. It has brought us modern science. It brought us the industrial revolution. It has revolutionised technology, medicine, agriculture, all aspects of our world. Why would we critique it? First of all, our thinking is so rooted in this paradigm that we have forgotten that it is a paradigm, a way of viewing the world, and not fact. As such, there may be other, perhaps complementary, ways to view the world that are equally useful and that may extend our understanding beyond what we can achieve using our conventional view. Second, there are areas in which our paradigm is beginning to falter, aspects of our reality that it does not fit. Yet, we are very attached to our world view, so we do not always want to recognise that it may be flagging. This chapter outlines three areas where our paradigm is reaching its limits to explain why we need to expand it. Furthermore, it gives some examples of how attached people are to thinking in terms of the classical paradigm.
Why would we need a new world view? The only possible reason is if the old one is failing, and let’s be realistic: our classic, Newtonian, deterministic view of reality has been hugely successful. It has brought us modern science. It brought us the industrial revolution. It has revolutionised technology, medicine, agriculture, all aspects of our world. Why would we critique it? First of all, our thinking is so rooted in this paradigm that we have forgotten that it is a paradigm, a way of viewing the world, and not fact. As such, there may be other, perhaps complementary, ways to view the world that are equally useful and that may extend our understanding beyond what we can achieve using our conventional view. Second, there are areas in which our paradigm is beginning to falter, aspects of our reality that it does not fit. Yet, we are very attached to our world view, so we do not always want to recognise that it may be flagging. This chapter outlines three areas where our paradigm is reaching its limits to explain why we need to expand it. Furthermore, it gives some examples of how attached people are to thinking in terms of the classical paradigm.
Our current understanding of our world is nearly 350 years old. It stems from the ideas of Descartes and Newton and has brought us many great things, including modern science and increases in wealth, health and everyday living standards. Furthermore, it is so ingrained in our daily lives that we have forgotten it is a paradigm, not a fact. There are, however, some problems with it. First, there is no satisfactory explanation for why we have consciousness and experience meaning in our lives. Second, modern-day physics tells us that observations depend on characteristics of the observer at the large, cosmic, and small, subatomic scales. Third, ongoing humanitarian and environmental crises show us that our world is vastly interconnected. Our understanding of reality is expanding to incorporate these issues. In The Universe, Life and Everything . . . Dialogues on our Changing Understanding of Reality, some of the scholars at the forefront of this change, from the fields of physics, psychology, and social sciences, discuss the direction it is taking and its urgency.
Our current understanding of our world is nearly 350 years old. It stems from the ideas of Descartes and Newton and has brought us many great things, including modern science and increases in wealth, health and everyday living standards. Furthermore, it is so ingrained in our daily lives that we have forgotten it is a paradigm, not a fact. There are, however, some problems with it. First, there is no satisfactory explanation for why we have consciousness and experience meaning in our lives. Second, modern-day physics tells us that observations depend on characteristics of the observer at the large, cosmic, and small, subatomic scales. Third, ongoing humanitarian and environmental crises show us that our world is vastly interconnected. Our understanding of reality is expanding to incorporate these issues. In The Universe, Life and Everything . . . Dialogues on our Changing Understanding of Reality, some of the scholars at the forefront of this change, from the fields of physics, psychology, and social sciences, discuss the direction it is taking and its urgency
So, by now we have established what our reigning paradigm is and heard why it is time to renew it. We have discussed that there are aspects of our reality that are simply not in keeping with the way we view the world: there is no convincing scientific explanation for consciousness; we do not understand how brain function can result in the experience of feeling like somebody. Furthermore, modern-day physics is telling us our world looks very different at the subatomic scale, where quantum systems have both particle and wave-like properties and only take on one or the other when they are measured. We need a new paradigm that can incorporate these as yet poorly understood aspects of our reality.
Ever since the development of quantum mechanics in the first part of the 20th century, a new world view has emerged. Today, the physicalist objective assumption that objects exist independently of acts of observation has been challenged. The repercussions of this radical challenge to our common-sense perception of the world are far-reaching, although not yet generally realized. Here we argue that there is a complementary view to the way science which is being practiced, and that consciousness itself is primary and qualia form the foundation of experience. We outline the arguments of why the new science of qualia will tie objects that are being perceived to the subjective experience, through the units of subjective experience called qualia. If there is a reality that exists outside of perceptions in consciousness, it is indeed inconceivable. The reason is that once one subtracts everything that one can sense, imagine, feel, or think about, there’s nothing left. Since qualia are subjective, they challenge the dominant world view of science as practiced today, which is reductionist, objective, and mathematical. Our view is a natural continuation of the quantum world view. We outline what the steps will have to be in order to fully develop the science of qualia.
Ever since the development of quantum mechanics in the first part of the 20th century, a new world view has emerged. Today, the physicalist objective assumption that objects exist independently of acts of observation has been challenged. The repercussions of this radical challenge to our common-sense perception of the world are far-reaching, although not yet generally realized. Here we argue that there is a complementary view to the way science which is being practiced, and that consciousness itself is primary and qualia form the foundation of experience. We outline the arguments of why the new science of qualia will tie objects that are being perceived to the subjective experience, through the units of subjective experience called qualia. If there is a reality that exists outside of perceptions in consciousness, it is indeed inconceivable. The reason is that once one subtracts everything that one can sense, imagine, feel, or think about, there’s nothing left. Since qualia are subjective, they challenge the dominant world view of science as practiced today, which is reductionist, objective, and mathematical. Our view is a natural continuation of the quantum world view. We outline what the steps will have to be in order to fully develop the science of qualia.
A DIFFERENT PARADIGM At the beginning of the 20th century many physicists felt there was little left to uncover. 1 It took the genius of Albert Einstein to challenge the prevailing Newtonian laws of motion.Einstein showed that what was thought to be inherent in phenomena was merely a manifestation of how we chose to talk about them.Relativity reveals an integrated and dynamic universe.Time, for example, is not absolute, but part of the fabric of the universe and relative to observer perspective.The faster an observer travels, the slower time passes relative to the perspective of one travelling at slower velocity.Einstein was also pivotal in the development of quantum theory, which successfully predicts the workings of subatomic particles.Quantum theory successfully explains all of chemistry and most of physics, and has enabled the development of important resources such as computers, electron microscopes, and MRI scanners.Many of quantum theory's fundamental features hint at an underlying reality that is probabilistic and not fully knowable.Wave-particle duality, for example, demonstrated that every elementary particle can be described in terms of both a particle and a wave.Another fundamental, first captured in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, 2 demonstrated that observation of the quantum world alters its qualities.Quantum objects seem to exist in many different states at one time, only being forced to collapse and adopt definite states by the act of measurement, which is encapsulated in Schrödinger's formula.3 Both relativity and quantum theories changed how we look at the world.Both recognise that cause and effect is not always linear and our view of the world is inherently biased.They were built mathematically on thought experiments and partially confirmed by empirical findings.Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which showed that mathematical-based theory will always be incomplete, 4 and the uncertainty principle illustrate fundamental limitations to our abilities to understand and predict the universe.This is perhaps unsurprising as our brains have evolved to observe and rationalise the physical world from the perspective of living on Earth.In addition, our right brain enables us to view the world as dynamic, interconnected, and implicit, and to accept that things may never be fully known.5