Blog 20150506
New Scientist, the popular science magazine, has been
outdoing itself lately. It has been an ardent supporter of the Big Bang Theory
at least ever since I got disgusted with Gribbin and the gang in the late ‘70’s.
One of the latest outrages should shine on the soul of every immaterialist:
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“Samuel
Johnson thought the idea was so preposterous that kicking a rock was enough
to silence discussion. "I refute it thus," he cried as his foot
rebounded from reality. Had he known about quantum mechanics, he might have
spared himself the stubbed toe.
Johnson
was responding to Bishop Berkeley, a philosopher who argued that the world
was a figment of our minds. Could he have been right?
With
its multiverses and cats both alive and dead, quantum mechanics is certainly
weird. But some physicists have proposed that reality is even
stranger: the universe only becomes
real when we look at it.
This
version of the anthropic principle (see "Was
the universe made for us?") – known as the participatory universe –
was first put forward by John Archibald Wheeler, a heavyweight of 20th-century
physics. He likened what we call reality to an elaborate papier mâché
construction supported by ...”
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It seems that there is more of such claptrap most
every week. New Scientist should be anointed “Reigning Promoter of Regressive
Physics.” Maybe we should have a full-time staffer for keeping track of the
magazine’s activities. Right, “the universe only becomes real
when we look at it.” Egads! In the real world, there are material causes for all effects. The
quantum world is supposed to be extra special, so special that even
determinists such as Jerry Coyne are not sure that a vestige of free will might
be contained therein.
You can search on “quantum” in the Blog site just
to see what I think about quantum mechanics. In Infinite Universe Theory, of
course, quantum mechanics follows all the basic rules of the universe (TTAOS[i],
anyone). Size is relative, and while we will never be able to observe smaller
and smaller particles, we still assume they exist. I especially like the Blog in
which Morgan
Freeman follows the partly line as he observes an experiment in which particles
make waves in liquid, declaring that combination to be a true “wave-particle.”
I won’t bore you with all the Deepities in the
article, which you can read yourself. The next one asks the question:
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[i] Borchardt, Glenn,
2004, The ten assumptions of science: Toward a new scientific worldview (
http://www.scientificphilosophy.com/assumptions.html ): Lincoln, NE, iUniverse,
125 p.