actuality ?

[1123581321]

Hi, i was thinking, that if we change the state of something simply by consciously interacting with it via the observer effect and so forth in quantum physics. Doesn't that mean that everything we know is not correct in actuality because it has all come from observation and measurement which is conducted through consciousness..

 

And wouldn't this also mean that stuff like mathematics etc is not actually the correct or true description of reality, only how 'we' describe what 'we' perceive. And so couldn't this be applied a theory that ultimate reality is impossible to describe in terms of scientific methods like maths, simply because its literally out of the reach of consciousness, which distorts reality..

 

And so then couldn't you say that, everything we create is in fact not real in terms of it being separate from reality due to conscious intervention. And then couldn't you bring in wheelers 'it from bit' theory and say that not only are we sculpting reality as we know it but that nothing exists in terms of reality until we observe it in the first place.

 

So, in conclusion, couldn't you say that we are literally pulling the ultimatum of what is, what exists from the absolute fundamental...

[Mr Skeptic]

The observer could be a rock, or really anything too big to be in a quantum state. No need for it to be conscious.

[Marat]

What do you mean by 'reality'? Is it the sum total of everything we can experience or logically infer from experience, or is it something behind that experience which is the underlying cause of it, but inaccessible to measurement, perception, and calculation? Logically, the real world in which we live is the world we can know and perceive, not the backlot world causally positioned behind it. Physics follows positivism as its philosophical basis, and 'reality' for positivism and science is what can be operationally defined by procedures which could measure it. Whatever is in principle not measurable is not there. All of relativity theory is really just positivism applied to the basic structure of physics.