Quote
In Cosmological Koans, Anthony Aguirre describes this disconcerting conclusion in the following way: An electron is a particular type of regularity that appears among measurements and observations that we make. It is more pattern than a substance. It is order . . . Thus we arrive at a strange place. We break things down into smaller and smaller pieces, but then the pieces, when examined, are not there. Just the arrangements of them are. What then, are things, like the boat, or its sails, or your fingernails? What are they? If things are forms of forms of forms of forms, and if forms are order, and order is defined by us . . . they exist, it would appear, only as created by, and in relation to, us and the Universe. They are, the Buddha might say, emptiness.
Rovelli, Carlo. Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution
The theme of today is the anomalies in the standard realist materialist scientific worldview. The quote above is about the weirdness of quantum mechanics - experimental results suggest something very non-intuitive is going on. Either we live in a universe of infinite branches (many worlds), or objects only exist insofar as they embedded in a network of relations (Rovelli’s theory - relational quantum mechanics), or consciousness has some kind of special role in the universe in collapsing the wave function. Or there’s some kind of non-locality / spooky action at a distance. No matter which horn you grab, it’s sharp.
Links
Are UAPs (UFOs) actually terrestrial in origin?
Convincing arguments by Eric Schwitzgebel that the future is much too uncertain for us to factor the far future into present day decisions (aka longtermism). The future is weird too!
The latest Deconstructing Yourself podcast is with Jeffrey Kripal1, and is also in part about what’s left unexplained by the materialist worldview. I really like what Kripal says about cultivating an attitude of unknowing.
The Weird Problem of Consciousness
Of course the most difficult problem of all to wrap our heads around is the Hard Problem of Consciousness - in a materialist worldview, how do qualia (our conscious lived experience) relate to the physical stuff in, for instance the brain? There are many weird theories, ranging from microtubules , to views centered around electro-magnetic fields (the CEMI theory). Even these theories don’t really explain how it is that experience emerges out of non-experience. Of course you could be a panpsychist and think that consciousness is fundamental and everywhere, but there are a lot of questions about that theory as well (e.g. the combination problem). There’s a mystery at the heart of our being. There is also wisdom is resting in that unknowing.
Kripal is a pretty controversial figure in religious studies because of his book Kali’s Child, but the believability of his reading of Ramakrishna’s psychology doesn’t really matter for this discussion.