"...Something for Pat, Chris, and all of us here ... what could this Ultimate Reality be ? Come on Minds Eye -ers !" - Vam
This has been known 'forever' Vam! :) On Mar 23, 11:46 pm, Vamadevananda <[email protected]> wrote: > A lifetime studying quantum mechanics has convinced Bernard d'Espagnat > that the world we perceive is merely a shadow of the ultimate reality. > He says : > > I believe that some of our most engrained notions about space and > causality should be reconsidered. Anyone who takes quantum mechanics > seriously will have reached the same conclusion. > > What quantum mechanics tells us, I believe, is surprising to say the > least. It tells us that the basic components of objects – the > particles, electrons, quarks etc. – cannot be thought of as "self- > existent". The reality that they, and hence all objects, are > components of is merely "empirical reality". > > This reality is something that, while not a purely mind-made construct > as radical idealism would have it, can be but the picture our mind > forces us to form of ... Of what ? The only answer I am able to > provide is that underlying this empirical reality is a mysterious, non- > conceptualisable "ultimate reality", not embedded in space and > (presumably) not in time either. > > How did I arrive at this conclusion? My interest in the foundations of > quantum physics developed at quite an early stage in my career, but I > soon noticed that my elders deliberately brushed aside the problems > the theory raised, which they considered not to be part of physics > proper. It was only after I attained the status of a fully-fledged > physicist that I ventured to take up the question personally. > > To put it in a nutshell, in this quest I first found that whatever way > you look at it the quantum mechanical formalism, when taken at face > value, compels us to consider that two particles that have once > interacted always remain bound in a very strange, hardly > understandable way even when they are far apart, the connection being > independent of distance. > > Even though this connection-at-a-distance does not permit us to > transmit messages, clearly it is real. In other words space, so > essential in classical physics, seems to play a considerably less > basic role in quantum physics. > > I soon found out, as often happens, that these things had been known > for quite a long time. Schrödinger had even given them a name: > entanglement, and had claimed entanglement is essential. But strangely > enough he had not really been listened to. Indeed he had been unheard > to the extent that the very notion of "entanglement" was hardly > mentioned in regular courses on quantum physics. > > And in fact most physicists felt inclined to consider that, if not > entanglement in general, at least the highly puzzling 'entanglement at > a distance' was merely an oddity of the formalism, free of physical > consequences and doomed to be removed sooner or later, just through > improvements on the said formalism. At the time the general view was > therefore that if any problems remained in that realm these problems > were of a philosophical, not of a physical nature so that physicists > had better keep aloof from them. > > I was not convinced I must say, and in the early sixties I wrote and > published a book and some articles developing physical arguments that > focused attention on such problems by showing that entanglement is > truly something worth the physicist's attention. > > And then a real breakthrough took place in that John Bell, a colleague > of mine at Cern, published his famous inequalities, which - for the > first time - opened a possibility of testing whether or not > entanglement-at-a-distance had experimentally testable consequences. > > The outcome confirmed my anticipations. Entanglement-at-a-distance > does physically exist, in the sense that it has physically verifiable > (and verified) consequences. Which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt > that some of our most engrained notions about space and causality > should be reconsidered. > > Bernard d'Espagnat is a theoretical physicist, philosopher and winner > of the Templeton Prize 2009. He is the author of On Physics and > Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 2006. > > Something for Pat, Chris, and all of us here ... what could this > Ultimate Reality be ? Come on Minds Eye -ers ! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
