Quantum Reality and the Illusion of Material Determinism

Much of the physics we are grounded in is Newtonian, deterministic and material. Some among us may espouse Einstein's relativistic perspective, explaining the surprisingly non-linear paths of electromagnetic radiation with gravitationally molded curvatures in spacetime. Still fewer of us embrace quantum theory whole-mindedly. Indeed it has proven difficult for many students of physics to reconcile the physical phenomena we observe at macrocosmic scales with the predictions of their behavior that emerge from well-established quantum theory.

Einstein, we're told, conceived of a unified field underpinning and interwoven with all of spacetime. A unified field in which matter, energy, gravity, light, and the fundamental figments of nature swim and dance and play by the same rules. He left this mortal coil before he could publish a cohesive account of it, but we can find some hints as to its composition, for example, from his 1920 paper "Ether and the Theory of Relativity":

We may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an aether. According to the general theory of relativity space without aether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this aether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.

Einstein and Max Planck considered light to be composed of set of photons, or more generally as discrete packets of energy or quanta, which Robert Millikan would experimentally confirm when he demonstrated that photoelectric effect increased proportionally to the frequency of light used to trigger the elevation of electrons to excitation, and not according to the intensity of the light as Maxwell's wave model of light predicted. More than century prior Young's double slit experiment had made it plain that light can behave as smooth continuous waves that can interfere with each other constructively or destructively depending on their wavelength and trajectory. The wave-particle duality of light established by these conflicting but experimentally verified behaviors of light ushered in the early days of quantum mechanics.

The deterministic assumptions of the materialist scientists, the Newtonians and the Einsteinese, began yielding ground to the seemingly probabilistic nature of the building blocks of physical reality the quantum magicians were steadily unveiling. The experimental rigor and technical expertise required to test quantum theory gave the vitiated materialists slim chinks in the quantum armor to exploit. Quantum objects could be in more than one place at any moment in time, in superposition as they awaited a conscious observer to collapse their wave functions into a deterministic outcome for their uncertain position or momentum. The material determinists backpeddled in numb, flippant denial as the quantum crew experimentally undermined their most basic assumptions about reality. You know what they saw about assumptions, don't you?

Continuing to deny the glaring obvious truth will certainly make asses out of us. The tiny components that compose all things physical can occupy multiple positions at once, they can affect each other's orientations outside of the unidirectional, constant flow of time we have constructed, and they can pass through theoretically impermeable barriers as they fly: these observed phenomena are known as quantum superposition, quantum entanglement, and quantum tunneling, respectively.

If the building blocks of all matter and energy can perform these uncertain miracles, nothing in physical reality is as it seems to be from the material determinist's point of view. Time is an illusion. Everything is happening right now. Nothing is certain until we observe it. All matter and energy are merely wave functions of various frequencies and resonances.

spacetime is better recast as a uniform quantized field of reality cells optimally arrayed into a fractally scale-symmetric matrix of perceivable dimensions through which vibrations of distortion can travel at up to lightspeed. Gravity is akin to constructive interference among slower affinite wave functions, drawing each other close and building each other up. Mass measures the affinity of wave functions that weave together, increasing as they accelerate to propagate their mutually resonant distortion through the unified field of reality. Traveling through more and larger reality cells yields more opportunities to distribute their particular flavor of distortion, stretching out their perception of time, which is merely a measurement of the propagation of distortion through Reality, a measurement of observable change. Densely interwoven clusters exhibit intensifying affinity (which we have long imagined as more mass and more gravity) on passing wave functions the nearer they draw to the density.

And the missing link, the hard problem, the prestige of our magical existence, is consciousness. Our quantum pioneers continually demonstrate that nothing is certain that is not consciously observed. The spin state of one quantum object remains unknown until the spin state of its partner in entanglement is observed, at which point we see that these entangled partners, like all the rest, spin inversely. The experiencer defines the experienced by experiencing it. There is no object without a subject, as there is no yang without yin, or light without dark. Each individual, indivisible point of view, each perspective of awareness, is entirely unique and utterly independent. Often we write our stories of what we have experienced to agree, because we crave the connectedness we instinctually know to be true. We, individual awarenesses, identify as the stories of what we have done, what has happened to us, and of what we aim to do and have happen.

In truth there is no unobserved objective reality. The observer defines reality by experiencing what is. The chair in the attic that your grandfather built for your mother stops existing when no one or nothing is there to experience it. Or perhaps its subatomic particles flit about in superposition, everywhere and nowhere. The spider spinning its web between its rockers keeps it around more than you do. The dark side of the moon may not have existed until Kaguya sent photos back to the USSR or until Neil and Buzz slingshot around it on their return voyage. (Arguably the former first called upon the dark side, as a photograph is experientially equivalent to a spaceship window.) Though few human scientists seem to have realized it, Schrödinger's cat, as a conscious being with its own individual awareness, determines its own fate by being present to observe whether the atom undergoes radioactive decay and releases the dreaded poisonous gas in the box. Even the very principle of spin state that enabled us to decrypt the mystery of magnetism can be said to have resided in uncertain nonexistence until magnetism and its effects were first observed. Who can say otherwise without observing anything?

This goes well beyond spoons and simulations. Yes, we live in a matrix: a relational matrix of Consciousness in constant motion coming to know and enjoy itself, becoming all the experiencers and things experienced in endless, recursive, fractal undulation. No, there are no post-apocalyptic, techno-deific ancestor-captors using our bodies as generators to fuel their sky-blackened hell as we lie trapped in a convincing but simulated virtual dreamscape of their idyllic alternate histories. There are no ancestors whatsoever. There is only now. All time is a measurement of the changes we observe from moment to moment. History is a log of those changes that we agree upon, record, and retell. And we are not our bodies. We have these bodies while we experience them, and we have no other bodies. If you go to sleep and do not wake, are you still your body? Were you ever?

If we hope to stand a chance at bliss, we must let the ground wash out from under our feet and learn to swim, or remember that we float. The solid rock upon which we have built our churches of material scientism wasn't there in the first place. We must embrace the Great Void and shed the illusion of objectivity and separation, the fiction that we are built of atoms, that we were made rather than grown. Be the wave function, that intricate dance of vibrations in the unified field that surrounds us and penetrates us, that binds us together.

Copenhagen or bust

the-majority-of-quantum-theorists-espouse-the-copenhagen-interpretation, rather than the Many Worlds Interpretation that Deutsch professes.

I shouldn't wish anyone to think that I feel affronted by this. The value of the many worlds, then, is that they close off an easy way out. It was worth admitting them in order to discover that they are a dead end. But there is no point then sitting there insisting we have found the way out. We need to go back and keep searching.

— Philip Ball on the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation)

To inform these musings, one might consider reading Quantum Country, a book prepared by Andy Matuschak, whose working-notes tell of evergreen-notes