stephen hawking leonard mlodinow the grand design

The reality of quantum theory is a radical departure from that of classical physics. These objects are governed not by classical physics but by the laws of quantum theory. Physicists have found that everyday objects and the light we see them by are made from objects-such as electrons and photons-that we do not perceive directly. As measuring devices, however, we are crude instruments. In classical physics-the physics of Newton that so accurately describes our everyday experience-the interpretation of terms such as object and position is for the most part in harmony with our commonsense, “realistic” understanding of those concepts. The way physics has been going, realism is becoming difficult to defend. There is no way to remove the observer-us-from our perception of the world. This viewpoint may be hard to accept, but it is not difficult to understand. According to those doctrines, the world we know is constructed by the human mind employing sensory data as its raw material and is shaped by the interpretive structure of our brains. That viewpoint, with various subtle differences, goes by names such as antirealism, instrumentalism or idealism. Those who remember Timothy Leary and the 1960s, however, know of another possibility: one’s concept of reality can depend on the mind of the perceiver. In philosophy, that belief is called realism. Classical science is based on the belief that an external world exists whose properties are definite and independent of the observer who perceives them. Most people believe that there is an objective reality out there and that our senses and our science directly convey information about the material world. This notion may be difficult for many people, including some working scientists, to accept. It now appears that this quest may yield not a single theory but a family of interconnected theories, each describing its own version of reality, as if it viewed the universe through its own fishbowl. For decades we have strived to come up with an ultimate theory of everything-one complete and consistent set of fundamental laws of nature that explain every aspect of reality. Indeed, physicists and cosmologists are finding themselves in a similar predicament to the goldfish’s. In physics, the question is not academic.

The goldfish is seeing a version of reality that is different from ours, but can we be sure it is any less real? For all we know, we, too, may spend our entire lives staring out at the world through a distorting lens.

Aside from the measure’s significance to the poor goldfish, the story raises an interesting philosophical question: How do we know that the reality we perceive is true? The sponsors of the measure explained that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl because the curved sides give the fish a distorted view of reality.

A few years ago the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved fishbowls.

Stephen hawking leonard mlodinow the grand design