{"id":207575,"date":"2025-03-02T00:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T06:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/reality-is-not-revealed-by-quantum-mechanics"},"modified":"2025-03-02T00:03:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T06:03:05","slug":"reality-is-not-revealed-by-quantum-mechanics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/reality-is-not-revealed-by-quantum-mechanics","title":{"rendered":"Reality is not revealed by quantum mechanics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/reality-is-not-revealed-by-quantum-mechanics.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccording to Hooke, microscopes, like telescopes, put us on the cusp of doing what philosophers from Antiquity onwards had always tried to do, namely, understand the fundamental nature of reality,\u201d writes assistant professor in philosophy, Peter West.<\/p>\n<p>The idea that we can discover the fundamental level of reality might be alluring, but it\u2019s based on a faulty philosophy, not science, argues Peter West.<\/p>\n<p>Tap to read more about his beliefs that reality is not revealed by quantum mechanics.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>\n<em>The craze with all things quantum is not just because of its inherent weirdness. It\u2019s motivated by a reductionist impulse that has been animating science from Robert Hooke in the 17th century to Stephen Hawking in the 21st. The idea that we can discover the fundamental level of reality might be alluring, but it\u2019s based on a faulty philosophy, not science, writes Peter West.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The idea that reality is reducible to its most fundamental parts still animates much of science, particularly physics and philosophy. The craze with all things quantum is partly animated by this thought: understand quantum mechanics, the way that matter behaves at the smallest level known to us, and you\u2019ve understood everything. But this philosophical impulse \u2014 because contrary to belief, it\u2019s not scientific \u2014 that the microscopic holds the key to the secrets of the universe, is much older than quantum mechanics. It goes back at least all the way to the 17th century and the invention of the microscope. Some of the best critiques of reductionism also date from the same century: Size doesn\u2019t matter, the very small is just one realm of reality among many, with no special privilege.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sign up<\/strong> to get exclusive access.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/reality-is-not-revealed-by-quantum-mechanics\">Continue reading \u201cReality is not revealed by quantum mechanics\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAccording to Hooke, microscopes, like telescopes, put us on the cusp of doing what philosophers from Antiquity onwards had always tried to do, namely, understand the fundamental nature of reality,\u201d writes assistant professor in philosophy, Peter West. The idea that we can discover the fundamental level of reality might be alluring, but it\u2019s based on [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1522,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innovation","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}