Both of these are true - There is no god. There is a god. - And both are false. [View all]

[pinto]

Was reading a Scientific American article this morning on new takes in quantum physics. One of those pieces where you read three paragraphs at a time. Then sit back and go, "Do I get this?" Then re-read or wade on to the next three.

The thinking goes like this, in this decidedly layman's take - physics has evolved from the Newtonian standard that there are fixed points, items, particles. Quantum theory built on that to expand the view that there are those definite points, particles but they move around in fields while remaining independent, discrete pieces of reality. So their locations are a variable. But not their uniqueness. Their singularity.

It's the billiard ball concept meets Einstein's inclusion of light as a constant, i.e. e=mc squared. Einstein had some doubts about that being the end all, be all and was working on an expanded picture at the end of his career.

A group of physicists are suggesting a different take. Toss out the particle aspect completely. You can't define them, locate them or move beyond parsing more and more particles as the big picture.

There is no there, there. So, they support starting from perception as a basic standard of "reality". Here's their example -

Say I stand facing you. I'm to focus on your eye in the right side of my visual field. You are to focus on my eye in the right side of your visual field. Both are on the right in our perception. And both are on the left in our perception. We are both looking at the other's left eye in one take. Yet we see it to the right in another.

Both are true and both are false. One does not negate the other. The whole includes both perceptions, is both perceptions.

Rambling here, probably missed some of the scientific nuance - had to look up some of the terminology - but it got me to thinking.