FROM QUANTUM MECHANICS TO QUANTUM REALITY

• Authors: Žižek Slavoj
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Throughout the 20th century, quantum mechanics was celebrated as the ultimate proof that modern science is leaving behind deterministic mechanical materialism and admitted that it is dealing with non-material entities; moreover, the notion that our reality takes place through being observed opens up to a subjectivist denial of objective reality. Some quantum scientists themselves claimed that the only way to account for our entire universe is to presuppose a global external observer (i.e., God). The text rejects not only this direct theological solution but also the traditional “realist” stance which secretly relies on a divine dimension (the divine status of natural laws). It proposes a reading of the ontological implications of quantum physics which opens up the way for a consequent materialism, even if, from a traditional reading, this may appear to be an odd materialism without matter.

Keywords

EN

QUANTUM MECHANICS; EXPERIMENTAL METAPHYSICS; COUNTERFACTUAL DEFINITENESS

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filozofia (Philosophy)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 78
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 409 – 428

Contributors

author

Žižek Slavoj

• Birkbeck Institute of Humanities, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom

• https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4672-6942

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/filozofia.2023.78.6.1