What I find particularly interesting reading his papers is his emphasis that space and time are features of the macroscopic world, and don’t go “all the way down”.
They seem absolute and real to us because of our evolutionary psychology and especially the “space and time” orientation of the visual maps in our brains. He contrasts his view with interpretations which postulate an infinitely sliced spatial manifold which is fundamentally real, but cannot be measured at the finest scales. I’m assuming by that he is referring to MWI.
I also find his arguments about particle identity intriguing. That all our notions of separate identity are predicated on spatial and other measurable properties. And again, that at the quantum level it is seen that those properties can no longer be distinguished absolutely.
Another thing he says that seems “right” to me is the emphasis on going back to our measurements. If something is measured, it is physically real, and if it is not measurable then it is simply not part of physical reality.
Some of this may be very orthodox quantum mechanics, or at least orthodox under certain interpretations. But I’m not that familiar with all of the literature. I just know that this is what stood out to me when reading PIQM.
In any event, this is not my domain of expertise. However I think it is extremely important for anyone who aspires to an understanding of reality to try and come to grips with quantum mechanics, so I give it my best shot.
Mitchell,
What I find particularly interesting reading his papers is his emphasis that space and time are features of the macroscopic world, and don’t go “all the way down”.
They seem absolute and real to us because of our evolutionary psychology and especially the “space and time” orientation of the visual maps in our brains. He contrasts his view with interpretations which postulate an infinitely sliced spatial manifold which is fundamentally real, but cannot be measured at the finest scales. I’m assuming by that he is referring to MWI.
I also find his arguments about particle identity intriguing. That all our notions of separate identity are predicated on spatial and other measurable properties. And again, that at the quantum level it is seen that those properties can no longer be distinguished absolutely.
Another thing he says that seems “right” to me is the emphasis on going back to our measurements. If something is measured, it is physically real, and if it is not measurable then it is simply not part of physical reality.
Some of this may be very orthodox quantum mechanics, or at least orthodox under certain interpretations. But I’m not that familiar with all of the literature. I just know that this is what stood out to me when reading PIQM.
In any event, this is not my domain of expertise. However I think it is extremely important for anyone who aspires to an understanding of reality to try and come to grips with quantum mechanics, so I give it my best shot.