Slavoj Žižek, Sabine Hossenfelder and Roger Penrose debate the implications of quantum physics for reality.
Is the universe unknowable after all?
Come and see Roger Penrose and Slavoj Žižek live this May, at the word’s leading ideas festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=description
“The more success the quantum theory has the sillier it looks”, wrote Einstein in a letter in 1912. Since then, quantum physics has been verified by experiment and been central to many of the scientific and technological advances of the last century. But the problem that troubled Einstein remains: quantum mechanics renders the universe fundamentally unknowable. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle means that science is, even in principle, unable to predict with certainty behaviour at a quantum level. Heisenberg concluded: “the atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things”.
Should we accept that the quantum mechanics has made the universe unknowable? And if so, how should we proceed if the way the world is depends on our observations? Is science at play in a world of competing models none of which can ultimately describe the universe, or is Einstein’s hunch right and can we uncover a theory that eliminates uncertainty and enables the correct description of the universe independent of any observer?
#quantum #quantummechanics #quantumphysics #physics #philosophy #zizek
Roger Penrose is a world-renowned mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is best known for his work on general relativity and sharing the Wolf Prize for Physics with Stephen Hawking for his work on black holes. Additionally, he is author of The Road to Reality, Cycles of Time and Shadows of the Mind.
Fearlessly critical of the scientific mainstream, Sabine Hossenfelder is a groundbreaking theoretical physicist who specialises in the foundations of science. She is a leading science communicator, best-selling author and researcher. Her recent books include Lost in Math, and the New York Time’s Best Selling Existential Physics.
Slavoj Žižek is a globally renowned philosopher and cultural critic. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. He is the author of several books, including The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Parallax View, and Heaven in Disorder.
Hosted by Güneş Taylor, training fellow at the Francis Crick Institute, the London-based biomedical research centre.
00:00 Introduction
02:38 Sabine Hossenfelder pitch
04:16 Slavoj Žižek pitch
08:30 Roger Penrose pitch
12:19 Does the world depend on our observations of it?
21:19 Does God ‘play dice with the universe’?
38:32 Does quantum reality only exist at an inaccessible scale?
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