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by The Spring issue of American Scholar includes A New Theory of the Universe, by Robert Lanza, in which Dr. Lanza strives to poke holes in the idea of objective reality. Starting with the idea that "modern science cannot explain why the laws of physics are exactly balanced for animal life to exist" (a thought occasionally echoed by some of the Creationists in OmniNerd's forums) and referring to recent experiments in wave-particle duality, Dr. Lanza argues (as quoted in a Wired interview) that above all, "Space and time are forms of animal sense perception." In short, Dr. Lanza is backing Bohr and Heisenberg's Copenhagen interpretation.
In response to Creationists, Dr. Lanza might argue that of course the Universe seems "just right" for us; it's the only one we could observe. Is Dr. Lanza saying anything new, or has this all been said before? By putting the observer at the "center" of reality, is Dr. Lanza just finding a creative way to say the Sun orbits the Earth, or is this guy on to something significant?
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0 Nerd-Its
The Article
Fantastic article by Dr. Lanza. Thought provoking and worth the time to read. I rarely comment in this forum but always browse the pages...
0 Nerd-Its
I don't know...
He seems to be saying that we each create some sort of a repeatable reality for ourselves out of a “haze of probability” or whatever but then…
The visions and sounds schizophrenic patients see and hear are just as real to them as this page or the chair you’re sitting on.
If a schizophrenic imagines a pink dinosaur running through the subway, how come nobody else can see or feel it, yet everyone else, including the schizophrenic (he finds the subway each day) has seemingly repeatable consistent experiences with reality derived from this haze at the same time?
Or do we? Maybe we’re just imagining that there is a schizophrenic and also imagining that we think everyone else acknowledges that there is a schizophrenic and… Whoa….
This comment has 7 replies.
0 Nerd-Its
Lanza's piece = mostly bunk
I did think it was interesting, but there are a ton of weaknesses throughout the whole thing (which is probably why it was published in the American Scholar, which I've never heard of...). I break down his piece in more detail at my blog:
http://demosthememe.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/lanzas-pseudo-scientific-musings/
-Demosthememe
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Hogwash by stopgap :: NR4 :: Show
We only know what we perceive! Bla... Bla... Bla... Allegory of the Cave and Emerson. Bla... Bla... Bla... If a tree falls in the wood and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Bla... Bla... Bla...
The article in American Scholar is not science! If you are into this sort of thing, rent the "What the Bleep do We Know!?" movie, enjoy it, and then start channeling a 35,000 year-old warrior with JZ Knight.
I stopped reading after this:
Dubbed quantum weirdness, this wave-particle duality has befuddled scientists for decades.
Who is befuddled by the wave-particle duality? The wave function is the probability of finding the particle at a given place. Enough said.