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+--- Thread: Article Hume, Rovelli, and why the quantum world contains no objects (/thread-20531.html)
Hume, Rovelli, and why the quantum world contains no objects - C C - May 28, 2026
https://iai.tv/articles/hume-rovelli-and-why-the-quantum-world-contains-no-objects-auid-3582?_auid=2020
INTRO: Physicists have long known that quantum objects behave nothing like the solid, independent things of everyday experience. But the implications run deeper than strange behaviour. Carlo Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics suggests that quantum systems have observer-dependent properties—what they are depends on their interactions with other systems. Drawing on a tradition running from Hume to contemporary metaphysics, philosopher Andrea Oldofredi explores this novel relational perspective on our world, arguing that objects are not the fundamental furniture of reality.
EXCERPT: Underneath the solid, stable objects of everyday experience, there is no hidden substance giving things their identity and independence. There are only properties, interactions, and the relational facts that such interactions generate. What we call an object is not a “thing in itself,” but a bundle of properties that holds together reliably enough at the scales we inhabit to function as a thing. But zoom in far enough, and the thing dissolves into its relationships and qualities... (MORE - details)
RE: Hume, Rovelli, and why the quantum world contains no objects - Zinjanthropos - May 29, 2026
(May 28, 2026 04:11 PM)C C Wrote: https://iai.tv/articles/hume-rovelli-and-why-the-quantum-world-contains-no-objects-auid-3582?_auid=2020
INTRO: Physicists have long known that quantum objects behave nothing like the solid, independent things of everyday experience. But the implications run deeper than strange behaviour. Carlo Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics suggests that quantum systems have observer-dependent properties—what they are depends on their interactions with other systems. Drawing on a tradition running from Hume to contemporary metaphysics, philosopher Andrea Oldofredi explores this novel relational perspective on our world, arguing that objects are not the fundamental furniture of reality.
EXCERPT: Underneath the solid, stable objects of everyday experience, there is no hidden substance giving things their identity and independence. There are only properties, interactions, and the relational facts that such interactions generate. What we call an object is not a “thing in itself,” but a bundle of properties that holds together reliably enough at the scales we inhabit to function as a thing. But zoom in far enough, and the thing dissolves into its relationships and qualities... (MORE - details)
Sounds like they could be saying the universe evolved/assembled/grew to observe itself.
RE: Hume, Rovelli, and why the quantum world contains no objects - Magical Realist - May 30, 2026
Quote:Underneath the solid, stable objects of everyday experience, there is no hidden substance giving things their identity and independence. There are only properties, interactions, and the relational facts that such interactions generate. What we call an object is not a “thing in itself,” but a bundle of properties that holds together reliably enough at the scales we inhabit to function as a thing. But zoom in far enough, and the thing dissolves into its relationships and qualities...
I'm not even sure of the properties being all that objective and "in themselves." Most seem to be phenomenal qualia of our sensing bodies while others seem but abstract universals with no being in themselves. I keep going back to the fruit analogy. Just because there's all kinds of different fruits doesn't mean there is one all embracing and generic thing called The Fruit. It's a category, a classification, a generalization of language.