5 hours ago
https://iai.tv/articles/hume-rovelli-and..._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)
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)