The question of Existence in Science and Reality

|Difficulty level: Easy|

Science has achieved immediate attention to some fundamental questions asked for centuries. One among them is the sentinel existence of an objective world to keep a reality of what everyone shares in common. Some general attributes about things, emptiness and fields are considered to be fundamental in applying natural laws. This article checks on these matters from a physical and philosophical perspective where general concerns are shared.  

One fundamental question humankind has asked for ages is also the same that we are relying upon, what is reality? It is not as simple as that. Perhaps we don’t understand to the fullest to say what it is for a scientist or philosopher to mean by the term “fundamental.” Sciences for sure do seek an answer to it. Every time an explanation comes within the sciences, it is rather biased with rationality or existence itself nevertheless the physics that explains this term is not well understood on a deeper level.

Roger Penrose once quoted curiously “one of the remarkable things about the behaviour of the world is how it seems to be grounded in mathematics to a quite extraordinary degree of accuracy…more we understand about the physical world, and the deeper we probe into the laws of nature, … the physical world almost evaporates, and we are left only with mathematics.” However, for Penrose, there are three reasonable worlds, the world of numbers, the physical world, and the mental world (Roger Penrose, 1997). So what is fundamental about all our existence here? It is one of the long-lasting questions for ages and a central key in the area of metaphysics. For the time being, let’s recall the term fundamental as some finest form of existence or a foundation where everything is possibly made off.

Do things exist fundamentally?

Let’s take a thought experiment here for a better understanding of the phenomena. Imagine a simple task to observe an empty room. All possible ways to think upon a solution is to either go directly inside the room or send some signal into the room to potentially prove that the room is empty. There is an interesting aspect of emptiness here; whenever one tries to act upon the question the room cannot be empty. Even thinking about the room is fixing it with something to say that there is at least a thought needed for the experimenter logically to describe an empty room. Or take the experiment in this sense. How do we know that the room is empty?

The physics of the room has an interesting aspect to say. There is no emptiness possible without the presence of any potential fields. This is called the diffeomorphism invariance principle which is in the foundation of space-time physics (Diego Meschini, 2005). It signifies that there is no physical space available without fields. The outcome is a simple thought; fundamentally, the physical reality is limited to a fraction just above the emptiness. For simplicity, some call it the vacuum energy density of space and some as the zero-point energy. Whatever we call it, it is the lowest energy possible to have for a quantum mechanical system (contributors).

According to quantum field theory, the universe consists of continuous fluctuating fields called matter fields (Fermions i.e., quarks and leptons) and force fields (Bosons i.e., photons and gluons). Particle physics aspires to this as the fundamental aspect of reality humankind has ever discovered. But it is also absurd to think whenever a scientist says that the empty space is not at all empty.

Rational thinking on things

  The observer plays a vital role in modern physics. He/she is popularly accompanied by the collapse of the wave function whenever he/she tries to observe it. No matter how advanced the equipment is, there is no measurement available outside the box of Schrödinger’s cat i.e, the wave function has no physical significance on its own (Barukčić, 2016). But with Born’s rule, the square of its absolute magnitude ǀ gives us values when evaluated at a particular point at a particular time. Such an interpretation where everything around us is a form of probable outcomes of wave functions is much less for a reality we feel with our senses.

The complementarity principle boosts this thinking with every possible tactic the observer uses to measure an object precisely for its properties like position or momentum. Maybe nature is acting against our tactics in theory or nature itself is intelligent to foresee what’s coming. The delayed choice experiment first proposed by John Wheeler (contributors) is made for a similar purpose to check whether the light somehow senses the apparatus set up by the double-slit experiment and adjusts its behaviour to fit the deterministic state for it. It led Wheeler to the conclusion that “no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.”

Thinking on it, indeterministic on its own and illusional is one way where most readers will get misinterpreted easily. There is no logic, of course, to say that something exists only when we observe it. But somewhat we have to see that the mathematics works well with it and almost explains everything around us with unbelievable accuracy. So it is better to shut up and calculate (in Richard Feynman’s language)…

What things exist in reality?

The question is not even wrong. I certainly deserve better empirical data to believe so. Else, from where does the colour emerge while seeing a beautiful red rose or pleasant sunrise with reddish sky set off at dawn? What does it all have in common? If you think that it is the colour red, then there is a quality of redness subjective within you. One recent paper on QM has a similar remark, there is no objective reality in the quantum world (Massimiliano Proietti, 2019). It is promising in one way when anyone could interpret the universe in any way they want. Yet it is limited with the equipment we possess. This is the weird part of reality; there are no possible ways to prove it without any empirical data that your reality is real.

The foremost part of all sciences seeks reality as a forbidden empire of mankind’s mystery. God has no vital role to play in this challenge. Even if he/she could, how the sciences know that the challenge is real without measuring it. Sciences do take a superior part in seeking an answer to all these questions. Eventually, everyone does. Knowledge is the biggest example. Complementarity sets up the knowledge as an up-gradation of the observer’s data regarding his/her task. Complete knowledge of the phenomena at the quantum level requires the description of both particle and wave properties. There is no reality possible with this knowledge unless you upgrade and reach the quantum level where everything exists on its own, a singularity perhaps or an undeniable truth. We couldn’t possibly exist even then,  mathematically or physically, if that is the case.

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