Roger Penrose vs Slavoj Žižek | What does quantum mechanics mean for consciousness and reality?
1,324World-leading physicist Roger Penrose and world-leading philosopher Slavoj Žižek thrash out the meaning of quantum mechanics for reality and consciousness.
Does the measurement problem reveal a deeper structure of meaning beyond the calculable laws of physics, or the radical contingency of reality itself?
This is an extract from the debate 'Quantum and the unknowable universe'. You can watch it now, with a free trial, at https://iai.tv/video/quantum-and-the-unknowable-universe?utm_source=YouTube
"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?
#physics #philosophy #quantummechanics #zizek #penrose
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.
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
00:14 Roger Penrose on consciousness
03:50 Slavoj Žižek on consciousness
05:54 The observation problem
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