Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

SUBSCRIBE NOW

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Science Connections

Help Wanted: Philosopher required to sort out Reality

Apply to Mike Alder or any school of physics.

If you travelled to a different universe and found out that things were weird, well, that wouldn’t be too surprising. Going, possibly via the back of a wardrobe, into a universe where magic worked, or where the animals could talk, or both, would undoubtedly require a bit of mental flexibility. But none of these begin to compare with the weirdness of what actually happens in laboratories studying light and electrons. The terrible truth is that the wildest imaginings of fantasy writers don’t come within coo-ee of what actually happens in a physics lab.

Recently, some physicists have decided on the basis of the results of quantum experiments that the idea of a reality out there existing independent of our minds has to go.

…