I don't fully understand the article I'm about to discuss here. Truth be told, somebody who did fully understand it and tested me on comprehension might well find that I hadn't even half understood it. Heisenberg, Schrödinger, quantum mechanics... What do I know? I'd do better, I'm sure, to get on with the songs of the states series.
Still, nothing daunted, what? In so far as I've understood anything, a central question posed by the piece is given at the head of it, thus:
Do we create the world just by looking at it?And the answer of a number of people - scientists - who have been working on this, and are therefore much better placed than I am to speak about it, is: yes, we do.
This causes me a difficulty, which I will formulate as follows. Either (1) we are part of the world we create by observing it, or (2) we are not. If (1) we are part of that world, then we do not exist till we've created it by our observation, and therefore either can't create it or must create it from a situation of not ourselves existing. In either case, there's something remaining to be explained. If, on the other hand, (2) we aren't part of the world we create by observing it, then there is a reality - call it the not-world - which escapes the finding being relayed to us here; and that is not the spirit in which the finding is set out.
Am I brazenly challenging the word of people who know what they're talking about when I don't? Heaven forfend. From within my limited ability to grasp what they're saying, I'm posing a question. Do they have an answer to this question?