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The end of physics as we know it?

Seeing | Quantum Physics | 2024-11-15

Physics or mathematical equations on a universe decorative LED background give the impression of interstellar space travel.

We’re moving our main publication day from Sunday to Friday, so you can enjoy our material over the weekend. And to start well, today we have one of the most important videos we’ve produced thus far. We’re confident you will enjoy it!

The video features Prof. Dr. Caslav Brukner, Prof. Dr. Renato Renner and Dr. Eric Cavalcanti, who just won the Paul Ehrenfest Best Paper Award for Quantum Foundations. Their different no-go theorems make us reconsider the fundamental nature of reality. Bell’s theorem in quantum mechanics already confronted us with the fact that locality and ‘physical realism,’ in the sense that particles have predetermined physical properties prior to measurement, cannot both be true. But in certain variations of the Wigner’s Friend thought experiment an additional metaphysical assumption is now also put in question: the absoluteness of facts. In different words: can we safely assume that a measurement outcome for one observer is a measurement for all observers?

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Essentia Foundation communicates, in an accessible but rigorous manner, the latest results in science and philosophy that point to the mental nature of reality. We are committed to strict, academic-level curation of the material we publish.

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Intelligence witnessed the Big Bang

Could it be a coincidence that two founding fathers of modern day computing, independently from each other, are both coming with theories of consciousness that are idealist in nature? Or does a deep understanding of what computation is—and what it is not—inevitably lead away from physicalist ideas on consciousness?

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Why did Nietzsche break with Schopenhauer’s Idealism?

Once an enthusiastic Idealist in the tradition of Arthur Schopenhauer, the later Friedrich Nietzsche broke from Schopenhauer’s philosophy with a vengeance. Adebambo Adedire argues that this shift had more to do with Nietzsche’s later rejection of the metaphysical project itself, than with the particulars of Schopenhauer’s Idealism. For Nietzsche was to eventually consider the goal of understanding the nature of reality both impossible and inherently demeaning to the human condition. Yet, we ask, can a thinking human being ever stop wondering about what reality, and the self within it, ultimately are? Even if we, as primates, cannot arrive at the ultimate metaphysical answers, aren’t we correct in aspiring to overcome our own metaphysical mistakes and delusions?

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Can we turn off our awareness (i.e., conscious metacognition) in meditation and then stay in that state for days without water, food, or going to the bathroom? A recent study by Dr. Ruben Laukkonen on the cessation of awareness in advanced meditation practitioners confirms this. In this interview, Natalia Vorontsova talks with Ruben about his research and its implications for our understanding of the nature of reality. This is a deep, yet light-hearted, conversation about mind, consciousness, time, AI, and the future of science, especially since Ruben is also an experienced meditation practitioner.

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Freedom from free will: Good riddance to the self

As any essay on free will, the present one is bound to be polemic. We believe the debate on free will is important and the present essay meaningfully contributes to it. Nonetheless, we feel bound to clarify our editorial position here: as a foundation dedicated to promoting objective formulations of metaphysical idealism, we endorse the existence of a reality beyond the seemingly personal self, which behaves in a predictable, lawful manner. An implication of this view is the impossibility of libertarian free will: we do make our own choices, but our choices are determined by that which we, and the universe around us, are. Yet we believe that there is a very important sense in which free will does exist: under idealism, the universe is constituted by the excitations of one, universal field of subjectivity. The impetus towards self-excitation that characterizes this field of subjectivity is free will, for it depends on nothing else. The entire dance of universal unfolding is a dance of universal free will. This is the sense in which, for example, Federico Faggin and our own Bernardo Kastrup defend the fundamental existence of free will in nature. This understanding of free will is entirely compatible with the understanding that our choices are determined but that which we truly are. Finally, objective formulations of metaphysical idealism deny, just as the author of the present essay does, the fundamental existence of a personal self. Instead, the latter is regarded as a transient, reducible configuration of the underlying field of subjectivity. As such, there cannot be such a thing as personal, egoic free will, for the personal self itself isn’t a fundamental construct.

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Intelligence witnessed the Big Bang

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|

Enter Experimental Metaphysics

Essentia Foundation’s Hans Busstra visited Vienna to attend a conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics, and interview physicists on the metaphysical implications of quantum mechanics. In this essay, he argues that what is called ‘experimental metaphysics’ might be at the heart of future progress in physics, and that philosophy and physics are moving closer together.

|

Why did Nietzsche break with Schopenhauer’s Idealism?

Once an enthusiastic Idealist in the tradition of Arthur Schopenhauer, the later Friedrich Nietzsche broke from Schopenhauer’s philosophy with a vengeance. Adebambo Adedire argues that this shift had more to do with Nietzsche’s later rejection of the metaphysical project itself, than with the particulars of Schopenhauer’s Idealism. For Nietzsche was to eventually consider the goal of understanding the nature of reality both impossible and inherently demeaning to the human condition. Yet, we ask, can a thinking human being ever stop wondering about what reality, and the self within it, ultimately are? Even if we, as primates, cannot arrive at the ultimate metaphysical answers, aren’t we correct in aspiring to overcome our own metaphysical mistakes and delusions?

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