Quantum weirdness: How real is reality? Matt!!! (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 12, 2016, 19:53 (3238 days ago) @ BBella

DAVID: This article discusses the philosophic ontological and epistemological approaches to quantum mechanics:http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/01/05/462010293/how-real-is-reality-QUOTE: "So which is it? Does the world have an intrinsic ontology? Is there something out there independent of us that has specific properties in-and-of-it? Or is it all a mush of potential and possibility about which only our knowledge takes on a stable form?
"The fundamental question remains. How real is reality?"-DAVID: Comment: Any thoughts?-I come back to epistemology. There has to be an objective reality “out there”, but the nearest we subjective humans can get to it is a general consensus among those who are aware of the “reality” under discussion. There is no general consensus on most of the fundamental questions we discuss on this forum - if there were, we would not be discussing them.-QUESTION: Is there something out there independent of us that has specific properties in-and-of-it?
BBELLA: Nothing is independent.-Personally, I have no doubt that even in the absence of “us”, the billions of solar systems would continue to come and go. And I have no doubt that they have specific material properties that caused them to come and will cause them to go. The same applies to the whole of the material world. I agree that we are dependent on the material world, but I do not think the material world is dependent on us. 
 
DAVID: If the source is God, is He independent?-You'll have to wait and see - or not see!-QUESTION: Or is it all a mush of potential and possibility about which only our knowledge takes on a stable form?
BELLA: Yes.-I am not sure how stable our so-called “knowledge” is (see above). The quantum world is currently so incomprehensible that I don't see how anyone can draw any conclusions from it at all about the nature of reality.
 
QUESTION: The fundamental question remains. How real is reality?
BBELLA: Reality is real, it's just ever changing, evolving from one potential to the next within the goo of All that Is.-That is my view too, and this “reality” ranges from our own lives to the rest of the universe, and from past to present to future. But for humans, “reality” can ultimately only be subjective, as above, though that does not mean it is not also objectively real. We just don't have any way of "knowing".