Study Finds 'There’s No Such Thing as Objective Reality'

#PhysicsUnsolved #Episode03

Earlier this year, scientists in Scotland published the results of an experiment that attempted to test whether reality is objective like we all assume...or if individuals can experience their own, subjective, unique realities.

The scientists attempted to figure out if observers can obtain measurements that are inconsistent with each other — implying the two observers are experiencing their own realities.

Here’s how their experiment was set up: consider two laboratories controlled by Alice and Bob. Inside the labs, Alice’s friend and Bob’s friend measure the polarization of a photon — that can either be horizontal or vertical. Both Alice’s friend and Bob’s friend measure their own photon.

But...before you have an existential crisis...the scientists’ interpretation of what their experiment meant has been called into question by other physicists. As Sean Carroll of Caltech wrote, “The idea that ‘the observer sees a definite outcome’ is replaced by ‘one photon becomes entangled with another photon.’” This matters because this process is reversible, and does not lead to multiple copies of Alice, Bob and their friends.

Obtaining photon polarization data by using other photons is not the same as having large, macroscopic humans or machines observe the results. We can then call into question the conclusions media articles made from this, and say: objective reality remains. And human experience does not seem to be subjective as far as we know.

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[thrdel]

There's no such thing as objective reality, other than as a concept of course. Even if there was, there wouldn't be a way to know it since our perception is entirely subjective.

[cvan]

REality happens in only one place, your perception

[theknave]

Actually, the more you dig into this topic, the more valid the premise becomes.
Nick Bostrom has a legit point.

[EggoTree]

I like that you took a position, it's just that you kind of invalidated the title of your video, though.

[darnellrichier]

Excerpt from "Experimental rejection of observer-independence in the quantum world, " Proietti et al (2019):

While the precise interpretation of Ref. [5] within non-local theories is under debate [21], it seems
that abandoning free choice and locality might not resolve the contradiction [5]. A compelling way to accommodate our result is then to proclaim that “facts of the world” can only be established by a privileged observer— e.g., one that would have access to the “global wavefunction” in the many worlds interpretation [22] or Bohmian mechanics [23]. Another option is to give up observer independence completely by considering facts only relative to observers [24], or by adopting an interpretation such as
QBism, where quantum mechanics is just a tool that captures an agent’s subjective prediction of future measurement outcomes [25]. This choice, however, requires us to embrace the possibility that different observers irreconcilably disagree about what happened in an experiment. A further interesting question is whether the conclusions drawn from Bell-, or Bell-Wigner tests change under relativistic conditions with non-inertial observers [26]



Very interesting philosophically. Not a got-cha by any means but a call for more research and insight, entertaining the idea that different observers see events differently, what then accounts for the difference. And so science investigates semiotics, briliant.

[frankm]

Ofcourse it is. Perception is not the same for every subjective experience but that is because the underlying hardware that allows us to percieve - for humans our brain is not exactly the same for all

[doubleAAbatteries]

the demiurge holds up objective reality though

[TheBloodyloon]

It's pretty hard to disprove that humans experience subjective reality though. Whether or not those subjective realities interact with a single objective reality is what this is after, right?

[georginawoodward]

The difference between fact and personal opinion, feeling or judgment based on them, is objective proof. Light meters, being devices, do not have opinion or feeling. It can be demonstrated that most material existing things are sources of ‘light’ quanta, stimuli, either being emitters such as light bulbs or reflectors. The exception being objects coated in highly absorbent paint. Human-kind knows how eyes and camera like devices function being receivers of ‘light’ quanta, stimuli input.
To be sources of stimuli the objects must exist. They can not themselves be products of observation.
If objects are existing, not as observation products, but material things the particles from which they are composed and particles they emit or reflect must also be existing. Not being relative observation products, they can not be occupying the same sensory or device generated space as them.
When testing a particle, the existing particle, the apparatus and experimenter (bodily) are not relative to ‘this way of testing’. They exist independently of the test. unlike the relative measurement product.

[brinjeffrsn]

3:52 This is an example of The Fallacy of Composition. Also, the subsequent explanation is non-sequitur; the explanation uses the counter argument as a proof argument.

[YvarMusic]

But, if there is a version of me that did not click on this video, why am I experiencing this version of me that did. Why is there a version of me that did not click if I can't 'switch' to verify.

[FabioFalzarano]

Well, what if our most fundamental nature as observer/consciousness is one of LIGHT itself? What if WE = LIGHT? Than the experiment actually take even more relevance, because if "as above so below", the single photon actually is one of the closest representation of a "pure human consciousness" there can be.

[kc]

Personally, I think there is a physical universe "out there" independent of human minds. However, I also think Quantum mechanics is a big ball of mud that makes predictions very accurately but mixes up humans not knowing outcomes (lack of knowledge in human minds) with the physical entities themselves--making interpretations of what is seen unintuitive and controversial (i.e., physicists don't all agree on interpretations of the measurement problem). Physicists are in need of science philosophers to help them sort things through.

[pratyushpanigrahi]

Are they meauring the time for wave collapsion of their friend and themself??cab it be like alice saw horizontall polarization bob saw vertical??

[nenzattibellece]

it is the big things that trick us to think that reality is objective. Clearing up: the greater the mass, the stronger is the interaction with the surrounding environment, and interaction IS observation.

[syx-to]

half of the comments in this video are about complaining about the ending or the concept or photons, the rest is people arguing whether objective reality is real or not.

[MMAGUY]

Whoever made this video voices love your voice!

[Jamba-wlez]

This is not to imply that there reality isn’t objective, that’s a misunderstanding. What QM proves is that there is no *single* objective reality.

[mdbosley]

Take THAT idealists, YOUR direct (subjective) experience isn't actually (subjective).

[jdt]

My cow just barked at me. I wonder if that means I'm on drugs