Filozofia (Jun 2023)

FROM QUANTUM MECHANICS TO QUANTUM REALITY

  • Slavoj Žižek

DOI
https://doi.org/10.31577/filozofia.2023.78.6.1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 78, no. 6

Abstract

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Throughout the 20th century, quantum mechanics was celebrated as the ultimate proof that modern science is leaving behind deterministic mechanical materialism and admitted that it is dealing with non-material entities; moreover, the notion that our reality takes place through being observed opens up to a subjectivist denial of objective reality. Some quantum scientists themselves claimed that the only way to account for our entire universe is to presuppose a global external observer (i.e., God). The text rejects not only this direct theological solution but also the traditional “realist” stance which secretly relies on a divine dimension (the divine status of natural laws). It proposes a reading of the ontological implications of quantum physics which opens up the way for a consequent materialism, even if, from a traditional reading, this may appear to be an odd materialism without matter.

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