Realism, general relativityand Schrödinger’s Cat

Article Sidebar

PDF (Spanish)
Published: Jul 13, 2024
Versions:
2024-07-13 (1)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17163/soph.n37.2024.02
Keywords:
metaphysics, epistemology, relativity, quantum mechanics, freedom, science philosophy

Main Article Content

Ricardo Restrepo Echavarria
University of Melbourne
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2224-313X

Abstract

The present work examines the nature of reality, including the possibility of freedom, in the framework of modern physics. Additionally, it proposes a reform for the metaphysics of realism.For realism, the world is the way it is independent of the mind. However, general relativity supposesthat the speed of objects and the temporal order of events depend on the frame of referenceadopted. Which frame of reference is adopted depends on human interests. However, there are still physical facts independent of the frame of reference: the speed of light, spacetime distance,and the equivalence of matter and energy, amongst others. On the other hand, the CopenhagenInterpretation supposes that quantum states are in a superposition that is only realized at themoment of observation, leading to the implication that Schrödinger’s cat is both alive and deaduntil observed. However, less incredible realist possibilities are analysed. Modern physics, whetherdeterminist or indeterminist, also threatens the possibility of freedom. The compatibility of freedom as self-government and modern physics is analysed and developed. Although central aspectsof realist metaphysics are conserved, a philosophical-scientific conception of the universe that integrates mental beings within it emerges, which supposes a reform for standard scientific realism. The existence of facts independent of what we happen to think is saved alongside ineliminable mental phenomena.

Article Details

Issue
No. 37 (2024): (July-December 2024):physics, metaphysics and education
Section
Monographic articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Authorship: The list of authors signing must include only those people who have contributed intellectually to the development of the work. Collaboration in the collection of data is not, by itself, a sufficient criterion of authorship. "Sophia" declines any responsibility for possible conflicts arising from the authorship of the works that are published.
Copyright: The Salesian Polytechnic University preserves the copyrights of the published articles, and favors and allows their reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Ecuador license. They may be copied, used, disseminated, transmitted and publicly displayed, provided that: i) the authorship and the original source of their publication (journal, editorial and work URL) are cited; (Ii) are not used for commercial purposes; Iii) mention the existence and specifications of this license.

Author Biography

Ricardo Restrepo Echavarria, University of Melbourne

Ricardo Restrepo is Professor of Human and Social Sciences at the Technical University of Manabí, UTM, in Ecuador. Ricardo was born in Medellín, Colombia and holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He has taught in various universities in the United States, New Zealand and Ecuador. His research interests are in the philosophy of mind, education and public policy. In 2017 he published the Atlas of the Right to Education in the Years of the Citizens’ Revolution

References

Aguilar-Gordón, A.L. (2019). Enfoques y perspectivas pedagógicas latinoamericanas. En Floralba del Rocío Aguilar Gordón (Ed.), Enfoques y perspectivas del pensamiento pedagógico latinoamericano. Cuenca: Abya Yala. https://shorturl.at/ertyB

Alonso Rodríguez, Ana María (2021). Objetividad y verdad en la ciencia de la educación como ciencia de diseño. Sophia: Colección de Filosofía de la Educación, 31. https://doi.org/10.17163/soph.n31.2021.04

Arendt, H. (2000). Eichmann en Jerusalén: Un ensayo sobre la banalidad del mal. Barcelona: Lumen.

Bolaños Vivas, R. (2017). Aproximación conceptual al conocimiento. En Floralba del Rocío Aguilar Gordón, Robert Fernando Bolaños Vivas, Jessica Lourdes Villamar Muñoz (Eds.), Fundamentos epistemológicos para orientar el desarrollo del conocimiento. Cuenca: Abya Yala. https://shorturl.at/jkOV2

Balseca-Bolaños, D. & Viteri-Basante, F. (2021). La justificación científica de la psicología: aportes desde la epistemología. En Darwin Reyes-Solís (Ed.), Filosofía Hoy: Un abordaje interdisciplinario de lo humano. Cuenca: Abya Yala. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-016-0383-5

Berkeley, G. (2004). Principios del conocimiento humano. Guadalajara: Editorial Universidad Guadalajara. https://shorturl.at/hGY58

Bunge, M. (2017). Materia y mente. México: Siglo XXI Editores.

Cárdenas Castañeda, L. (2011). La inferencia a la mejor explicación en el debate realismo/anti-realismo. Discusiones Filosóficas, 12, 89-105. https://shorturl.at/kqzH0

Carroll, S. (2020). La zorra y las uvas: Los mundos cuánticos y la realidad oculta del universo. Madrid: Pasado y Presente.

Chakravartty, A. (2017). Scientific realism. En Edward N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://shorturl.at/bfQW7

Descartes, R. (1641/1970). Meditaciones metafísicas. Madrid: Ediciones Alfaguara.

Einstein, A. (1923). The theory of the affine field. Nature, 112, 448-449. https://shorturl.ac/7chec

García-Molina, A. (2012). Phineas Gage y el enigma del córtex prefrontal. Neurología, 27, 370-375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nrl.2010.07.015

González Arocha, J. (2021). El posmodernismo y el realismo en la aporía de la posverdad. Sophia: Colección de Filosofía de la Educación, 31. https://doi.org/10.17163/soph.n31.2021.03

Greene, B. (2020). Hasta el final del tiempo: Materia, mente y nuestra búsqueda de significado en un universo en evolución. Barcelona: Crítica.

Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (1988). Los guardianes de la libertad: Economía política de los medios de comunicación. New York: Pantheon Books.

Harris, D. M., Quintela, J., Prost, V., et al. (2017). Visualization of hydrodynamic pilot-wave phenomena. Journal of Visualization, 20, 13–15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-016-0383-5

Hossenfelder, S. (2022). Existential physics. Nueva York: Viking Penguin Random House.

Krauss, L. (2017) The greatest story ever told—So far. Nueva York: Atria.

Kuhn, T. (1962/2004). La estructura de las revoluciones científicas. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Maxwell, N. (1993). Induction and scientific realism: Einstein versus van Fraassen Part Three: Einstein, aim-oriented empiricism and the discovery of special and general relativity. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44(2), 275-305. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/44.2.275

Marx, K. (1852/2003). El 18 Brumario de Luis Bonaparte. Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.

Mermin, D. (1985). Is the moon really there when nobody looks? Physics Today, 38(4), 38–47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.880968

Muller, D. (2016). Is this what quantum mechanics looks like? Veritasium. https://shorturl.ac/7chef

Penrose, R. (2016). Fashion, faith and fantasy in the new physics of the universe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Peppe, D. J., & Deino, A. L. (2013). Dating rocks and fossils using geologic methods. Nature Education Knowledge, 4(10), 1. https://shorturl.ac/7chel

Platón (ca 375 AC). Teeteto. Buenos Aires: Planeta Libro.

Priest, G. (2014). One: Being an investigation into the unity of reality and of its parts, including the singular object which is nothingness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Restrepo, R. Realismo científico y la mente. Discusiones Filosóficas, 21(42), 75-95. DOI: 10.17151/difil.2023.24.42.5

Psillos, S. (2009). Scientific realism and metaphysics. En Knowing the Structure of Nature. Nueva York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230234666_2

Sankey, H. (2010). Ciencia, sentido común y realidad. Discusiones Filosóficas, 11, 41-58. https://shorturl.ac/7chei

Van Inwagen, P. (1975). The incompatibility of free will and determinism. Philosophical Studies, 27, 185-199. https://shorturl.ac/7chek