What Is Reality Essay

Shelby Strachan

What is Reality?
The question that I will be addressing is the nature of reality, specifically theories/arguments involving Metaphysical Realism and Anti-Realism. Taking the anti-realist position on the nature of reality I will support that consciousness is fundamental, and that the material universe is derivative from consciousness, (not consciousness from the material universeidealistic). I will present the anti-realist perspective on reality using the metaphysical assumptions of quantum theory and the conceptual relativity theory to support idealism. I will use these (idealistic/anti-realism) theories to reject the metaphysical position that the apparent 'materiality' of the world is no more 'real' than a concept of the mind. I will ultimately use these claims to suggest that consciousness is a vital element in understanding the true nature of reality. The argument is formulated in terms of the following premises and conclusion
P1 Materialism is the view that the sum and substance of everything that exists is exhausted by physical objects and processes and whatever supervenes causally upon them.
P2 The explanatory resources of materialism are therefore restricted to material objects, causes, events and processes.
P3 Neither nonlocal quantum correlations nor (in light of nonlocalizability) the identity of the fundamental constituents of material reality can be explained or characterized if the explanatory constraints of materialism are preserved
P4 These quantum phenomena require an explanation.
C Therefore, materialism is irremediably deficient as a worldview, and consequently should be rejected as false and inadequate.
The first two premises of this argument are uncontroversial: the first is just a definition and the second is a consequence of this definition. The key premises of the argument are thus the third and fourth; once these are established, the conclusion follows directly. Let's focus our attention, therefore, on justifying the claims in premises three and four. The metaphysical assumptions of quantum theory can no longer provide the structure and be synchronous with the idea of materialism/realism. This experimental evidence flies in the face of materialism. According to materialism, any particle always has an objective existence at a specific location in space. In particular, according to materialism, the electron must follow a single path through one slit or the other, and cannot travel through both slits like a non-localized wave. That, however, is exactly what the electron evidently does.
For a particle to be considered a material individual, it must possess one or more well-defined and uniquely identifying properties. Spatio-temporal location is one of the prime examples of one of these properties. In order for something to exist as an individual material object, it must occupy a certain volume of space at a certain time. If it does not, then whatever it is (assuming that it even is something at all) it's not a material object. The problem for the materialist is that the particles of relativistic quantum mechanics are not so localizable.
Quantum Physics can be outlined by the following principles. Broadly speaking, quantum theory is defined as the mathematical theory describing the behavior of the physical world at the smallest and most fundamental level. It is comprised of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, along with a variety of associated concepts and applications. Quantum Physics offers only predicticality and control but not an understanding of the world.
Stated roughly, Gerhard Hegerfeldt and David Malament have shown that if one assumes (quite reasonably) that an individual particle can neither serve as an infinite source of energy nor be in two places at once, then that particle has zero probability of being found in any bounded spatial region, no matter how large! In short, the "particle" doesn't exist anywhere in space, and so, to be honest, it doesn't really

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