Is there actually a reality?
A recent Nobel prize ln physics went to three scientists that proved everything, from human conscience to the universe, is quantum.
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What the Nobel Prize actually showed (Physics, 2022)
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger.
What they demonstrated experimentally:
Quantum mechanics is real, not just a mathematical trick
Entangled particles behave in ways that cannot be explained by:
local realism (the idea that objects have definite properties independent of observation, and no influence travels faster than light)
They violated Bell’s inequalities, closing loopholes
In plain terms:
The universe is not locally realistic in the classical sense.
That’s huge — but it’s also very specific.
What they did not prove
They did not show that:
Consciousness is quantum
Human thought collapses wave functions
Reality depends on the human mind
“Everything is just consciousness”
Those ideas belong to:
Interpretations of quantum mechanics
Philosophy of mind
Sometimes speculative neuroscience
Sometimes outright New Age overreach
They are not established results of physics.
So is there a reality?
Yes — but it’s not the naive, commonsense reality of classical physics.
What has been shown:
There is a mind-independent physical world
That world obeys quantum laws
Some properties do not exist in a definite form until measured
Measurement outcomes are real, stable, and objective once they occur
What failed is classical realism, not reality itself.
A useful way to put it:
Reality exists, but it does not come pre-packaged with all its properties fully specified.
Where consciousness fits (and doesn’t)
Brains are made of quantum matter, trivially true
But:
Neurons operate at scales where quantum coherence almost certainly decoheres
No experiment shows consciousness requires quantum effects
No experiment shows consciousness causes quantum collapse
Most working physicists would say:
Consciousness is an emergent biological process that operates on top of quantum physics — not something that rewrites it.
Why the confusion happens
Quantum mechanics is:
Deeply counterintuitive
Conceptually unsettling
Easy to misuse metaphorically
So people slide from:
“Classical realism is false”
into:
“Reality isn’t real”
or
“Everything is consciousness”
That slide is not licensed by the physics.
A careful conclusion
There is a reality
It is not classical
It is not purely mental
It is quantum at the foundations
Meaning, interpretation, and experience arise on top of it, not instead of it
Or more succinctly:
Quantum mechanics doesn’t abolish reality.
It abolishes our comforting picture of reality.
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger.
What they demonstrated experimentally:
Quantum mechanics is real, not just a mathematical trick
Entangled particles behave in ways that cannot be explained by:
local realism (the idea that objects have definite properties independent of observation, and no influence travels faster than light)
They violated Bell’s inequalities, closing loopholes
In plain terms:
The universe is not locally realistic in the classical sense.
That’s huge — but it’s also very specific.
What they did not prove
They did not show that:
Consciousness is quantum
Human thought collapses wave functions
Reality depends on the human mind
“Everything is just consciousness”
Those ideas belong to:
Interpretations of quantum mechanics
Philosophy of mind
Sometimes speculative neuroscience
Sometimes outright New Age overreach
They are not established results of physics.
So is there a reality?
Yes — but it’s not the naive, commonsense reality of classical physics.
What has been shown:
There is a mind-independent physical world
That world obeys quantum laws
Some properties do not exist in a definite form until measured
Measurement outcomes are real, stable, and objective once they occur
What failed is classical realism, not reality itself.
A useful way to put it:
Reality exists, but it does not come pre-packaged with all its properties fully specified.
Where consciousness fits (and doesn’t)
Brains are made of quantum matter, trivially true
But:
Neurons operate at scales where quantum coherence almost certainly decoheres
No experiment shows consciousness requires quantum effects
No experiment shows consciousness causes quantum collapse
Most working physicists would say:
Consciousness is an emergent biological process that operates on top of quantum physics — not something that rewrites it.
Why the confusion happens
Quantum mechanics is:
Deeply counterintuitive
Conceptually unsettling
Easy to misuse metaphorically
So people slide from:
“Classical realism is false”
into:
“Reality isn’t real”
or
“Everything is consciousness”
That slide is not licensed by the physics.
A careful conclusion
There is a reality
It is not classical
It is not purely mental
It is quantum at the foundations
Meaning, interpretation, and experience arise on top of it, not instead of it
Or more succinctly:
Quantum mechanics doesn’t abolish reality.
It abolishes our comforting picture of reality.