QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

factor through which we are able to bring about change in ourselves and in the external world. 798
The form of the questions we pose determines to a significant extent the kind of answers we
receive. Even if it is always humans who form the question, nature must be allowed to answer
for itself. We can only predict probabilities. In our investigation of one property, by measuring it,
we at the same time alter the possible distribution of other values.
Measurement, human choice and the actions we take have a clearly irreversible character. This
also means that everything cannot be ascertained at one and the same time, and that initial
conditions cannot be returned to at a later point in time, since the world has changed as a
consequence of our activity. No single individual measurement situation or description visualised
on the basis of it can address the abundance of reality. Bohr did not believe in the possibility of a
”God’s eye view” or ”view from nowhere”. Belonging to a specific temporal context implies that
even though our descriptions and explanations can be developed, a tiny but unavoidable ”blind
spot” will remain whose significance cannot be ignored. Our portrayals cannot, from an absolute
point of view, correspond to reality, nor can we recognise in advance the character or formation
of objects that are manifested in the perceivable world. Even though we target reality in our
descriptions, the models and theories thus formed are just a part of human knowledge, not part of
indispensable ontological reality. The world and portrayals of it should therefore be separated
from one another. Even though humans are, from an ontological point of view, part of the
processes which constitute reality, in descriptions and interpretations of our observations and
experiences we have to "step outside" this immediately-experienced reality.
Only as outsiders can we stop to investigate and evaluate our perceptions and our experiences,
only by conducting our examination from an external position can we create inter-subjectivelyunderstandable
images or maps from them. The models of reality that we create can be
comprehensive mathematical theories or individualised descriptions of phenomena that we
encounter. We can look at reality from different perspectives and viewpoints, we can choose to
be in close or far-away locations. 799 Models can be superimposed or limited, they can appear
contradictory but anyway complement each other by offering different viewpoints for the
portrayal of specific real situations. Which particular model is good depends to a great extent on
where it is to be employed. Models do not reduce to some simple ingredients, even though the
798 The choices we make influence not only the shaping of the nature that surrounds us, they also affects our own
internal structure and our future circumstances.
799 Even though humans always observe and shape the world in unique individual situations, they can, on the basis
of their experiences, attempt to achieve descriptions which are universal and generally-valid. Since the act of
description separates us from reality, we can attempt to remove ourselves as far as is possible.
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