Despite being our most successful scientific theory, quantum mechanics raises deep ontological questions about the nature of reality—questions that bring philosophy back to the forefront of our quest to understand the universe. Slavoj Žižek argues that we should take it’s philosophical consequences seriously, we should see reality as incomplete.
On September 21st, at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London’s Kenwood House, Zizek will be on a panel alongside Nobel laureate and mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, and theoretical physicist and YouTube sensation Sabine Hossenfelder, to debate the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics. Book your place now.
This article is presented in association with Closer To Truth, a partner for HowTheLightGetsIn Festival 2024.
In Žižek's most recent book Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist, he addresses the relationship between quantum mechanics and film, using Everything Everywhere All at Once as a metaphor for quantum superposition and the randomness of reality. However, Žižek sees this cinematic portrayal as a negative example, warning against the misuse of complex scientific topics in popular culture.
“Two points I’ll try to be as brief as possible. First, I will begin with my usual paradox. First, of course, I haven't seen the movie. I tried to watch for five, ten minutes… it's boring, but I saw some clips and summaries for context. I meant to use this starting metaphor as a negative example, as a warning of how topics developed in an imminently scientific way in quantum mechanics are used and predominantly misused in popular culture.
The idea of superpositions is often misrepresented as a freedom of choice, as if human subjects can simply choose which of the multiple realities to actualise. This is a total misreading. The collapse of superpositions is contingent and out of our control."
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