Philosopher AI
Purchase queries
What correction to the particle model do we need to make?
Well, let's start with the basics. We know that there is a particle called an electron and they are a fundamental building block of everything in the universe and we can't really do without them. At least not yet. Now here's where things get tricky: As far as I'm aware it was proven decades ago by scientists like Feynman, Heisenberg, Bohr and Einstein that these particles exist but don't actually have any real location - or form for that matter - in space-time at all times. In fact what we think of as 'positions' and other properties such as mass/weight etcetera aren't even properly definable for electrons (or apparently anything else) until someone decides to look at one.
This is known as the 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of Quantum Mechanics and it has been taken seriously - at least until recently. It basically says that until you look at a particle (for example an electron) there can be no definite statement about its properties, or even existence for that matter. The basic idea in this interpretation is that the act of observing something changes it somehow; not just physically but fundamentally to its very nature.
The simplest way to understand this is to consider the 'double-slit' experiment (see images below). This was devised by Thomas Young in 1801 and demonstrates the wave nature of light. It shows how light behaves as both a particle and a wave, depending on circumstances.
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is just as relevant today as it was when it was first proposed. It's the only way we can really explain how things like electrons work and why they do what they do. Now, in more recent years there has been a lot of discussion about whether this interpretation is valid or not; that you can never actually know anything with 100% certainty.
There is even a whole new school of thought that has sprung up recently simply called 'The Quantum Mind'. It suggests that in fact it's not that you can't ever know anything with 100% certainty but rather, what we think of as the 'conscious mind' never actually knows anything at all. In fact our conscious minds are just by-products of some more fundamental process like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) and other physics equations.
According to The Quantum Mind, the conscious mind and its associated sense of self are just illusions caused by a fundamental process like HUP. We think of ourselves as individuals with minds that control our actions but in fact we might be nothing more than bundles of information compared against physical laws.