Physics has been one of my favorite subjects since I was a kid and ignored much of second grade in favor of my science magazines. I started studying Physics and Math at University of Michigan when I was 16, later switching to Art to earn my BFA in traditional figurative sculpture. Little did I know or anticipate that these worlds would collide, providing some startling perspectives on reality, that if taken raw, deny humanity a common thread of reality that we can lean on as a culture.
In Postmodern art, the artist’s message, if any, is not central. The art is dependent on the observer’s experience and interpretation. The artists surrenders their role as narrator, ideologue, epic poet, didactic sage, someone with a special insight, deeper empathic experience, etc. Postmodern art’s purpose is not to inspire, elevate, or enlighten; its purpose is to offer an equivocally reflective substrate, simply shining the viewers’ own perspectives back upon them in a novel, perhaps fashionable or shocking manner.
The internet and various digital media as manifest today are solid postmodern fora for the exchange of ideas, which compete somewhat noisily with little filter of quality or truth value. The result is loosely Democratic- all ideas being processed as equal. As Allan Bloom points out in The Closing of The American Mind, although all people certainly deserve equal rights, not all ideas are created equally, and treating all ideas as equal, a great disservice is done to Democracy, in which informed debate is a central premise.
Advances in quantum physics seem to share this acceptance of plurality in reality, as shown by experiments of paired subatomic particles and observer-dependent phenomena. And I certainly commend the physics, however, that is neither the experiential nor practical reality that we collectively live in. We don’t experience the graininess of quantum reality. We don’t even experience reality a tablespoon of brain at a time. Our reality as neurological organisms is one of gestalt, one of impressions. Our brains, it is now widely established, are skilled narrators that parse unquantifiable amounts of data, pulling together valuable information and suppressing other data. This information is integrated in to a narrative that is useful for us as we navigate our world, and in coherent parallelism with other objects, especially living ones. It is of little practical use to know the state of a certain synapse; it is useful to see the smile on the child’s face and infer something of their state.
Our perceptive and functional reality is abstracted (meaning drawn from) from the smaller, grainier reality where quantum dynamics are at work. There’s certainly nothing wrong at discovering how the universe works at different scales, nothing wrong with quantum computing and fiddling with paired electrons. Nothing is wrong with making postmodern art; self-reflection is a valuable exercise. However, if the complexities of quantum realities and the indulgences of narcissistic self-reflection are used as excuses not to experience and work with those shared threads of practical, common reality, the greater purpose and functions of individuals within the context of their societies and ecologies are lost into a bleak spiral of solipsism.
As a parent, I often encouraged my son to pursue his interests passionately. If one wants to be a Lego professional, go do Legos come hell or high water! And if, just in case, that dream turns out to be a passing fancy, apply that inertia and the wisdom gained from the Lego practice to pursue one’s new passion in bagpipe playing. In the long run, the sum of those productivity vectors will add up to a positive path, I advised, and one will learn much about one’s self and about life by learning and striving, be it for excellence in Legos or bagpipes.
This advice applies well to our reality. If we meander piecemeal through our day because all ‘truths’ are equal, and none of greater value than others, and that our ideas are ‘just our opinions,’ we learn little and make no progress. However, if we embrace what we are certain is our collective reality, yet retain the flexibility to learn and grow, we, ourselves, will grow, and we can help the larger world move in positive directions based on common narratives, a shared reality.
There’s an expression not to run hard in the wrong direction, but often much can, indeed, be learned by running hard in a specific direction (e.g. accepting a purported set of information as the singular Truth, capital T) if one is willing to change course if necessary. You don’t need to run hard in the direction of the fish market if you’re looking for cabbage, of course, but with some forethought, it’s definitely better to get going and change course than to ruminate without movement, or worse yet, cease to ruminate.
The cultural noise of digital common spaces is a deafening meta-reality. It’s a universe of relativist truths, intense cynicism, and high emotion and tribalism. It is not the shared objective reality in which we all actually live.
Remember Plato’s Allegory of the Cave? Internet truth is a lot like gleaning information only from the shadows. The information is incomplete, contingent on perspectives, and can resolve to incorrect conclusions. I suppose that this does not bode well for hopes internet-based globalism. The internet already has played a terrifying role in dividing the US, and rifts are evident elsewhere, too.
Even though I’m a hermit and limit contact, I’m not a complete luddite. I have internet, and I clearly use it. I am, however, not optimistic that without grounding in a shared reality which the Internet seems to countermand, Humanity will succeed in attaining the simple goals of peace and welfare for all.