Science has long opposed our human tendency to make ourselves the center of things, so:
“Since our earliest ancestors admired the stars, our human egos have suffered a series of blows.” (Tegmark, 2007)
For example, we once thought we were physically central, because we saw the sun move around the earth. Being at the center of things made us feel good, so the question “Where are we?” didn’t arise, as we already knew the answer. We were obviously the center of everything, so when Galileo and Copernicus challenged geocentrism, they also denied the ego idea that the universe revolves around us. Science now tells us that we live on a little planet circling a medium star, in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars, in a universe of at least that many galaxies. Mankind is like a colony of bacteria dominating a leaf of a tree in a vast forest, but this ego blow was the price we paid for new knowledge in astronomy.
We also thought we were biologically central, because animals seemed below us. Being superior to animals made us feel good, so the question “When were we?” wasn’t asked either, as again we thought we knew. The center of life was obviously there from the beginning, so when Darwin challenged creationism, he also denied the ego idea that life revolves around us. Science now tells us that humans only evolved from animals a few million years ago, while dinosaurs ruled the earth for two-hundred million years before a meteor wiped them out. Mankind is just another species and bacteria, insects, and plants all exceed us in biomass, but this ego blow was the price we paid for new knowledge in biology.
Today, we think we are mentally central, because we can make choices. Being in charge makes us feel good, so the question “What are we?” isn’t asked because yet again we think we know. It seems obvious that we are the center of the body, observing it, so when science challenges the dualism that a mind observes the body, it also denies the ego idea that our bodies revolve around a central self. Science now tells us that our brains have no center equivalent to the central processing unit of a computer. The higher parts of the brain are duplicated, and if they are surgically disconnected, they share control and each takes itself to be “I” (Sperry & Gazzaniga, 1967). We aren’t even the center of our own brains, but this ego blow is the price we are paying for new knowledge in neurology.
The trend is clear: our ego repeatedly puts us at the center of things and science repeatedly finds that we aren’t. We aren’t the center of the universe, or of life, or even of our own brain, but old habits die hard, so we still think that reality revolves around matter, that what we see is real because we see it so. That we know reality makes us feel good, so the question “What is real?” again doesn’t arise. Obviously, matter is real, so when quantum realism challenges materialism, it also denies the ego idea that we know reality. The idea that science knows everything, or is about to but for some loose ends, has been called the delusion of scientific omniscience (Sheldrake, 2012). It is ironic that scientists query the dogmas of theism but accept the dogmas of materialism.
Science is now telling us that the center of reality isn’t physical. Physical reality isn’t conserved because our universe began, it isn’t continuous because space and time change in quantum steps, it isn’t complete because radioactive events aren’t predictable, and it isn’t fundamental because particles can’t explain light waves. Table 1.1 (see Next) shows that there is nothing illogical or unscientific about quantum waves generating physical events. It may shock the ego, but it fits the facts. The ego blow that science isn’t omniscient is the price we must pay for new knowledge of reality. It follows that quantum realism is a query of everything not a theory of everything.
The following chapters reverse engineer the world in a physics from scratch approach (Tegmark, 2007 p6) that derives space, time, matter, and energy from first principles. It deduces rather than assumes the charges of electrons and neutrinos (4.3.2), and predicts that matter came from light (4.5.9).