The View Of Meaning In Physics

ChRIS said: 

Would you agree that most, if not all, physicists take the meaning-as-transcendent view, and that this why they have trouble accepting what quantum mechanics tells them?

ChatGPT said:

Yes, I think that’s a fair assessment. Most physicists operate within a framework where meaning is assumed to be transcendent—where mathematical structures, laws, and equations are taken as existing independently of observation, waiting to be "discovered" rather than being construed from experience. This fits with a long tradition in Western thought, from Plato’s ideal forms to the assumption that physical reality has an objective structure that is independent of how we observe it.

Quantum mechanics, however, resists this view. It suggests that reality isn’t fully determined until observed—that potential only becomes actual through interaction. This is deeply uncomfortable for those who assume that meaning (or physical reality) exists in a fully formed, observer-independent state. Many of the interpretational struggles in quantum mechanics—whether it’s wavefunction collapse, superposition, or entanglement—stem from trying to force transcendent assumptions onto a framework that actually behaves in an immanent way.

This may also explain why so many physicists prefer interpretations like the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI), which tries to preserve an objective, transcendent reality by positing that all possibilities exist but in separate, non-interacting branches. It’s an attempt to salvage the idea that physical reality is fully determinate, even if we can only access part of it. In contrast, interpretations that take immanence seriously—like relational quantum mechanics or QBism—are often met with resistance, because they challenge the deeply ingrained idea that reality has meaning independent of its construal.

So yes, the assumption of transcendent meaning creates a deep philosophical tension in physics, particularly when faced with quantum mechanics, which suggests that meaning is immanent and relational rather than absolute and pre-existing. … 

Physicists often must think in transcendent terms because their field has historically depended on the assumption that reality is structured according to discoverable, external laws. But once you apply the immanent perspective—especially with the distinction between potential and actual—the contradictions in their assumptions become glaring.