this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2023
73 points (100.0% liked)

xkcd

12283 readers
80 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
koraro@lemmy.world
73
Actual Progress - 2797 (xkcd.com)
submitted 2 years ago by koraro@lemmy.world to c/xkcd@lemmy.world
8 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] teft@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (4 children)

The alt text perfectly describes how I feel about quantum mechanics. I get it on the surface but the farther down i drill into it the more confused I get. Nothing exists.

[–] 4ce@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Depending on what exactly you mean, you might be onto something referred to as structural realism in the philosophy of science. Citing from the intro of the wikipedia article:

In the philosophy of science, structuralism (also known as scientific structuralism or as the structuralistic theory-concept) asserts that all aspects of reality are best understood in terms of empirical scientific constructs of entities and their relations, rather than in terms of concrete entities in themselves.

For those who want to read more, there is also an article on the SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), and books like "Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized" by James Ladyman and Don Ross (2007) or "How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?" by Sunny Auyang (1995).

In particular, your "nothing exists" reminds me of this in "Every Thing Must Go":

a first approximation to our metaphysics is: ‘There are no things. Structure is all there is.’

load more comments (3 replies)