The nature of reality / claudiolener98.medium.com
Introduction
According to scientific understanding, reality is grounded in the fundamental physical laws and observable phenomena that govern the universe. Our perception of reality is based on empirical evidence and testable hypotheses. Scientific investigations aim to uncover the underlying principles that describe how reality operates, from the macroscopic scales of galaxies to the microscopic domains of atoms and subatomic particles. This exploration is based on universal principles that dictate the behaviour of matter and energy. Newton’s law of Universal Gravitation and Einstein’s theory of relativity, provide a framework for predicting and understanding the natural world of reality. The objective nature of these laws offer a coherent picture of reality that transcends individual perception.
Human Limitations
Our limited sensory perception reveals only a fraction of the multifaceted dimensions that constitute reality, leaving vast territories like ultraviolet light, dark matter and extra spatial dimensions beyond our immediate grasp. For example, ultraviolet and infrared light exist as invisible realities that we cannot detect without technological assistance. Advanced scientific tools and theoretical models help us explore these invisible realities, expanding our perception of reality beyond the limits of our senses. This ongoing exploration underscores the complexity and richness of reality, inviting us to continuously probe the unknown. In examining the nature of being, an objective reality exists independently of human perception or beliefs. This perspective aligns with scientific realism, which upholds that the world is structured in a specific way regardless of our subjective experiences or consciousness. Some researchers argue that what we perceive as reality is shaped, or even constituted by the mind. This viewpoint challenges the notion of an external, objective reality existing independently of human awareness. Instead, it emphasizes that our understanding of reality is contingent upon our mental processes and perceptions. While metaphysical realism emphasizes an objective reality, idealism highlights the significant role of consciousness in shaping our experience of reality. Together, these philosophies offer profound perspectives as to how we conceptualize and engage with the world around us.
From Newton to Einstein
Around 1600, the scientific method to analyse observations became popular. René Descartes, for example, started to formulate ideas of matter and action independent of theology. Galileo Galilei wrote about experimental measurements of falling and rolling objects while Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion summarized astronomical observations. Around 1666, Isaac Newton developed the idea that Kepler’s laws must also apply to the orbit of the moon around the earth and then to all objects on earth. Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centres. Moreover, separated objects attract and are attracted as if all their mass were concentrated at their centres. Newton’s publication of the law is considered the ‘first great unification’, as it marked the unification of the previously described phenomena of gravity on earth with known astronomical behaviours. The first test of Newton’s law of gravitation between masses was the Cavendish experiment conducted by the British scientist Henry Cavendish in 1798. Newton’s law was later superseded by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, but the universality of the gravitational constant is intact, and the law still continues to be used as an excellent approximation of the effects of gravity by many applications.
Quantum-Theory
The fifth Solvay International Conference held in 1927 is considered the turning point of modern Physics. The world’s most notable physicists, including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, met to discuss the newly formulated quantum theory. Einstein’s ‘Special and General Theory of Relativity’ changed our perceptions of time, space and gravity while Bohr, Pauli, Feynman, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, and Planck’s formulation of quantum mechanics fundamentally revolutionized our understanding of the infinitesimal world of electrons, protons, and neutrons. In contrast to classical physics, quantum theory describes phenomena which are often counterintuitive to human thought. Hence a mind-change is required to follow one of the most important paradigm-shifts humanities has experienced so far. Within the last decades several hypotheses about quantum mechanics have been verified experimentally describing phenomena such as:
Tunnelling: Particles at the quantum scale have properties of waves and light. Their exact location at any moment is described by a probabilistic wave function. As a result, particles such as electrons can, with a certain probability, traverse – or tunnel through – energy barriers. A particle that goes up against a potential barrier might cross it, even if its kinetic energy is smaller than the maximum energy applied against it by the barrier. Quantum tunnelling is applied in quantum computing and microscopy. It can also be used to measure the decay of radioactivity or nuclear fusion.
Superposition: This phenomenon of quantum behaviour can be illustrated with the double-slit experiment. In the basic version of this experiment a laser beam illuminates a plate pierced by two parallel slits while the light passing through the slits is observed on a screen behind the plate. The implication is that each quantum particle appearing as light passes simultaneously through both slits and interferes with itself. This combination of ‘both paths at once’ is defined as a state of superposition.
Entanglement: This phenomenon describes what happens when a pair of particles interact such that the quantum state of each particle of the pair cannot be described independently of the state of the other particle. Regardless of the distance between an entangled pair of particles, measuring the state of one particle reveals information about the other at the same instant, causing Einstein to label this peculiarity as ‘spooky action at a distance.’
Reality defined by AI
Most recent advances in AI are based on perceptual intelligence. This has enabled intelligent devices to see and recognize faces of our friends, to hear and recognize a song and even to parse text and understand the rough intent of the email in your mailbox. If perception defines reality, what happens when AI can generate or manipulate perceptions? Although forgeries, fakes and spoofs have existed for much of human history, they had – until now – to be crafted manually. Hence, the emergence of perceptual AI technology has considerably reduced the effort needed to generate convincing fakes. But what are our options in fighting this onslaught of deep fakes? For example, in the case of images, fakes can be detected by pixel-level imperfections or background inconsistencies as it is hard for most fake-generators to get the background details correct. For detecting fake videos about individuals, current techniques focus on the correlations between lip movements, speech patterns and gestures of the original speaker. In addition to detection, major efforts are under way by government regulators to prohibit the application of deep fakes. While policies are important, educating the public to be sceptical about perceptions is as important. In the long term, we should expect AI systems to be capable of producing fakes that cannot be spotted either by us or by AI techniques uncovering deep fakes. We have to prepare ourselves for a future where AI-generated fakes may come across as more authentic and real. Hopefully, by that time, we will have learned not to trust our senses blindly and, instead, insist on provenance such as the application of cryptographic technologies for identification. As deep fakes increase in sophistication, so will our immunity to them. Hence, we have to insist on authentication, providing information about the source of content.
Conclusion
The scary part of the deep fake future is not long term but short term as we must learn to outgrow our ‘seeing is believing’ mindset. One conclusion is that the short term may also be the only time when AI can still be an effective part of the solution to the problem it has created. In the long-term, however, we have to realize that our perception of reality might be successfully manipulated by AI. As a result, we need to develop a mindset that fosters a critical view of AI and its limitations on mapping reality.