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Gell-Mann: Reality Is Out There … and It’s Beautiful

—K.F.

In case you were wondering, there really is a reality out there independent of human observers. That point—often disputed in deep philosophical discussions by the intellectual cognoscenti—comes from one who has accomplished his own deep investigations into the fundamental realms of physical reality: physicist and CSI Fellow Murray Gell-Mann, who won the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work leading up to the discovery of the quark, which he predicted and named.

Gell-Mann spoke at the [CFI] China conference opening plenary session on “Is Nature Conformable to Itself?” But before launching into that topic, he fired some arrows at certain enemies of science. He cited “a number of tendencies” toward “hostility to science” among fundamentalists, governments, and postmodern scholars. As for the latter, he said, “I call them ‘post-rational’ or ‘post-intelligent.’”

The laws of physics “are out there,” Gell-Mann emphasized. “These laws are not just created by the human mind.”

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Sept/october 2019
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