"At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” according to Dr. Andrew Truscott of the Australian National University, who this past year conducted quantum experiments to demonstrate just that.1. The physicist and colleague of Albert Einstein, John Wheeler, who developed the delayed-choice experiments upon which this conclusion was based, posits the idea of genesis by observership. Our observations, he suggests, might actually contribute to the creation of physical reality.2
Which brings us to Donald Trump, the political equivalent of a tree falling in the forest or Schrödinger's cat, who himself conversely, represents the very model of the metaphysical solipsist,3 maintaining that the self is the only existing reality and that all other reality, including the external world and other persons, are representations of that self, and have no independent existence.
If one were to take a quantum view of this man, it stands that he would not exist if he were not observed (and reported on), yet a search of the New York Times on December 11th revealed there were 50 articles written about him in this single publication.
So as Mr. Trump continues to build momentum and gain the endorsements of neo-Nazis, the KKK, and David Duke, as well as the support of Republican leaders who sell like new drugs, xenophobia and hatred to the white, uneducated lower middle classes, and while his candidacy becomes less of a joke, and more of a national nightmare highlighted by a profit-hungry media, the solution may just be found in the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror VI scene titled Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores, in which Paul Anka and Lisa Simpson provide a Wheelerian fix to the same problem in their musical duet titled Just Don't Look.
Finally, as we meditate on the words of Emma Lazarus emblazoned in bronze on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"), perhaps the following question might be posed: If a racist, xenophobic, megalomaniac stands on a street corner and proposes that the way to "Make America Great Again" is to impose a fascist police state, but no one listens, does he make a sound?
References
1. A.G. Manning, R.I. Khakimov, R.G. Dall, A.G. Truscott. Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment with a single atom. Nature Physics 2015; DOI:10.1038/nphys3343.
2. J.A. Wheeler. Genesis and observership. 1977, In: Foundational Problems in the Special Sciences, 10, pp. 3-33. Springer, Netherlands.
3. The Dictionary of Philosophy, D.D. Runes, ed., Philosophical Library, New York, NY |