A Non-Spatial Reality
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A Non‑Spatial Reality Massimiliano Sassoli de Bianchi1,2
© The Author(s) 2020
Abstract It is generally assumed, and usually taken for granted, that reality is fully contained in space. However, when taking a closer look at the strange behavior of the entities of the micro-world, we are forced to abandon such a prejudice and recognize that space is just a temporary crystallization of a small theatre for reality, where the material entities can take a place and meet with each other. More precisely, phenomena like quantum entanglement, quantum interference effects and quantum indistinguishability, when analyzed attentively, tell us that there is much more in our physical reality than what meets our three-dimensional human eyes. But if the building blocks of our physical reality are non-spatial, what does it mean? Can we understand what the nature of a non-spatial entity is? And if so, what are the consequences for our view of the world in which we live and evolve as a species? This article was written having in mind one of the objectives of the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, that of a broad dissemination of scientific knowledge. Hence, it addresses a transversal audience of readers, both academic and nonacademic, hoping to stimulate in this way the interdisciplinary dialogue about foundational issues in science. Keywords Quantum theory · Non-spatiality · Entanglement · Interference effects · Indistinguishability · Conceptuality interpretation
1 Introduction According to Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, we are like prisoners chained from time immemorial in a dark cave, only watching and studying flickering shadows on a wall, believing that those shadows, and the surface of the wall, are all that exists in our reality. In Plato’s allegory, one distinguishes two levels: the empirical or spatiotemporal level, which is that of the appearances, and the ontological level, considered to be that part of the world that remains unperceived by our ordinary senses but somehow could be understood by our intellect. In other words, the ontological level is that of the “real entities,” whereas the empirical level is that of the “appearances of these same real entities.” To put it differently, following Plato’s allegory, higher-dimensional entities, having a “deeper” reality, would * Massimiliano Sassoli de Bianchi [email protected]; [email protected] 1
Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Brussels Free University, Krijgskundestraat 33, 1160 Brussels, Belgium
2
Laboratorio Di Autoricerca Di Base, Via Cadepiano 18, 6917 Barbengo, Switzerland
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M. S. de Bianchi
Fig. 1 Abbott’s allegory of Flatland here exemplified as the middle-world defined by the twodimensional surface of a lake
exist, casting all sorts of shadows onto the lower-dimensional “wall” of our humanly constructed spatial (or spatiotemporal) representation. A similar allegory was conveyed by the English schoolmaster Edwin A. Abbott, in his “Romance in Many Dimensions” (Abbott 1884), written to crit
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