Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity

by Carlo Rovelli

I believe that in order to understand reality we have to keep in mind that reality is this network of relations, of reciprocal information, which weaves the world. We slice up the reality surrounding us into objects. But reality is not made up of discrete objects. It is a variable flux. Think of an ocean wave. Where does a wave finish? Where does it begin? Think of mountains. Where does a mountain start? Where does it end? How far does it continue beneath the Earth’s surface? These are questions without much sense, because a wave and a mountain are not objects in themselves; they are ways which we have of slicing up the world to apprehend it, to speak about it more easily. These limits are arbitrary, conventional, comfortable: they depend on us (as physical systems) more than on the waves or the mountains. They are ways of organizing the information which we have or, better, forms of information which we have.