Carlo Rovelli and Priyamvada Natarajan– Of Nagarjuna, Shunyata and Stardust

“We can think of the world as made up of things. Of substances. Of entities. Of something that is. Or we can think of it as made up of events. Of happenings…something that does not last, and that undergoes continual transformation, that is not permanent in time.”

“A stone is a prototypical ‘thing’: we can ask ourselves where it will be tomorrow. Conversely, a kiss is an ‘event’. It makes no sense to ask where the kiss will be tomorrow. The world is made up of networks of kisses, not of stones.”

Carlo Rovelli’s pronouncements are astonishingly counterintuitive – not what one would expect from a physicist – possibly because my view of science is narrow, prejudiced. But here he was at #JaipurLiteratureFestival2021 saying that humans don’t understand the world as made by things, “we understand the world made by kisses, or things like kisses — happenings.” A world made of kisses! If a physicist believes that, so do I! It is certainly better than a world made of stones.

We can think of reality as a bunch of atoms or even smaller – electrons occupying space. But that is what he contests – defining reality as atoms makes it too dry. Our reality includes much more - the complexities of the universe and the upheavals of human emotions too. An electron exists when it jumps around causing events, stirrings of different types; not when it just is.

The basis of Mr. Rovelli’s Loop Quantum Gravity Theory is that reality is interaction. Our reality is defined by our net interactions with the world around us and the same applies to every object around us. The objects are mere nodes in the interaction. It’s the events that define reality.

Talking to Priyamvada Natarajan, astrophysicist from Yale, he reminisces and says that the reason he became a scientist was because he was curious – to know how the world is made and how is works. And to this end, he has discovered that it’s not just the questions that scientists frame that bring out the wholesome answers.

Having read philosophy and history, and then reading the ancient Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna, he now believes that to learn the great scheme of things, a complete coherence is not required. We have to live with some ambiguity, there is richness in ambiguity. Our minds have to be open to diverse interpretations. Nothing is to be taken too seriously.

Knowledge needs to cross boundaries of definition, Nagarjuna’s philosophy of reality has given him a cleaner idea of how to think about Quantum Mechanics. Reality and truth are as scientific as they are philosophical and political, and in a breathtaking manner, this shows in Mr. Rovelli’s science.

I struggled to understand all the nuances of this chat between two scientists, so I read up Carlo Rovelli’s “The Order of Time”

He writes, “And we begin to see that we are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come. The clearing that is opened up in this way, by memory and by anticipation, is time: a source of anguish sometimes, but in the end a tremendous gift.”

Some bits fall into place in my head. If we exist in “events” and not as “things” then maybe the heartbreaks and the disappointments are easier to bear? Because happiness is not something we possess, neither is it there forever. Love is not a thing we can find and then safe-keep in a locker. Its existence is defined as a reality as long as we experience it.

“A precious miracle that the infinite play of combinations has unlocked for us, allowing us to exist.”

It’s true, a kiss is much more interesting and inviting than a stone. Stones are good as markers on our journey but it’s the kisses that will define the richness of our reality. If Mr. Rovelli’s definition makes sense, it’s probably because our experiences resonate with this poetic scientist who weaves together physics with mythology, philosophy and personal stories, revealing the physics of the universe as a complex interplay of our senses. Maybe quantum mechanics can yet be understood by you and me.