295 | Solo: Emergence and Layers of Reality

4133.695 - 4157.486 Sean Carroll

You know, we used to think that atoms are real, but now maybe they're just manifestations of a wave function. Does that mean that atoms don't really exist? Ladyman and Ross in structural realism more generally say, no, there are patterns in the behavior that are preserved as you go from a higher level theory to a lower level theory. And those patterns are real and they count as really existing.