Rovelli’s Relational Physics
Physicist Carlo Rovelli focuses on “the profoundly relational aspect of physics, manifest in general relativity, but especially in quantum mechanics.” 20th-century physics, he says, “is not about how individual entities are by themselves. It is about how entities manifest themselves to one another. It is about relations.”
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Carlo Rovelli
Theoretical Physicist & Writer
Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer, best known as a founder of loop quantum gravity. He is also known for his work in the philosophy of science and for his bestselling book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.
Key Takeaways
Core Claim
Physics describes relations between systems, not intrinsic properties, making reality inherently perspectival.
How It Works
Entities manifest only through interactions, with all descriptions relative to specific physical systems.
Distinguishing Idea
Relationalism reduces the gap between mental and physical by reframing both as perspective-dependent.
Implications
May offer a mild form of panpsychism while deflating the “hard problem” of consciousness.
Challenges & Tensions
Subjective experience still seems more private than physics’ relational descriptions allow.
Rovelli’s Relational Physics
Physicist Carlo Rovelli focuses on “the profoundly relational aspect of physics, manifest in general relativity, but especially in quantum mechanics.” 20th-century physics, he says, “is not about how individual entities are by themselves. It is about how entities manifest themselves to one another. It is about relations.” This vindicates, he offers, “a very mild form of panpsychism,” but “this same fact may undermine some of the motivations for more marked forms of panpsychism” (Rovelli, 2021).
“Although there is nothing specifically psychic or mental in the relational properties of a system with respect to another system,” Rovelli says “there is definitely something in common with panpsychism, because the world is not described from the outside: it is always described relative to a physical system. So, physical reality is, in our current physics, perspectival reality” (Dorato, 2016).
Rovelli takes a deflationary view of the hard problem: “If our basic understanding of the physical world is in terms of more or less complex systems that interact with one another and affect one another, the discrepancy between the mental and the physical seems much less dramatic.” He concludes, “It is a world where physical systems—simple and complex—manifest themselves to other systems—single and complex—in a way that our physics describes. I see no reason to believe that this should not be sufficient to account for stones, thunderstorms, and thoughts” (Dorato, 2016).
According to George Musser, one way to argue that relationalism could solve the hard problem is, first, to recognize that “third-person physics isn't up to the task of explaining first-person experience and, specifically, its qualitative aspect (qualia).” Then, Rovelli's approach is to say that “physics is not, in fact, third-person; it is specific to each of us, just as each of us has our own private stream of consciousness.” Thus, “the two sides are not so mismatched after all.” However, Musser adds, “although physics may well be relational, subjective experience doesn't seem to be” (Musser, 2023a, 2023b).
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