Science and the unknowable universe | Avshalom Elitzur and Lera Boroditsky @TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas

Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Avshalom Elitzur and Lera Boroditsky discuss whether science is limited by human perception.

Science has long been considered the most powerful tool for understanding reality. But can it ever fully grasp the things it seeks?

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Physicist and philosopher Avshalom Elitzur has spent his career probing the foundations of quantum mechanics and confronting the paradoxes at reality's edge. Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky has shown how the language we speak shapes what we can think – and what we can know. Join them to uncover whether science is a window onto the world, or a reflection of the limits of the human mind.

#LimitsOfScience #Physics #AvshalomElitzur

Lera Boroditsky is a cognitive scientist and linguist whose research has transformed our understanding of how language shapes thought. Avshalom Elitzur is an Israeli physicist and philosopher at the Israeli Institute for Advanced Research whose Elitzur–Vaidman thought experiment reshaped debates on the role of the observer in quantum theory. HOST: Philip Ball is a British science writer. For over twenty years he has been an editor of the journal Nature for which he continues to write regularly. He now writes a regular column in Chemistry World.

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