Relativity, postmodernism, and the ancient world

As a university physics student, I learnt that the way in which we observe an experiment ultimately determines a large portion of the experiment's outcome (this is especially true of quantum and relativistic physics).  At first, this principle seems goofy, silly, and downright unrealistic.  But eventually, with enough professorial and mathematical encouragement, the unintended impact of observation became my established world-view.

Applying this trait of physics to the real world, I reason that since everyone perceives reality differently we will all have a different experience of reality.  And because we measure/understand reality based on our experiences, the whole concept of "reality" or "the real world" quickly dissolves into an infinite spectrum of realities that can only be grouped by their commonality.  Every individual "reality" being determined, at least in part, by the observer, his or her background, ideology, and personal history.

I am not the first to see the connection between Einsteinian physics and post-modernity.  The power of observation, which is what I understand post-modernism to be, drove notable physicist/mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, to turn to philosophy and theology after the collapse of Newtonian physics in the early 1900s.  Whitehead's book Religion in the Making is well worth the read for the way it tackles comparative religious study, and if I recall correctly, one of the first books of that academic discipline.

But what, I can hear you asking, is the connection with antiquity?

I was reminded of Einstein and the importance of one's perspective when I compared two books I am currently reading: Egypt After the Pharaohs 332 BC-AD 642, and The Last Pharaohs - Egypt Under the Ptolemies, 305-30.  The former views the Ptolemaic dynasty as a break from Egypt's pharaonic tradition while the latter sees them as a continuation of that tradition.  Both studies take into consideration the same histories, the same papyrological evidence, but their approach to the Ptolemaic kingdom differs, one from the shores of Greece and the other from the temple in Memphis.  They agree on the facts, but disagree about their interpretation and their meaning.

So, which study reflects the reality of Ptolemaic Egypt?  Well, that all depends on your perspective.