The Crisis in Quantum Physics

Benjamin Z. Gal-Or

Fernando Sansò, Federica Migliaccio

‎Louis Marchildon

Patrick A. Heelan

This book deals with the 'crisis of objectivity' and the 'crisis of realism' which overtook physics when Heisenberg and Bohr consciously rejecting the intentionality-structure of classical physics, gave physics a new form and a new philosophy. The new physics was called quantum mechanics and the new philosophy was called complimentarity. Using the method 'analysis of horizons,' the author attempts to disentangle the epistemological and ontological pesuppositions of Heisenberg's view of complementarity. A similar analysis of Bohr's view of complimentarity reveals a remarkable contrast in basic philosophy between the two founders of quantum physics. The author distinguishes various kinds of objectivity and realism and discusses critically the different aspects of the crisis that emerges in the quantum theory of measurement, the indeterminacy relations and in the statistical and causal structure of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg's formulation of the crisis is reduced to the underlying presuppositions of his thought. These presuppositions are criticised and shown to be defective. A more nuanced epistemological analysis reveals that quantum mechanics answers in a specially beautiful way to the full exigencies of the human mind and its knowledge of concrete reality.

Amrit Šorli, Steve Kaufman

In physics today it often happens that experimental data is interpreted as proof of a phenomenon that has not been directly observed, but for which phenomenon there is a theoretical model. With the obtained data acting thereby as proof, the model then becomes recognized as “real,” after which the theoretical phenomenon that the model describes also then becomes recognized as “real” – that is, the heretofore purely theoretical phenomenon is acknowledged as a physical reality, even though it has never been observed, by either instruments or human senses. This relatively new situation, in which unobserved phenomenon come to be treated as if they had been directly observed, has lead modern physics into deep epistemological crisis of which it is not yet aware. The purpose of this article is both to identify the epistemological crisis created by this situation, as well as to present a solution to overcoming this crisis.