Empirical reality, empirical causality, and the measurement problem

Chloe Tully

The Counterintuitive Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: A Review of Ten Empirical Anomalies Scientific Review C J Tully Independent Researcher https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5661-7332 10th October 2026 Abstract Quantum mechanics (QM) constitutes the most empirically successful physical theory in the history of science, yet its foundational axioms systematically violate classical intuitions regarding locality, causality, determinism, and the independent reality of physical systems. This paper reviews ten of the most profound experimentally verified quantum phenomena: superposition, entanglement and non-locality, wave-particle complementarity, the uncertainty principle, quantum tunneling, the measurement problem, quantum vacuum fluctuations, quantum teleportation, the quantum Zeno effect, and decoherence. For each anomaly we present the relevant mathematical formalism within the Hilbert-space formulation, the decisive empirical evidence, and the residual conceptual tension with classical expectations. We conclude with a discussion of the ontological implications of a non-empty vacuum state in quantum field theory and the status of the measurement problem, arguing that these features are not paradoxes but constitutive elements of a fundamentally quantum reality. Keywords: quantum mechanics; superposition; entanglement; measurement problem; decoherence; quantum vacuum; Bell inequality

Léon Brillouin

Emily Adlam

Abstract Although much has been written about the measurement problem, there is still significant disagreement about what the problem really is and what a solution should look like. In this chapter I present a brief introduction to quantum mechanics and the measurement problem, and then I argue that the measurement problem should be understood in part a problem of epistemology: solving the problem requires telling a consistent story about how the reality underlying quantum mechanics could allow us to reliably come to know about that reality via the medium of our empirical evidence for quantum mechanics, and an interpretation of quantum mechanics which fails to achieve this is self-undermining.

Edward J. Gillis

Trevor W. Marshall

Bernard d’Espagnat

By questioning the validity of some of our basic concepts, such as space, object, and causality, quantum physics contributes quite decisively to the dramatic changes now taking place in our world picture.This book is addressed not only to physicists at an early stage in their careers (the first or second year graduate student) but also to philosophers, as well as to all the senior physicists interested in the interpretation problem. Beginning with a chapter that could be described as ?philosophy for physicists,? it presents an in-depth analysis of present-day quantum mechanical concepts, an analysis of physicists and philosophers alike. Specifically, it first offers an extensive critical analysis of such topics as the Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen reality criterion, nonseparatability, the quantum measurement riddle, decoherence theory, consistent histories approaches and ontologically interpretable theories. All this then naturally leads to philosophical questions concerning, in particular, intersubjective agreement and the limit of realism. And a thorough examination of this whole material finally leads to the view that distinguishing between empirical reality and a veiled man-independent reality yields an acceptable answer to the perplexing question of how to interpret quantum physics. Veiled Reality offers nonspecialists, including students in physics, philosophy and the history of science, an accessible perspective on basic problems in the foundations of physics.