This essay seeks to understand just what it is that modern science tells us about nature. For the longest time the story told by science appeared to be fully reflective of our common experience: nature was discovered as a collection of reciprocally influencing objects governed by laws which were consistent with that experience. And then, about a hundred years ago, the story suddenly became obscure. Science introduced into nature quantum objects which were supposed to look nothing like anything we had ever seen before and the laws governing them no longer appeared to make much sense to us. Thereafter, what science told us about nature was no longer quite as clear. This shift in the story is conspicuous and bespeaks of an earlier moment in the development of science when the project might have inadvertently taken a step which would eventually make her strange. The essay suggests that the scientific community had in fact made a fateful decision which inevitably led it to the strangeness of quantum mechanics and specifically identifies it as the decision to experimentally observe the constituents of matter as if they were real objects. It then proceeds to determine just what those constituents are if not objectively real and to specify the unique manner in which such objects are what they are. This focus on what constituents of matter are, rather than on how they constitute the inside of natural objects, classifies the essay as an investigation of the ontological side of modern science. Finally, the essay considers the alternative ontologies which could have been entertained for these objects at the time the decision was made to experimentally observe them and shows how 'skipping over' such alternatives generated the specific ways in which quantum mechanics, the theory describing the results of such experiments, had to be strange.
This essay seeks to understand just what it is that modern science tells us about nature. For the longest time the story told by science appeared to be fully reflective of our common experience: nature was discovered as a collection of reciprocally influencing objects governed by laws which were consistent with that experience. And then, about a hundred years ago, the story suddenly became obscure. Science introduced into nature quantum objects which were supposed to look nothing like anything we had ever seen before and the laws governing them no longer appeared to make much sense to us. Thereafter, what science told us about nature was no longer quite as clear. This shift in the story is conspicuous and bespeaks of an earlier moment in the development of science when the project might have inadvertently taken a step which would eventually make her strange. The essay suggests that the scientific community had in fact made a fateful decision which inevitably led it to the strangeness of quantum mechanics and specifically identifies it as the decision to experimentally observe the constituents of matter as if they were real objects. It then proceeds to determine just what those constituents are if not objectively real and to specify the unique manner in which such objects are what they are. This focus on what constituents of matter are, rather than on how they constitute the inside of natural objects, classifies the essay as an investigation of the ontological side of modern science. Finally, the essay considers the alternative ontologies which could have been entertained for these objects at the time the decision was made to experimentally observe them and shows how 'skipping over' such alternatives generated the specific ways in which quantum mechanics, the theory describing the results of such experiments, had to be strange.
Abstract Quantum physics represents one of the most significant intellectual achievements of modern science, reshaping humanity’s understanding of nature at its most fundamental level. It provides the conceptual and mathematical foundations for explaining atomic structure, radiation, and the behavior of particles, forces, and materials, while underpinning many contemporary technologies. Yet its development was marked by profound conceptual disruption. From its earliest formulations, quantum theory challenged classical assumptions about determinism, causality, and certainty, generating paradoxes and disagreements even among its founders. In exploring the universe, quantum physics focuses on the smallest constituents of matter such as quarks, electrons, and photons, revealing a domain that consistently defies everyday intuition. Within this realm, particles exhibit wave–particle duality, physical outcomes are described probabilistically, and measurement plays a constitutive role in determining observable reality. Although such phenomena may appear extraordinary, physicists have rendered them intelligible through rigorous theoretical frameworks and precise mathematical formalism. Within a scientific context, the “truth” of quantum mechanics does not imply metaphysical finality, but rather its exceptional capacity to describe, explain, and predict experimental results with remarkable accuracy. Importantly, this scientific account need not contradict spiritual or religious perspectives. Instead, by unveiling the coherence and complexity of the universe, quantum physics can complement scriptural narratives that emphasize meaning and purpose. This study investigates the scientific truth and narrates the story of universe on the basis of quantum physics and explores its influences on technological development and reshaping the civilization.
Since 1939, when Wigner published his proposal to define particles via symmetries expressed as algebraic groups, we have seen a long stream of attempts to formulate an ontology of matter based on mathematics. It has become apparent that such attempts must fail, and more particularly that we cannot derive an ontology of matter from the Standard Model on the basis of quantum field theory. We briefly recapitulate the reasons for this and demonstrate how the philosophy of physics has become scholasticised through a series of vain attempts to obtain a coherent ontology of matter. Here we propose an alternative approach in the form of an ontology of the science of physics. It draws on a framework developed by Husserl which admits not only real material entities but also the idealities which physicists make use of in their thinking. We specify the upper level of this ontology, which addresses the way in which physicists use mathematics when conducting their enquiries. This ontology provides a new perspective concerning the dilemmas of modern physics, including the measurement problem.
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics persists to this day. Most of these endeavors assume the validity of standard quantum formalism and proceed to ponder the ontic nature of wave functions, operators, and the Schödinger equation. The present essay takes a different approach, more epistemological than ontological. I endeavor to give a heuristic account of how empirical principles lead us to a quantum mechanical description of the world. An outcome of this approach is the suggestion that the notion of discrete quanta leads to the wave nature and statistical behavior of matter rather than the other way around. Finally, the hope is to offer some solace to those older of us who still worry about such things and also to provide the neophyte student of quantum mechanics with physical insight into the mathematically abstract and often baffling aspects of the theory.
If You feel that scientific theories should reveal facts about the world, you will, of course, be profoundly dissatisfied with quantum mechanics! For, as it is generally interpreted, the formalism is a tool for making predictions about outcomes of possible experiments and nothing more. Quantum mechanics has nothing to say about the nature of the physical processes that bring about the very experimental results that it predicts, yet it is supposed to be the whole story of the phenomena it speaks of (i.e. it is supposed to be "complete").
Two narratives – natural science and religious, intersect in the area of unobservable ontology – an immaterial, transcendental, but real area that paradoxically exists outside and inside ordinary physical space-time. It is assumed that mathematical constructs, physical laws, physical constants, quantum objects, and even biological laws can be associated with this area. It is argued that physical laws are not invented by man, but are discovered, since they contain physical constants measured in special experimental works. Universal constants were not invented for reasons of convenience – physics accepts them as an inevitable consequence of the coincidence of the results of all special measurements. Observational data are presented that indicate an extremely small change in fundamental constants or even their constancy over the entire time of the existence of the Universe, although this interesting problem cannot be considered finally solved. The ontology of quantum objects is considered within the framework of Sevalnikov's polyiontic paradigm, according to which two modes are distinguished – potential and actual. The potential existence of quantum objects is described by the Schrödinger wave function, and the actual one appears during the transition from the spectrum of possible states to the only observable one. It is emphasized that potential being does not belong to the classical space, but is in an unobservable ontology. The observed state, on the contrary, is already in ordinary space – time and can be recorded by the device. This determines the existence of a special transcendental layer of reality, along with the material, which may indicate a certain duality in the structure of the Universe. Then it should be assumed that our Universe is not a universal, but a multiverse – a set of different worlds ontologically having a different nature. In addition, the polyiontic paradigm leads to the idea that, at the quantum level, matter can be derived from information hidden in an unobservable ontology.
Quantum mechanics has maintained over the years the reputation of being "the most obscure theory." It works perfectly well, but nobody seems to know why. It has been argued that the difficulty in understanding quantum theory is our failed attempt to force onto it a wrong conceptual scheme, wanting at all costs to think about the objects of the theory as, precisely, objects, i.e., entities having continuously actual spatiotemporal properties. This too restrictive spatiotemporal scheme is most probably at the heart of the problem, as also underlined by the Einsteinian revolution, but then what could be an alternative? Many thinkers have suggested that we must surrender to the fact that our physical world is one of immanent powers and potencies. Aristotle did so ante quantum litteram, followed by scholars like Heisenberg, Primas, Shimony, Piron, Kastner, Kauffman, de Ronde, just to name a few, including the authors, who were both students of Piron in Geneva. However, if on the one hand a potentiality ontology puts the accent on the processes of change, responsible for the incessant shifts between actual and potential properties, on the other hand it does not tell what these changes are all about. In other words, the metaphysical question remains of identifying the nature of the bearer of these potencies, or potentialities, and of the entities that can actualize them. It is the purpose of the present article to emphasize that the above question has found a possible answer in the recent Conceptuality Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which we believe offers the missing ontology and metaphysics that can make the theory fully intelligible, and even intuitive.