CHAPTER 5 Quantum Physics and Realism

Raphael Neelamkavil

Patrick A. Heelan

Juha T. Saatsi

Scientific realism about spin is easily motivated. But what does it amount to? To answer this question, Chapter 3 contrasts in general terms two epistemological conceptions of realism—truth-content vs. progress realism—before problematizing truth-content realism in the context of quantum physics. After articulating the challenge faced by truth-content realism, the chapter argues that progress realism avoids it, offering a stable middle ground between anti-realism and traditional truth-content realism.

G. C. Ghirardi

Bruce L. Gordon

It is often thought that idealism, which affirms that reality is mind-dependent in some relevant sense, leads to antirealism in science. This chapter argues that this common perception gets the cart before the horse. It is rather the case that realism in science, especially in regard to relativistic quantum physics and consciousness, leads to idealism – theistic quantum-informational idealism, to be precise – as the best account of the nature of reality. The chapter outlines the scientific basis for these claims and sketches the arguments for them, starting with an evaluation of the metaphysical significance of relativistic quantum physics for material identity and the character of physical law. It define three basic kinds of realism – metaphysical realism, critical epistemic realism, and critical scientific realism – and evaluate their relationship to theistic quantum-informational idealism as the metaphysical framework unifying the insights into reality that follow from quantum physics and consciousness studies.