Realism emerged at the dawn of philosophy. What manifests itself in observation should exist previously, as potentiality, and the set of potentialities should be inherent in a reality that does not manifest itself. The progress of realism elects the natural world as the sole substance and sole cause and, inevitably, commissions it to give life to the observer. The main reason for incredulity at experimental results is due to something absolute in space and time, to the persistent figuration of a container, which survive in the space-time of relativity and even in the ordinary “background” of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics, involving the observer in nature, supports the physiology’s announcement that the mind moves along with the brain. The problem worsens in the case of Parallel Worlds because they sprout from the reader and mysteriously fly away to place themselves in an external and common space.
Realism emerged at the dawn of philosophy. What manifests itself in observation should exist previously, as potentiality, and the set of potentialities should be inherent in a reality that does not manifest itself. The progress of realism elects the natural world as the sole substance and sole cause and, inevitably, commissions it to give life to the observer. The main reason for incredulity at experimental results is due to something absolute in space and time, to the persistent figuration of a container, which survive in the space-time of relativity and even in the ordinary “background” of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics, involving the observer in nature, supports the physiology’s announcement that the mind moves along with the brain. The problem worsens in the case of Parallel Worlds because they sprout from the reader and mysteriously fly away to place themselves in an external and common space.
The primitive connection between mathematics and the physical world make use of everyday experience at the macroscale. With quantum phenomena, one encounters a regime far removed from ordinary experience. One relies on laboratory experiments to define the quantum world; the experimental process refines ordinary everyday experiments such as for counting and logic. One cannot expect to find results that appeal to ‘‘common sense.’’ Here, one must make a choice as to whether the new situation can be described by existing mathematical infrastructure or it requires the invention of new infrastructure. In either case, one must set up a mathematical system, which exists only in the human mind, in order to describe the system of nature. That is, ‘‘mathematics belongs to and exists in the human mind whereas nature belongs to God.’’ Mathematics and nature have separate but intertwined existences. As will become evident later, one must allow for the possibility that human observation (a physical process, not a mathematical one) can affect the state of the natural system.
For over nine decades, quantum mechanics has profoundly shaped our understanding of nature, offering explanations for the stability of atoms, the formation of mole cules, the properties of materials, and phenomena such as light or radioactivity. It is essential to modern technologies—from microchips to lasers—and underpins the physics of elementary particles. Yet, despite its successes, it remains a deeply mysterious theory, confronting a central enigma: why does the quantum world behave so differently from everyday reality? Elements such as superposition and quantum entanglement—which allow particles to exist simultaneously in multiple states or remain interconnected regardless of distance—contradict classical world intuitions. This gap between microscopic and macroscopic behavior has given rise to what is known as the “measurement problem,” raising fundamental questions about the nature of reality. Diverging interpretations have led to two major schools of thought: anti-realism, promoted by Niels Bohr, which holds that reality depends on the observer and their interaction with measurement instruments; and realism, supported by Albert Einstein, which argues that quantum mechanics is incomplete and that eality exists independently of observation. Bohr’s complementary philosophy and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle were central to the formulation of the “Copenhagen interpretation,” which became dominant in the 20th century. However, the persistent opposition of scientists like Einstein and Schrödinger inspired generations of physicists to seek a unification between quantum mechanics and relativity, culminating in new theories such as loop quantum gravity and string theory. Thus, the debate between realism and anti-realism remains alive, and philosophy continues to play a crucial role in exploring the new foundations of physics.
In resisting attempts to explain the unity of a whole in terms of a multiplicity of interacting parts, quantum mechanics calls for an explanatory concept that proceeds in the opposite direction: from unity to multiplicity. Being part of the Scientific Image of the world, the theory concerns the process by which (the physical aspect of) what Sellars called the Manifest Image of the world comes into being. This process consists in the progressive differentiation of an intrinsically undifferentiated entity. By entering into reflexive spatial relations, this entity gives rise to (i) what looks like a multiplicity of relata if the reflexive quality of the relations is not taken into account, and (ii) what looks like a substantial expanse if the spatial quality of the relations is reified. If there is a distinctly quantum domain, it is a non-spatial and non-temporal dimension across which the transition from the unity of this entity to the multiplicity of the world takes place. Instead of being constituents of the physical world, subatomic particles, atoms, and molecules are instrumental in its manifestation. These conclusions are based on the following interpretive principle and its more direct consequences: whenever the calculation of probabilities calls for the addition of amplitudes, the distinctions we make between the alternatives lack objective reality. Applied to alternatives involving distinctions between regions of space, this principle implies that, owing to the indefiniteness of positions, the spatiotemporal differentiation of the physical world is incomplete: the existence of a real-valued spatiotemporal background is an unrealistic idealization. This guarantees the existence of observables whose values are real per se, as against “real by virtue of being indicated by the values of observables that are real per se.” Applied to alternatives involving distinctions between things, it implies that, intrinsically, all fundamental particles are numerically identical and thus identifiable with the aforementioned undifferentiated entity.
What does not satisfy me in that theory [quantum mechanics], from the standpoint of principle, is its attitude towards that which appears to me to be the programmatic aim of all physics: the complete description of any (individual) real situation (as it supposedly exists irrespective of any act of observation or substantiation). Albert Einstein, Reply to Criticisms [This] implies the impossibility of any sharp separation between the behaviour of atomic objects and the interaction with the measuring instruments which serve to define the conditions under which the phenomena appear . In fact, the individuality of the typical quantum effects finds its proper expression in the circumstance that any attempt of subdividing the phenomena will demand a change in the experimental arrangement introducing new possibilities of interaction between objects and measuring instruments which in principle cannot be controlled. Consequently, evidence obtained under different experimental conditions cannot be comprehended within a single picture, but must be regarded as complementary in the sense that only the totality of the phenomena exhausts the possible information about the objects. Indeed the finite interaction between object and measuring agencies conditioned by the very existence of the quantum of action entails – because of the impossibility of controlling the reaction of the object on the measuring instruments, if these are to serve their purpose – the necessity of a final renunciation of the classical idea of causality and a radical revision of our attitude towards the problem of physical reality. […]
Over and above differences in terminology and cultural background, we try to show that the quantum physicist, David Bohm (Wilkes-Barre 1917 – London 1992), and poststructuralist philosopher, Gilles Deleuze (Paris 1925 – Paris 1995), shared a common aim in thought: to replace the classical (mechanistic) image of reality, which is still dominant in our time, with a metaphysics finally in agreement with the concepts and results of relativity, quantum mechanics and contemporary biology. For these two thinkers, the world of things that are well individuated in space and time, and ordered according to mechanical relations of cause and effect, are nothing but the momentary expression of an “undivided wholeness in flowing movement” that constitutes its true ontological ground. By means of this new metaphysics, the world of daily experience and classical science appears as the explicit manifestation or development of implicate order that undivided wholeness contains virtually in itself at deeper and deeper levels of envelopment and imbrication. The explicit world (of classical science and daily experience) is the result of a process of repetition, deceleration and temporal stabilization, triggered by the interaction of our measuring instruments – technical devices, sensory organs and motors, a priori forms and categories of the understanding – with moving wholeness, the thinking and observing subject of which represents a momentary and partial reflection rather than a solitary and autonomous fragment. By criticizing the classical image of the correspondence/adequation of being and thought, Bohm and Deleuze show that the thought seeking to grasp this wholeness in flowing movement inevitably interacts with it – by modifying, recreating and accomplishing it in one direction rather than another. Thought thus resembles a dance that tries to harmonize with the universal flux that generates and carries it away in a single movement with matter