In his book, Nature Loves to Hide, Shimon Malin provides a wonderfully lucid and fascinating account of the development of quantum mechanics in the twentieth century and argues that the baffling puzzles of the quantum world can be understood in terms of Whitehead's process metaphysics. 1 Malin thus joins an ever-growing number of physicists who see in Whitehead's theories a useful framework for understanding contemporary physics, including for example, Henry Stapp, Timothy Eastman, Lawrence Fagg, Basil Hiley and David Finkelstein.Nature Loves to Hide is divided into three parts: "e Quandary," "From a Universe of Objects to a Universe of Experiences," and "Physics and the One."Malin also includes three appendices on the relativity of simultaneity, the proof of Bell's inequalities, and interpretations of quantum theory (i.e., quantum ontologies)."e Quandary" examines the debate between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein regarding the completeness of quantum mechanics.Einstein believed that quantum mechanics violates both local realism and determinism and therefore fails as a complete, fundamental theory of nature while Bohr held that quantum mechanics was complete regardless of its violations.Bohr's radical thesis was that a single model cannot adequately describe the atomic and subatomic realms.His complementarity framework of wave/particle applies to different conditions, but even here Bohr is not describing nature itself, but rather what we can know about nature.Malin distinguishes between Einstein's ontic approach and Bohr's epistemic approach (39).e latter, which became the orthodox "Copenhagen Interpretation," is often described as pragmatic or instrumentalist since quantum theory is to be viewed as merely a set of rules for calculating correlations among observations.As the Einstein-Bohr controversy continued through their disciples, John Bell demonstrated in 1964 that the issue was not merely philosophical but rather scientific when his theorem led to an experiment that proved nature violates local realism.At this round, Bohr wins, Einstein loses.Malin understands "the quandary" to be the fact that local realism must be abandoned even if it is the "eminently reasonable" world-view to which we continue to cling.Physics (post Bell's theorem) has suffered a type of "schizophrenia" since physicists adhere to Bohr's view as the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics, yet, at the same time, rely on Einstein's paradigm at some fundamental level.Malin's
What is 'the nature of reality’? This thought has occupied the minds of scientists and philosophers since time immemorial. This issue is examined scientifically, that, how the views of scientists and western philosophers have undergone a dramatic change over a period of time. This may then answer whether spacetime is a reality of nature or if it is just a figment of our imagination in which to view this cosmos! The article begins with the thoughts of Democritus, and the other Greek philosophers, continuing with the ideas of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. With the thoughts of Bacon, Descartes and Isaac Newton, the rise of the ‘mechanical world view’ later the decline of this view is discussed when the phenomenon in optics, electricity and magnetism could not be explained. Then the concept of ‘field’ was evolved, culminating in ‘Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetic fields’.The beginning of twentieth century saw the evolution of the concepts of ‘relativity’, by Einstein, and the birth of ‘quantum theory’, starting with the idea of ‘quanta’, originated by Planck in 1900. The first three decades of the 20th century saw great breakthroughs in the world of theoretical physics - totally new ideas on ‘the nature of reality’ were being conceived. Large numbers of fundamental particles were discovered in the ensuing years. However, not much progress indeed was made in answering some of the most fundamental questions about the existence of human life and the nature of reality. Some interesting ideas on ‘biocentrism’ have now evolved. Biocentrism, along with the ideas of quantum theory and the concept of consciousness, may answer some of the intricate questions about the nature of reality; these will be discussed at length. These concepts will then be viewed from the perspective of Indic thoughts. The ‘Vedic’ and ‘Upanishadic’ knowledge from Indian scriptures may probably answer even more clearly some of the most intriguing questions about the existence of life and the ‘nature of reality’ itself.Beginning of twentieth century saw the evolution of the concepts of ‘Relativity’, by Einstein, and the birth of ‘Quantum Theory’, starting with the idea of ‘Quanta’, originated by Planck in 1900. The first three decades of 20th century saw the great breakthroughs in the world of theoretical physics. Absolutely new ideas on ‘The Nature of Reality’ were being conceived. Large number of fundamental particles was discovered in the ensuing years. But not much progress indeed took place in answering some of the most fundamental questions on existence of human life and the nature of reality. Some interesting ideas on ‘Biocentrism’ have now evolved. Biocentrism along with the ideas of Quantum Theory and the concept of Consciousness may answer some of the intricate questions on nature of reality; these will be discussed at length. These concepts will then be viewed from perspective of Indic thoughts. The ‘Vedic’ and ‘Upanishadic’ knowledge from Indian scriptures may probably answer even more clearly some of the most intriguing questions on the existence of life and the ‘Nature of Reality’ itself.
The idea that what we experience as physical-material reality is what's actually there is the flat Earth idea of our time. That is, the idea that physical-material reality is what's actually there where we experience it to be is an idea that, based upon appearances, seems to be true, in the same way that while standing in the middle of Illinois the Earth appears to be flat, but from a broader perspective is seen to be but an illusion of limited perspective. That broader perspective is afforded by the limitations of experience revealed by quantum physics in the form of the phenomena of wave-particle duality, quantum uncertainty, and quantum entanglement, which limitations, in revealing the nature of experience to be Experiencer dependent, provide insight into the way in which experience is created as the product of a relation of Consciousness, i.e., What Is Actually There, to Itself. However, the same limitations of experience revealed by these phenomena serve to hide from view what these phenomena reveal about the nature of experiential reality, including how experiential reality is created, when considered within a materialistic framework, i.e., within a framework wherein material reality is conceived of as being what's actually there. Thus, although it may seem that we live in a world of material cause and effect, we actually live in a world of Existential cause and experiential effect. That is, we live in a world where the cause is always some relation of Consciousness-Existence to Itself, and the effect is always the experience that is created and apprehended by the Individual Consciousness involved in that relation.