For Bohr quantum mechanics is complete. It expresses all that can be said about the atomic world, which he regards as a newly discovered and separate ontological component of reality, operating at the Planck scale, and describable only with a separate physics, namely, quantum mechanics. The classical world, in contrast, represents its binary and symbiotic counterpart, which is also ontologically substantive, but operates according to 'classical concepts'. The different physics of each component indicates a different ontology, the classical one is accessible to us, as we are classical objects, where the Planck scale does not apply, while the other is not. The measurement problem cannot therefore be solved through the discovery of hidden variables as these are classical in nature and therefore ineffective in explaining the quantum world. The measurement problem is therefore not due to epistemological limitations but emerges directly from a 'two worlds' dualism. Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation has therefore been erroneously misunderstood as a positivist retreat rather than as a view of reality proposing an ontological structure which is dualistic. l then propose similarities between Bohr and a ‘two worlds’ view of Kant, where noumena is an ontology which is inherently unknowable as it is devoid of a priori agents, much as the quantum world is unknowable as it is devoid of Bohr's classical concepts. However, just as classical concepts in Bohr are crucial in constituting classical reality, a priori intuitions and concepts in Kant are crucial in constituting phenomena, which are real ontological objects and not just appearances. The noumenal and quantum realms are therefore both substantive, but impossible to investigate. The phenomenal and classical worlds are also substantive. They are where objects and therefore meaning condenses. They are therefore open to our investigations.
For Bohr quantum mechanics is complete. It expresses all that can be said about the atomic world, which he regards as a newly discovered and separate ontological component of reality, operating at the Planck scale, and describable only with a separate physics, namely, quantum mechanics. The classical world, in contrast, represents its binary and symbiotic counterpart, which is also ontologically substantive, but operates according to 'classical concepts'. The different physics of each component indicates a different ontology, the classical one is accessible to us, as we are classical objects, where the Planck scale does not apply, while the other is not. The measurement problem cannot therefore be solved through the discovery of hidden variables as these are classical in nature and therefore ineffective in explaining the quantum world. The measurement problem is therefore not due to epistemological limitations but emerges directly from a 'two worlds' dualism. Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation has therefore been erroneously misunderstood as a positivist retreat rather than as a view of reality proposing an ontological structure which is dualistic. l then propose similarities between Bohr and a ‘two worlds’ view of Kant, where noumena is an ontology which is inherently unknowable as it is devoid of a priori agents, much as the quantum world is unknowable as it is devoid of Bohr's classical concepts. However, just as classical concepts in Bohr are crucial in constituting classical reality, a priori intuitions and concepts in Kant are crucial in constituting phenomena, which are real ontological objects and not just appearances. The noumenal and quantum realms are therefore both substantive, but impossible to investigate. The phenomenal and classical worlds are also substantive. They are where objects and therefore meaning condenses. They are therefore open to our investigations.
According to one possible diagnosis of the quantum measurement problem, it is a consequence of quantum fundamentalism claiming that ontology and epistemology of the world are exclusively quantum, and classical physics is only an approximation. For N. Bohr, the measurement problem is a pseudo-problem because any quantum phenomenon presupposes the classical context of an experimental setup and the use of classical concepts to describe it. We consider Bohr's position from the point of view of our contextual quantum realism (CQR), inspired by the later Wittgenstein philosophy. Our approach is consistent with H. Zinkernagel's interpretation, according to which Bohr's position is not only epistemological anti-fundamentalism, but also ontological anti-fundamentalism.
The field of interpretation of quantum mechanics emerged in an attempt to solve the measurement problem. This turned on the perception that Niels Bohr avoided addressing the measurement problem by taking an instrumentalist view of quantum mechanics. I argue that this view is mistaken and Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics is realist. Moreover, Bohr's interpretation, which is different from textbook quantum mechanics (which is due more to Von Neumann and Paul Dirac), succeeds in solving the measurement problem. While the claim that Bohr dissolves the measurement problem within the limits of the epistemological framework he assumes has been made by a few authors, rarely has the case been made that Bohr's project unambiguously and completely overcomes the measurement problem. I make the strong case that Bohr eliminated the measurement problem altogether. For this, I put forward two new postulates through which to make sense of Bohr's interpretation. The article thus seeks to single out Bohr's interpretation from the various views that go together under the umbrella of orthodox quantum mechanics, and which have been traditionally considered susceptible to the measurement problem. It shows that Bohr's interpretation should be classified along with those like hidden variable theories, collapse models, modal interpretations etc., which offer a solution to the measurement problem and are committed to a realist ontology.
This paper re-opens the debate on the failure of quantum mechanics to provide an understandable view of micro-reality. A critique is offered of the commonly accepted ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ of a theory that is only a mathematical approach to the level of reality characterized by atoms and electrons. This critique is based on the oldest approach to thinking about nature for over 2500 years, known as Natural Philosophy. Quantum mechanics (QM) was developed over the first quarter of the 20th Century, when scientists were enthralled by a new philosophy known as Positivism, whose foundations were based on the assumption that material objects exist only when measured by humans – this central assumption conflates epistemology (knowledge) with ontology (existence). The present critique rejects this human-centered view of reality by assuming material reality has existed long before (and will persist long after) human beings (“Realism”). The defensive view that the micro-world is too different to understand using regular thinking (and only a mathematical approach is possible) is rejected totally. At least 12 earlier QM interpretations are critically analyzed, indicating the broad interest in “what does QM mean?” The standard theory of quantum mechanics is thus constructed on only how the micro-world appears to macro measurements - as such, it cannot offer any view of how the foundations of the world are acting when humans are not observing it - this has generated almost 100 years of confusion and contradiction at the very heart of physics. Significantly, we live in a world that is not being measured by scientists but is interacting with itself and with us. QM has failed to provide explanations: only recipes (meaningless equations), not insights. Physics has returned to the pre-Newtonian world of Ptolemaic phenomenology: only verifiable numbers without real understanding. The focus needs to be on an explicit linkage between the micro-world, when left to itself, and our mental models of this sphere of material reality, via the mechanism of measurement. This limits the role of measurement to confirming our mental models of reality but never confusing these with a direct image of ‘the thing in itself’. This implies a deep divide between reality and appearances, as Kant suggested. This paper includes an original analysis of several major assumptions that have been implicit in Classical Mechanics (CM) that were acceptable in the macroscopic domain of reality, demonstrated by its proven successes. Unfortunately, only a few of these assumptions were challenged by the developers of QM. We now show that these other assumptions are still generating confusions in the interpretation of QM and blocking further progress in the understanding of the microscopic domain. Several of these flawed assumptions were introduced by Newton to support the use of continuum mathematics as a model of nature. This paper proposes that it is the attempt to preserve continuum mathematics (especially calculus), which drives much of the mystery and confusion behind all attempts at understanding quantum mechanics. The introduction of discrete mathematics is proposed to help analyze the discrete interactions between the quintessential quantum objects: the electrons and their novel properties. A related paper demonstrates that it is possible to create a point-particle theory of electrons that explains all their peculiar (and ‘paradoxical’) behavior using only physical hypotheses and discrete mathematics without introducing the continuum mathematical ideas of fields or waves. Another (related) paper proves that all the known results for the hydrogen atom can also be exactly calculated from this new perspective with the discrete mathematics. * Surrey, B.C. Canada (604) 542-2299 spsi99@telus.net Version 2.015 08-05-2017 Begun 23-06-2008 {pp. 82, 70.2 Kw; 800 KB}
We look into the ontology of quantum theory as distinct from that of the classical theory in the sciences, following a broadly Kantian tradition and distinguishing between the noumenal and phenomenal realities where the former is independent of our perception while the latter is assembled from the former by means of fragmentary bits of interpretation. Within this framework, theories are conceptual constructs applying to models generated in the phenomenal world within limited contexts.The ontology of quantum theory principally rests on the view that entities in the world are pervasively correlated with one another not by means of probabilities as in the case of the classical theory, but by means of probability amplitudes involving finely tuned phases of quantum mechanical states (entanglement). The quantum correlations are shared globally in the process of environment-induced decoherence whereby locally generated correlations are removed, the removal being especially manifest in the case of systems that appear as classical ones, in which case the process is almost instantaneous, being, in all likelihood, driven by field fluctuations in the Planck regime. This points to factors of an unknown nature determining its finest details, since Planck scale physics remains an obscure terrain. In other words, the present day quantum theory holds within a limited context set by the Planck scale.
This article reconsiders the concept of physical reality in quantum theory and the concept of quantum measurement, following Bohr, whose analysis of quantum measurement led him to his concept of a (quantum) "phenomenon," referring to "the observations obtained under the specified circumstances," in the interaction between quantum objects and measuring instruments. This situation makes the terms "observation" and "measurement," as conventionally understood, inapplicable. These terms are remnants of classical physics or still earlier history, from which classical physics inherited it. As defined here, a quantum measurement does not measure any preexisting property of the ultimate constitution of the reality responsible for quantum phenomena. An act of measurement establishes a quantum phenomenon by an interaction between the instrument and the quantum object or in the present view the ultimate constitution of the reality responsible for quantum phenomena and, at the time of measurement, also quantum objects. In the view advanced in this article, in contrast to that of Bohr, quantum objects, such as electrons or photons, are assumed to exist only at the time of measurement and not independently, a view that redefines the concept of quantum object as well. This redefinition becomes especially important in high-energy quantum regimes and quantum field theory and allows this article to define a new concept of quantum field. The article also considers, now following Bohr, the quantum measurement as the entanglement between quantum objects and measurement instruments. The argument of the article is grounded in the concept "reality without realism" (RWR), as underlying quantum measurement thus understood, and the view, the RWR view, of quantum theory defined by this concept. The RWR view places a stratum of physical reality thus designated, here the reality ultimately responsible for quantum phenomena, beyond representation or knowledge, or even conception, and defines the corresponding set of interpretations quantum mechanics or quantum field theory, such as the one assumed in this article, in which, again, not only quantum phenomena but also quantum objects are (idealizations) defined by measurement. As such, the article also offers a broadly conceived response to J. Bell's argument "against 'measurement'".
We present a historical-epistemological analysis of the foundations of quantum mechanics, highlighting the relationships between quantum mechanics and scientific realism, as well as the influence of the neo-positivist philosophy of the first decades of the 20th century. The great significance of the measurement process in the context of quantum mechanics is underlined as an essential element in providing a coherent description of reality, moving from micro to macrocosm, as well as the role that the measurement apparatus and the consciousness of the observer assume during the act of measurement, the related ontological problems, the question of the objectification of the wave function, and that of the definition of discernibility. We consider also an overview of the most important alternative proposals to the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics (Copenhagen interpretation), with particular reference to hidden variable theories and other alternatives to standard quantum mechanics philosophical approach, that are modifying the vision of reality, such as the Everett’s many-worlds theory, the QBism and unified holistic approaches, such as the Primordial Dynamic Space.