Quantum mechanics is the dominant conceptual foundation for fundamental physics. Nonetheless there are effects that it does not explain, or explains only by reference to metaphysical effects. While many have wondered whether there could be a more-complete explanation, the solution has been elusive. Cordus suggests that the necessary deeper mechanics is only accessible by abandoning the premise of �particle�, and shows how to achieve this. The resulting Cordus mechanics provides a new way of thinking and a radically different conceptual foundation. This paper primarily contrasts Quantum and Cordus mechanics. In the process, Cordus re-conceptualises Heisenberg�s uncertainty principle. It also provides an explanation for the paradox of Schr�dinger�s Cat, and shows it to be based on unrealistic and unattainable premises.
Quantum mechanics is the dominant conceptual foundation for fundamental physics. Nonetheless there are effects that it does not explain, or explains only by reference to metaphysical effects. While many have wondered whether there could be a more-complete explanation, the solution has been elusive. Cordus suggests that the necessary deeper mechanics is only accessible by abandoning the premise of �particle�, and shows how to achieve this. The resulting Cordus mechanics provides a new way of thinking and a radically different conceptual foundation. This paper primarily contrasts Quantum and Cordus mechanics. In the process, Cordus re-conceptualises Heisenberg�s uncertainty principle. It also provides an explanation for the paradox of Schr�dinger�s Cat, and shows it to be based on unrealistic and unattainable premises.
Quantum mechanics (QM) has the problem of lacking a coherent conceptual foundation, even if its quantitative algorithms are functionally adequate. This paper appraises the conceptual logic beneath quantum mechanics, using as the point of reference a novel alternative conceptual framework called the cordus conjecture. If the cordus conjecture is correct then the comparison suggests that quantum mechanics is conceptually fallacious in several areas: (1) Particles need not be zero-dimensional points after all. (2) Bell�s theorem is refuted as being not universally applicable, and the principle of locality also fails. (3) The wavefunction is a mathematical approximation of a deeper reality, and superposition is not a physical state. (4) Superposition confounds positional and causal (temporal) variability, and this causes the weirdness of the QM interpretations. (5) Cordus identifies the factors that cause decoherence and (6) explains why quantum mechanics does not scale up to macroscopic objects. (7) It is fallacious to consider fields and particles as independent phenomena. Instead they are closely coupled in the cordus, and this explains the measurement context. Several core principles of QM are thereby refuted. The paradox of Schr�dinger�s Cat is explained as an artefact of these flawed premises. The paper also explains why the mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics is a reasonable approximation to reality, even if the concepts are not. The mathematics works, at least within a certain scale-range where: (a) things look like particles and the proposed cordus structure is not evident (i.e. not too small) and (b) where body-coherence is attainable (i.e. not too large). Outside of that range quantum mechanics seems neither conceptually nor mathematically relevant. The same analysis predicts QM is unlikely to scale down to the next deeper level of physics. The implications are that QM is profoundly deficient in its conceptual foundations, and is only an approximation of a deeper and more logically consistent mechanics.
We put forward a possible new interpretation and explanatory framework for quantum theory. The basic hypothesis underlying this new framework is that quantum particles are conceptual entities. More concretely, we propose that quantum particles interact with ordinary matter, nuclei, atoms, molecules, macroscopic material entities, measuring apparatuses,..., in a similar way to how human concepts interact with memory structures, human minds or artificial memories. We analyze the most characteristic aspects of quantum theory, i.e. entanglement and non-locality, interference and superposition, identity and individuality in the light of this new interpretation, and we put forward a specific explanation and understanding of these aspects. The basic hypothesis of our framework gives rise in a natural way to a Heisenberg uncertainty principle which introduces an understanding of the general situation of ‘the one and the many ’ in quantum physics. A specific view on macro and micro different from the common one follows from the basic hypothesis and leads to an analysis of Schrödinger’s Cat paradox and the measurement problem different from the existing ones. We reflect about the influence of this new quantum interpretation and explanatory framework on the global nature and evolutionary aspects of the world and human worldviews, and point out potential explanations for specific situations, such as the generation problem in particle physics, the confinement of quarks and the existence of dark matter. 1
The interplay between non-relativistic quantum theory and metaphysics has generated radically opposed interpretations for quantum theory: Niels Bohr's 'orthodox' interpretation, and Einstein's 'realist' one. Out of this debate emerged the classical first-generation paradoxes of quantum theory: Schrodinger's Cat and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradoxes. And more recently a range of new paradoxes has emerged from the work of J.S. Bell which questions the `local' nature of quantum theory, prefiguring a return either to an action-at-a-distance metaphysics or to a radically holistic conception of matter. This book outlines the contours of these debates, and presents an interpretation of quantum theory which, while metaphysically realist, resolves most of the paradoxes. This interpretation takes quantum systems to be fuzzy particles, piloted by fields of propensities which are represented by density operators on Hilbert space; and constitutes, in part, a return to an earlier view of quantum systems advanced by De Broglie, Schrodinger, Born, and Einstein. A book for philosophers and physicists who are interested in the philo sophy o f science.
All the concepts and principles necessary to understand quantum mechanics on an initial level are given in a form suitable for the non-expert. The concepts explained include visualizing the wave function, wave-particle duality, the implications of Schrodinger's cat, probability, the uncertainty principle, collapse of the wave function, and others. However, because of the peculiar, non-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics, one must understand the potential interpretations of its mathematics before one can properly understand these concepts. Thus the paper is organized aorund interpretations, conceptual pictures that explain the peculiar properties of the theory. The only interpretation that currently satisfies all the constraints imposed by experiments and the theory itself makes use of a perceiving Mind which is outside the laws of quantum mechanics.
In completing the story of spin, we have run far ahead of the continued development of the understanding of the matrix, operator and wave mechanical approaches to quantum mechanics. The reconciliation of these approaches was described in Chap. 15, but there remained the issue of the interpretation of the wavefunction and the deeper implications of the theory. The understanding came gradually with Born's interpretation of the wavefunction, Ehrenfest's demonstration of the equivalence of the classical and quantum pictures and Heisenberg's enunciation of the uncertainty principle. These led to what became known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. At the same time, the formal mathematical foundations of the different approaches to quantum phenomena were set on a secure foundation thanks to the efforts of Hilbert and many others. These developments resulted in what may be referred to as the completion of quantum mechanics, in the sense that it laid the foundations for all the future development of physics at the atomic and subatomic level – some of these achievements are summarised in Chap. 18. Schrödinger's interpretation (1926) Schrödinger regarded wave mechanics as superior to the matrix mechanical approach to quantum physics, not only because it was based upon the well-known eigenfunction techniques of classical physics, but also because it was much more visualisable. His first attempt at interpreting the wavefunction appeared in the final Sect. 7 of the fourth part of his great series of papers (Schrödinger, 1926f) and was entitled On the physical significance of the field scalar.
For over a century, scientists have been fascinated by the strange behaviour of matter at the quantum level, where particles can exist in many states at once and affect each other instantly across distances. This paper explores this realm of quantum mechanics by focusing on wave–particle duality, superposition, entanglement and the measurement problem. It shows how these concepts defy the foundations of clas-sical physics to challenge assumptions about determinism, locality, interconnection and objectivity. The paper maintains that although quantum theory works remarkably well, we lack a clear account of what kind of reality it describes, as major interpretations such as Copenhagen, Many-Worlds and objective collapse still struggle to match quantum theory’s success with a clear picture of reality. yet as its major interpretations offer com-peting and unresolved pictures of the world. Schrödinger’s cat illustrates this tension to showcase how macroscopic systems can expose the limits of observation and the line be-tween classical and quantum worlds. The paper concludes that these quantum principles are underpinned by both technical and philosophical challenges and they force us to re-think causality and the role of the observer in explaining reality.