QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

In spite of the mathematical accuracy and precision of physics’ new theories, it is difficult to
formulate a clear and explicit view of the nature of reality on the abstract theoretical foundation
that they offer. When some of quite basic and fundamental problems in particle physics has
remained unsolved for more than a quarter of century in spite of massive and continuous
attempts to achieve this, it has been suggested, every now and then, that the solution of these
internal questions of physics would require an adequate clarification of the foundation for
quantum mechanics, i.e. an clear interpretation of the theory. 488 The problems of interpreting
quantum theory and its wider implications associated with the conception of reality have
received much less attention than the development of the standard model of physics. For one
reason or another, the comprehensive but abstract theory has not purposefully been used as a
“window on reality”, even though a successful physical theory can, with good reason, be
expected to achieve a hold on reality or reflect its structure in some way or another.
Regardless of the problem of interpretation, quantum thoery is succesfully used in the handling
of many concrete phenomena. For a long time, physicists have been applying the new features of
quantum theory in an unambiguous manner to actual situations in both technical articles and
research proposals. Handling the new features of the theory in a mathematical way is
unequivocal, even though the clear understanding of observations and their presentation in
natural language has proved to be difficult. Almost unnoticed, quantum mechanics and the
concept of quantum field have changed physicists’ conception of reality completely from the
common everyday idea of a world haunted by Newtonian billiard balls. 489 For philosophers
seeking realism, modern physical theories and new experimentally observed phenomena are
brimming with new material for the formation of ontological and metaphysical hypotheses
concerning the nature of reality.
487
Treiman 1999, 230. The exact number of parameters varies and depends on the way in which they are counted.
Among the parameters are six quark masses and six lepton masses, the charge of an electron, angles, coupling
constants etc.
488
For example Selleri 1990, 4.
489
Auyang 1995, 4. In response to my presentation, a physicist once challenged the need for any interpretation
because a particle and a field are the same thing.
490
In recent years more accurate books has been published that makes the basic ideas of quantum physics availeble
to a larger public, see for example Treiman 1999. General surveys of quantum formalism in concise form are also
available in Forrest 1988, Herbert 1985 and Hodgson 1991.
189