QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

knowledge of reality, an interpretation emphasised by K.V.Laurikainen, who was well
acquainted with Pauli’s thoughts in particular. 593
Even though the concept of the ontological nature of the wave function remained obscure, the
Copenhagen group agreed that the wave function makes quantum mechanics a holistic theory. In
an experiment involving ’similar’ and ’similarly-prepared’ particles, the state function combines
individual events into a whole. Individual particles have the property of behaving statistically in
the way described by the wave function, and the wave can only be demonstrated by using a very
great number of ’similar particle events’. They believed that this was an expression of the very
essence of reality and that there was no reason to expect that this feature would be eliminated by
a future development of the theory. The new physics was essentially statistical by nature. The
classical concept of causality was inapplicable and for human beings, the world was not totally
predictable. Pauli in particular stressed statistical causality and statistical laws as the most
characteristic feature of quantum mechanics. 594
At first, Bohr used to say that ”causality is not valid in microphysics” but avoided the phrase
after 1957 when the Soviet Academian V.A. Fock visited Copenhagen and pointed out that there
are laws even in microphysics although they are of a different kind to those of macrophysics.
From the very beginning, Bohr, however, emphasised that causality must be generalized to the
’framework of complementarity’. In practice, this generalization means the idea of statistical or
probabilistic causality. 595 Bohr believed that statistical laws and complementarity were linked to
the fact that the particle description and wave description had to be associated with one and the
same object. This fact implied that the concept of ’object’ was obscured at the microscopic level
and that the classical space-time description became unambiguous.
4.3.2. Niels Bohr’s epistemological lesson and the framework of complementary
Bohr emphasized the epistemological lesson given by quantum theory and considered his
doctrine of complementarity in an obvious way resulting from the new situation encountered in
593
When criticising realism, K.V. Laurikainen often used the statement that natural science only describes our
knowledge. He saw that by interpreting matter waves (i.e. the state function of quantum mechanics) as describing
our knowledge of reality, the paradoxes of quantum theory disappear. The unpredictable reduction of the statefunction
happens only in our consciousness as our knowledge of the situation changes. Laurikainen 1997, 36-37.
594
Laurikainen 1997, 37, 40-41.
595
Laurikainen 1997, 40.
225