QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

oth by our beliefs and by our theories. 764
5. Conclusions
The attempt to create a unified portrayal of reality in which all the phenomena we encounter in
the world can be understood and explained via natural terms has been the prime motivator for
natural philosophy. Since the beginning of modern era science has provided us empirically tested
reliable knowledge concerning the fundamental laws and regularities in reality. There is no
reason to believe that anything happens in the world is not as permitted by natural laws. The
comprehensive theories of physics are the best tools we have and they should be taken as a
fundamental starting point for the understanding of whole reality. Even though ontological
conclusions cannot automatically be made on the basis of physics and the scientific method of
approach to understanding the internal reality of humans is still less than adequate, philosophical
analysis and description concerning real phenomena should be based on empirical foundation. 765
A method of approach based on natural science does not mean an inevitable commitment to the
mechanistic-deterministic conception of reality or a particle-mechanistic way of thinking. The
prolonged debate concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics has made it clear that the
mechanistic-deterministic concept of reality associated with classical physics is not tenable.
Later interpreters have not been able to salvage the dualistic and deterministic portrayal of reality
with their auxiliary hypotheses, on the contrary, the need for a change in the conception of reality
that was included in the Copenhagen interpretation has proved to be justified. New internal
dependencies detected between observables, which manifest both in the new types of
commutational rules in conjugated variables and empirically-observable non-local connections
are facts whose reality can no longer be disputed after the many new experimental results testing
Bell’s inequality and large quantum systems, even though these phenomena cannot be
understood within the framework of mechanical methods of investigation employed previously.
763
Stewart and Gikubitsky 1993, 15-17, 54.
764
This aims to provide an ontological approach: how the whole of reality can be understod on the basis of modern
knowledge.
765 Some philosophers believe that the scientific approach is not relevant when examining human subjectivity. For
example, in a response to my earlier article, Sami Pihlström argued that questions concerning human agency,
freedom and ethics are far more important than scientific descriptions and explanations of the world. In his opinion,
such questions cannot be defended or refuted by scientific means but should be investigated at a transcendental level
in accordance with the ideas of Kant. See Pihlström 2002, 107-109.
287