QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

interpretation of the character of reality that lies behind these theoretical representations. It is
also highly arguable whether there is any form of “transcendental” reality beyond immediate
observation.
Even if, since Galilei, it has often been said that the Book of Nature is written in mathematical
language, many physicists nowadays understand mathematics as an abstract tool or instrument.
Bohr also, in line with the Positivism of his time, understood mathematics as more an instrument,
a tool for systematising observations and for use in forecasting. He evaluated the correctness of
earlier metaphysical presuppositions using the new theory and experimental results as a
foundation, but perhaps fearful of making errors, did not wish to postulate any new metaphysical
ideas. In this, he was essentially left bound to the complementary fragments of the earlier
comprehensive model, and it was not possible to link the fragments together at the level of
empirical observations in any way. Nevertheless, Bohr on the other hand saw that even though it
is not possible for us to avoid complementary descriptions when we are describing phenomena
we have observed with classical concepts, mathematics appears to be a better way of addressing
reality: its precise and explicit language are well suited to empirical experimental results, as if
directly penetrating behind the world of observations. In fact, it was the mathematical formalism
of quantum mechanics which demonstrated that the area of applicability of classical concepts
was limited. Quantum theory addresses the fundamental entanglement which exists in the
phenomena being investigated and reveals the inadequacy of the particle-mechanics space-time
description. 783 Even though to Bohr, mathematics was a language, he did not attempt to describe
the reality it portrays in another, more observation-oriented language. Bohr’s complementary
portrayals are restricted to the world of phenomena and, in essence, offered different viewpoints
on the processes taking place there.
According to the Realistic approach to mathematical theory, it is believed that something in
nature corresponds to the abstract mathematical representation. This provides a strong argument
that the fundamental entity of quantum mechanics, the state-function, is also an abstract
representation which corresponds something in reality even if it transcends direct observation.
The fundamental nature of the state-function gives us reason to suspect that the reality addressed
by quantum theory is not limited solely to objects manifested in classical time and space. If we
believe that this mathematical entity is addressing some structure which lies behind the
observable world, there is nothing to stop us from attempting to also provide a metaphysical
783 Even if the Schrödinger equation includes a description of space-time, non-classical configuration space holds a
301