QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

Preface
Even when I was at school, I found modern physics interesting. It appeared to me that the
theories of relativity and quantum mechanics were part of a search for fundamental and almost
incomprehensible profoundities in nature which I wanted to understand better. My studies of
particle physics and preliminary examinations of particle collisions in the bubble chamber
images at the Helsinki University Department of High Energy Physics offered new insights to
the basic natural symmetries controlling composite events: the wild spectrum of particles born
out of collisions could only come into being exactly as permitted by a few basic laws of
conservation. I learned to trust the precision of the physical method. I had not the slightest doubt
that all of the phenomena encountered in nature would, sooner or later, be explainable on the
basis of physical laws. Natural science appeared to have provided a much more credible and
even more comprehensive picture of the basis for reality than the imperfect and unsubstantiated
speculations based on human nature provided by natural philosophers or mystics throughout
human history.
Little by little, however, I learned that the basic questions concerning the fundamental nature of
reality, the ones that interested me most, lacked clear answers. Courses in quantum mechanics
taught me how to solve wave functions in a variety of situations, but no-one explained their real
meaning. References to the role of theory as a mathematical instrument for prediction, or
discourses on probability waves and the indeterminate nature of the world resulted in more
questions than answers. When I eventually resorted to the philosophy of science, I realised that
simple answers simply did not exist. Almost a century of debate concerning the interpretation of
quantum mechanics had not even resulted in a consensus on whether there were problems with
the subject or not.
In the Department of Philosophy, I came to realise that physical facts were of necessity based on
theory and more or less coloured by them, that theory had to be evaluated and examined in the
light of external and more general criteria, and that these criteria reflected fundamental
ontological and epistemological beliefs which were neither final or immutable. When examining
and interpreting the basic physical theories, it is not even possible to be certain that either the
language or the logical arguments we employ represent reality as it truly exists. Since quantum
theory and the new elements associated with it can be interpreted in so many ways, I was no
longer surprised that Instrumentalism and Positivism had become so popular with pragmatic and
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