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Abbott, E. (1884). Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/201

Adams, D. (1995). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Ballentine.

Aspect, A., Grangier, P., & Roger, G. (1982). Experimental Realization of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm Gedankenexperiment: A New Violation of Bell’s Inequalities. Physical Review Letters, 49(2), 91–94.

Audretsch, J. (2004). Entangled World: The fascination of quantum information and computation. Wiley.

Baggot, J. (2013). Farewell to Reality: How fairytale physics betrays the search for scientific truth. Constable.

Barbour, J. (1999). The End of Time: The next revolution in physics. Oxford University Press.

Barrow, J. D. (2007). New theories of everything. Oxford University Press.

Bekenstein, J. D. (2003). Information in the Holographic Universe. Scientific American, 289(2), 58–65.

Bojowald, M. (2008). Follow the Bouncing Universe. Scientific American, October, 28–33.

Bolles, E. B. (1999). Galileo’s Commandment: 2,500 years of great science writing. W. H. Freeman.

Cho, A. (2000). Physicists Unveil Schrodinger’s SQUID. Science, 287(31 March).

Cox, B., & Forshaw, J. (2011). The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen. Allen Lane.

Davies, P., & Brown, J. R. (1999). The Ghost in the Atom. Cambridge University Press.

D’Espagnat, B. (1979). The quantum theory and reality. Scientific American, 241(5), 158–182.

Deutsch, D. (1997). The Fabric of Reality. Allen lane.

Einstein, A., Podolsky, P., & Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Phys. Rev., 47, 777–780.

Feynman, R. P., Leighton, R. B., & Sands, M. (1977). The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Addison-Wesley.

Greene, B. (2004). The Fabric of the Cosmos. Vintage Books.

Herbert, N. (1985). Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. Anchor Books.

Hoffman, D. (2020). The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes. Penguin Books.

Kwiat, P. G., Weinfurter, H., Herzog, T., Zeilinger, A., & Kasevich, M. A. (1995). Interaction-free Measurement. Phys. Rev. Lett., 74, 4763.

Laughlin, R. B. (2005). A Different Universe: Reinventing physics from the bottom down. Basic Books.

Lederman, L. M., & Hill, C. T. (2004). Symmetry and the beautiful universe. Prometheus Books.

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Mermin, N. D. (2009). Whats bad about this habit? Physics Today, May.

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The following questions are addressed in this chapter. They are better discussed in a group to allow a variety of opinions to emerge. The relevant section link is given after each question:

1. Why is light still a mystery to science? (QR3.1.1)

2. Is light made of waves, particles, or both? (QR3.1.2)

3. In Young’s experiment, does a photon go through both slits or just one? Give reasons. (QR3.1.3)

4. What is the main issue that Bohr’s Copenhagen dualism faces? (QR3.1.4)

5. What is meant by a Pinocchio theory? Is quantum mechanics an example? (QR3.1.5)

6. How do scientists know that light is a wave? (QR3.2.1)

7. What is meant by a three-dimensional Flatland? Could our world be so? (QR3.2.2)

8. According to current physics, is a photon a perpetual-motion machine? (QR3.2.3) 

9. Is the speed of light better described as the speed of space? (QR3.2.4)

10. What do X-rays, visible light, and radio waves have in common? (QR3.3.1)

11. Why does energy come in Planck units? Why does light come in photon units? (QR3.3.2)

12. Why does Planck’s constant also define the size of our space? (QR3.3.3)

13. If a quantum wave is a processing wave, how does it spread? (QR3.4.2)

14. According to quantum theory, does a photon have a quantum wave or is it one? (QR3.4.3)

15. Will hidden physical causes ever explain why photons hit a screen at random points? (QR3.5.1)

16. How can a quantum wave of any size collapse instantly to a point? (QR3.5.2)

17. Why does the power of a photon wave predict its probability of existing at a point? (QR3.5.3)

18. Can a particle always find the shortest path to any destination? (QR3.6.2)

19. How can a photon of light always find the shortest path to any destination? (QR3.6.3)

20. Why is the measured direction of quantum spin always random? (QR3.7.1)

21. Why doesn’t a filter that blocks horizontal polarized light block vertical polarized light? (QR3.7.2)

22. Why doesn’t a filter that stops most of a polarized light ray weaken those that pass it? (QR3.7.3)

23. How can quantum states superpose in physically incompatible ways? (QR3.8.1)

24. In quantum theory, observation creates physical reality, so is life just a dream? (QR3.8.2)

25. Do delayed choice experiments prove that the future can affect the past? (QR3.8.3)

26. Can light detect an object on a path it didn’t travel? Is this physically possible? (QR3.8.4)

27. How do entangled photons affect each other faster than light? (QR3.8.5)

28. Is our world distinguishable from a hologram? Why does a virtual reality require this? (QR3.8.6)

29. If there no evidence for the multiverse, why do many physicists accept it? (QR3.9.1)

30. Why is the observer necessary, even in physics? (QR3.9.2)

31. What is the quantum paradox? How has physics handled it? (QR3.9.3)

32. Does quantum theory deny realism, that there is a real world out there? (QR3.9.4)

33. Why does our evolution predispose us to deny the scientific search for truth? (QR3.9.5)

34. How does quantum theory reinterpret Socrates cave allegory in modern terms? (QR3.9.6)

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Plato’s cave is two-thousand year-old story that describes the human situation as like prisoners in a cave, chained so their backs face the entrance through which sunlight streams (Figure 3.27). The cave is dark so to see others, they look at their shadows cast on the cave wall, which over time they assume are real and act accordingly.

Socrates told this story to Plato to illustrate that the perceived world is like a shadow puppet-show, based on light from the Good that acts like our sun. The analogy has flaws, as the puppets making the shadows are presented as matter, but the concept that what we see is caused by what can’t see equates to the proposal that the physical world is a virtual reality, based on quantum theory.   

Quantum theory can now update Socrates vision in scientific terms, so the cave is physicalism, its walls are our space, the chains that bind were created by evolution, and the shadows on the cave wall are observations caused by physical events. This update avoids the need for contrived puppets, as our shadows collide when we do, so if the prisoners had a dog, it would be shadow-driven too. Socrates cave allegory is then supported by quantum theory today.

Modern physics sees itself standing in the sunlight of science before the dark cave of quantum theory, but Socrates would see physicists chained in the cave of physicalism, calling the shadows they see real, and denying both the quantum sunlight and that our space is just a surface.  

Why then don’t we turn from the shadows to see their cause? As Socrates explained, it is difficult because turning from darkness to sunlight is blinding. It hurts us to look at it, so we turn back to the shadows we know. Hence when Einstein tried, the quantum sunlight blinded him, so he looked back at the shadows to find hidden variables. Bohr tried too, but his impenetrable Copenhagen suit blocked out the quantum sunlight entirely, so he decided it was unreal.

Physics then decided that the quantum world was dangerous, even to imagine, so it quarantined it behind walls of equations that only initiates could read. It formed a quantum club, whose first rule is that there is no quantum world, to use the quantum light to predict our shadow future without looking at it. Socrates intuition, that a hidden light creates what we observe like shadows on a wall, is then denied by those with their backs to it, who use what they declare doesn’t exist.

Yet among the guards of quantum theory, the bravest still turn to try to catch a glimpse. For example, Wheeler compared quantum reality to a great smoky dragon (Wheeler, 1983), a fearsome beast that is powerful but mythical. In contrast, quantum realism proposes as Socrates would, that Wheeler’s great smoky dragon does exist and the world we see is its smoke (Figure 3.28). In this view, quantum reality isn’t a shadow world beyond physical reality, but the real world whose shadows are the physical events we see.

Table 3.3 compares quantum realism and physical realism for light, but if our universe began as light, how did matter arise? The next chapter addresses this question.

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Quantum theory describes a world of which Bohr said we must not speak, but some still wonder what the universe is like in the unmeasured state, when it isn’t being observed:

“Little has been said about the character of the unmeasured state. Since most of reality most of the time dwells in this unmeasured condition …the lack of such a description leaves the majority of the universe … shrouded in mystery.” (Herbert, 1985), p194.

The unmeasured universe is rarely discussed because it is considered unreal, but if the quantum ground generates physical events, it shouldn’t be. Quantum waves spread at light-speed until they overload the network of space in a physical event restart that lets them observe each other. Physical events are then few and far between amidst a constant press of quantum events, so by what logic are they the real universe? Surely reality is what is there most of the time? If the quantum flux is real, the events we see are like bubbles that occasionally appear and disappear.

It also follows that in-between physical events, there is no thing that continues, so the theory that matter is a constantly existing substance is false. The Buddhist statement that physical reality is empty, with no permanence existence in or of itself, is then valid even today.

Why then don’t most people, or scientists at least, see the world that way? One reason is that the gaps between physical events are too fast to observe, or were until recently. For example, we now know that molecules vibrate a million, billion times a second, faster than the eye can see. This is incredibly fast to us but very slow compared to the 10⁴⁵ quantum events a second that Planck time implies, so what we assume constantly exists is actually a flickering display. The quantum ground flashes visible events faster than we can observe, but relative to itself, they are still rare. 

Essentially, the physical world is an ultra-fast 3D hologram, but it still reflects the reality around us, and so satisfies the requirements of a local reality (1.2.6). When you kick a stone, it hurts because the result damages our body. We don’t need to know how this happens to respond to it, so evolution probably primed our species to perceive what we need to survive rather than the truth:

“You may want the truth, but you don’t need the truth. Perceiving truth would drive our species extinct. You need simple icons that show you how to act to stay alive. Perception is not a window on objective reality. It is an interface that hides objective reality behind a veil of helpful icons.” (Hoffman, 2020).

Hoffman’s interface theory is that our perceptions are like desktop icons, useful but not true. For example, a blue email icon on a screen doesn’t mean the program causing it is blue, so seeing an object icon on the screen of space doesn’t mean it is caused by objects. Indeed the opposite is expected, as icons protect users from unnecessary details, so if our perceptions are useful icons, they will hide reality from us, as they have for millennia.  

Evolution as the struggle to survive then focuses us on the veil of perceptions not the search for truth that is science. Hence humans acquired an intellect to survive in groups, not to understand reality, and the history of science reflects this. For example, we didn’t accept that unseen bacteria cause disease until microscopes let us see them, and when atoms were proposed, Mach opposed them because they couldn’t be seen. Yet today, science accepts atoms, quarks, black holes, and dark matter that no-one can see, so why not quantum waves?

We have come a long way in accepting the unseen but quantum theory is the ultimate frontier, so when it presented scientists with what can never be seen, they turned away. How can physical certainties come from quantum probabilities? Is the answer to life, the universe, and everything just a set of numbers? That the unmanifest causes the manifest is a step too far for physics based on physicalism, so after two thousand years of scientific struggle, it denies its best theory! The failure isn’t intellectual, as physicists calculate quantum equations to many decimal points, but creative, as they can’t comprehend a cause that isn’t physical. The remedy is quantum realism, that quantum events are real, and it has an unlikely precedent, as long ago some of us conceived what most of us today find inconceivable.

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Physicalism focuses on matter, so it concludes that:

“Observers have to be made of matter…Our description of nature is thus severely biased: we describe it from the standpoint of matter.” (Schiller, 2009), p834.

It is natural to assume the observer is made of matter if it is all around us, so the observer must be the same as the observed, but nothing in physics allows matter to experience physical events as we do. The conclusion that everything is physical, based on no evidence at all, then leads to:

“… the dogma that the concept of reality must be confined to objects in space and time…” (Zeh, 2004), p18.

This dogma, of physicalism, is built into the foundations of physics, but experiments deny it. Entanglement studies  based on the Bell test challenge one or more of the following axioms of current physics (D’Espagnat, 1979):

1. Realism. That “there is some physical reality whose existence is independent of human observers.” (D’Espagnat, 1979), p158.

2. Locality. That no influence of any kind can propagate faster than the speed of light.

3. Induction. That logical induction is a valid mode of reasoning.

These axioms are all accepted by physics, but the Bell experiment shows that at least one of them is wrong. If realism and induction are true, then locality must be wrong. If locality and induction are true, then reality isn’t physical. If realism and locality are true, then induction must be false. To this day, physics can’t explain the Bell experiment results that quantum theory predicts:

“According to quantum theory, quantum correlations violating Bell’s inequalities merely happen, somehow from outside space-time, in the sense that there is no story in space-time that can describe their occurrence:” (Salart et al., 2008), p1.

Physicalism has no story that explains the effects of quantum entanglement evident in nature, so the foundations it offers physics must be faulty. There has been no denial of this, so given a foundation fault, it should be fixed. The fix that quantum realism suggests is to remove the word “physical” from the first axiom, so it becomes:

Realism: That there is a reality whose existence is independent of human observers. 

Quantum realism now supports realism, that there is a reality around us independent of our observation, but adds that it is quantum. However it doesn’t support physical realism, that physical events are independent of us because by the measurement problem, they need an observational trigger. There is then still a real world around us, but it isn’t what we see.

This alteration lets reality exist in a way that fits the facts of science. For example, in the following statement:

“If one adopts a realistic view of science, then one holds that there is a true and unique structure to the physical universe which scientists discover rather than invent.” (Barrow, 2007), p124.

By the new axiom, the word physical isn’t needed, so it becomes: “If one adopts a realistic view of science …there is a true and unique structure to the universe which scientists discover rather than invent.” Our universe then still has a unique structure that scientists discover rather than invent, but it is quantum not physical. The reality now is that quantum events cause physical events, so all physical laws derive from quantum laws, as the evidence suggests. 

Quantum realism also modifies the second axiom by adding the word physical, so it becomes.

Locality: That no physical influence of any kind can propagate faster than the speed of light.

If locality applies only to physical influences, then entanglement doesn’t contradict it if it isn’t a physical influence. In this model, entanglement is based on a quantum wave restart that by the evidence occurs instantly, so Einstein’s law that no physical influence is faster than light still applies.

These alterations to the realism and locality foundations of physics let it not only withstand the facts of experiment but also leave the logical induction axiom intact, so the methods of science remain. A physics founded on quantum theory doesn’t have to deny nature or invoke miracles to explain it. 

Quantum realism, that quantum waves exist exactly as quantum theory describes, avoids the paradox that the unreal creates the real. It needs no particle-wave miracle because only quantum waves exist. Delayed-choice experiments now don’t imply reverse-time causality because light waves choose their physical path after they arrive. That light always finds the fastest path to any destination is no longer inexplicable because it takes every path. And the randomness of radioactivity doesn’t need a multiverse to explain it because choices can occur outside our domain. 

Fixing the foundations of physics has many benefits, and it makes the equations of physics real not imaginary, but it isn’t an easy option. Physicalism was the mother of physics, so like a child leaving home for the first time, it is a new venture: to explore the unknown beyond that is the unmeasured universe.

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The measurement problem in physics is that while Schrödinger’s equation determines how quantum waves evolve, how they collapse when measured is indeterminate, because how many quantum states instantly become one physical state is unknown. This problem was raised early last century and no progress has been made on the matter since:

“The history of the quantum measurement paradox is fascinating. There is still no general agreement on the matter even after eighty years of heated debate.” (Laughlin, 2005), p49.

Essentially, we know how quantum waves spread but not how they collapse, and but for this problem they could be real, as after all:

“… why not simply accept the reality of the wave function? (Zeh, 2004), p8.

This didn’t happen because quantum theory:

“… paints a picture of the world that is less objectively real than we usually believe it to be.” (Walker, 2000), p72.

In other words, quantum theory describes waves that collapse and restart in a way that is physically impossible, so if they are real, the jump of quantum collapse must be too:

“… if we are to take y [the quantum field] as providing a picture of reality, then we must take these jumps as physically real occurrences too…” (Penrose, 1994), p331.

Schrödinger tried to explain the quantum field physically but failed, as did all who came after him, because its waves superpose in physically impossible ways, entangle to ignore the speed of light limit, and instantly collapse to a point when observed. The problem is:

“How can something real disappear instantaneously?” (Barbour, 1999), p200.

When Pauli and Born defined the quantum field as the probability of a physical event, physics inevitably became about what wasn’t physical, so:

“For the first time in physics, we have an equation that allows us to describe the behavior of objects in the universe with astounding accuracy, but for which one of the mathematical objects of the theory, the quantum field y, apparently does not correspond to any known physical quantity.” (Oerter, 2006), p89.

The measurement problem, that quantum waves can’t be observed, then produces the paradox that what is unreal causes what is real, but as one physicist notes:

“Can something that affects real events … itself be unreal?” (Zeh, 2004), p4.

Quantum states predict physical states, and so produce them, but as Penrose says:

“How, indeed, can real objects be constituted from unreal components?” (Penrose, 1994), p313.

The quantum paradox is that if quantum unreality causes physical reality, what doesn’t exist causes what does, which is illogical. Something can’t come from nothing, but every physicist that uses a quantum equation assumes that it can. Physics, the bastion of science, is then based on the premise that unreal causes can have real effects.

For over a century, physics has faced this paradox like a deer in headlights, blinded by the brilliance of quantum theory but stuck in the orthodox position of physicalism. But as it stands there, its foundations are sinking in the shifting sands of paradox, so it’s time to move on, even if those wedded to the past don’t want to. 

To do this, it must avoid paradoxes that are based on false assumptions. For example, the object in Figure 3.26 seems to have two square and three round prongs, as at the top it has two square prongs, but at the bottom it has three round ones. This produces the paradox of an object with two and three prongs, which is impossible! The answer to this paradox isn’t to accept some sort of square-round duality, but to reject the false assumption that a line can bound both a square prong and a round prong simultaneously. When this false assumption is exposed, there is no paradox because the object is impossible in reality. 

Likewise, the quantum paradox that the unreal causes the real makes the false assumption that we see reality as it is. The solution then isn’t to institutionalize illogic by making quantum waves imaginary except for our equations, but to expose the fallacy entirely. If the assumption that particles explain how light behaves is rejected, then it is impossible for real matter to cause the effects of light. Quantum waves could then be the real cause both of light and matter, so there is no quantum paradox.

Quantum realism, that quantum events cause physical events, avoids the paradoxes of physicalism by making our reality a generated series of observation events, not a substance that self-exists. It works because processing waves can spread, superpose, collapse, and restart on a network, just as quantum theory describes. Quantum events are then unobservable because they create observation, which no physical theory can explain, but rejecting physicalism requires physics to change its foundations.

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Quantum theory works but is it scientific? After all, quantum waves aren’t observable:

“The full quantum wave function of an electron itself is not directly observable…” (Lederman & Hill, 2004), p240.

Nature’s firewall separates us from quantum waves because any attempt to observe them gives a physical event, but is a theory about what can’t be seen scientific? The doctrine that only “…what impinges on us directly is real” (Mermin, 2009), p9, suggests that it isn’t, because:

1. Science is about reality, not imaginary things like fairies.

2. Our reality is only what we can physically observe.

3. Thus, a theory about what can’t be observed is imaginary, and so it isn’t scientific.

By this logic, quantum theory isn’t scientific because it describes what we can’t see, yet it is the most successful theory in the history of physics! The flaw in the argument is the physicalist assumption that our reality is the only reality. Certainly physical reality is all we can observe, but that it is all reality is unproven. If reality is only what we see, then quantum theory isn’t scientific, but that is a big assumption. Physicalism implies that quantum theory isn’t scientific, but scientific theories aren’t limited to what we see, and never have been. For example, the theory of gravity is scientific but the space and time that cause gravity are constructs not observable things.

Science is actually based on empiricism, that knowledge should derive from experience not beliefs, as proposed by Lock and Hume. Scientific theories then only have to predict physical events, not be about them, so quantum theory is scientific because it does that.

The myth that science should only describe physical things is logical positivism, a philosophical derivative of materialism proposed in the 1920s. It argues as Mermin does that only what is observable is real, so science should be about nothing else. Anything else is imaginary, including thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, because we can’t see them. Its crusade to purge science of non-observables might seem good, but it makes most of mathematics unscientific because the unknown x of algebra, the infinitesimal dx of calculus, and even the triangle of geometry, aren’t physical things. Logical positivism is then physicalism masquerading as an axiom of science when it isn’t, and never was.

Positivism has failed every discipline that tried it e.g., behaviorism tried to reduce all psychology to behavior but failed to explain the productivity of language, as Chomsky showed. In computing, positivism can’t explain human-computer interaction (HCI) concepts like polite computing, or socio-technical concepts like group agreement. Today, physics is the last bastion of positivism, but even there it is failing because its theories need an unobservable observer, as quantum theory needs an observer to trigger quantum collapse and relativity needs an observer frame of reference.

According to positivism, science doesn’t need an observer because physical reality exists whether it is observed or not, so the observer is just a subjective concept that we made up because it can’t be seen. But if physics can’t ban the observer because its theories need it, why should other disciplines? Instead of an objective universe, Wheeler argues that we live in a participative universe whose every event is an observer-observed interaction, so to ban the observer is to ignore half of reality.

Quantum theory is scientific because scientific theories don’t need to describe physical things. After all, that we can’t see a ray of light from the side doesn’t make it not exist. Reality carries on whether we see it or not, and according to quantum theory, quantum events cause the physical events that we see, so an observation is just a view request, like a click in a game. The long-sought boundary between the classical and quantum worlds is then the click of observation, but this implies a measurement problem.

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According to quantum theory, radioactive atoms emit photons randomly, and they do. Quantum waves predict physical event possibilities but what actually happens is never certain because every physical event has a random element, so our universe isn’t a machine driven by physical laws.

Randomness seemed to undermine the laws of physics, so in 1957 Everett proposed the many-worlds interpretation, that every quantum possibility actually happens in another physical world, so if a photon is measured say spin up, another universe spawns where it is spin down. Nothing is then random because every quantum possibility actually happens somewhere, in what is now called the multiverse. Many-worlds theory in effect replaces the clockwork universe that quantum theory destroyed last century with a clockwork multiverse.

Everett’s idea was initially seen as absurd, as indeed it is, but physicists came to prefer it 3:1 over other views (Tegmark & Wheeler, 2001, p6) because it allows a mechanical world. But if every event of the estimated 4×1084 photons in our universe triggers a new universe, it isn’t hard to see that the:

“… universe of universes would be piling up at rates that transcend all concepts of infinitude.” (Walker, 2000), p107.

Many worlds theory doesn’t just offend Occam’s razor, it outrages it. Do you believe that in the time you took to read this sentence, billions of universes arose from the light that hit your eyes? Current physics does, and it is hard to see why a theory that isn’t testable and doesn’t predict any new facts is accepted so widely. To be clear, no facts at all support the multiverse, so its only value is to explain randomness in physical terms.

An attempt to rescue this zombie theory (Note 1) by letting a finite number of universes repartition after each choice (Deutsch, 1997) just recovers the original problem, as what chooses the worlds to drop? Is nature like a doting parent with a quantum camera that records everything our universe might do? The mechanical multiverse, like the mechanical universe, appeals to physicists, but fairy tales aren’t scientific (Baggot, 2013), nor is calling quantum theory a fairy tale good science!

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Note 1. Zombie theories make no new predictions and can’t be falsified. Like zombies, they have no progeny nor can they be killed by falsification, as they are already scientifically “dead”.

Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle concluded that our reality consists of:

“… a multitude of single things (substances), each of them characterized by intrinsic properties …” (Audretsch, 2004, p274).

This view, later called materialism, was simple, intuitive, and fruitful. It was simple because things then caused everything, it was intuitive because they then consisted of fundamental particles, and it was fruitful because studying matter made science grow.

Materialism as the ancestor of physicalism has served science well over the years but what worked in the past doesn’t always work today, as the harsh truth of particle physics is that it can’t explain how light behaves. A particle can’t go through two slits to interfere with itself but light can. A particle can’t detect an object without touching it but light can. A particle can’t always find the fastest path to any destination but light can. A particle can’t decide its path after it arrives but light can. Particles can’t interact faster than light but entangled photons can. Materialism is the mother of physics but now when reality bites, it has no answers.

Then along came quantum theory with all the answers based on quantum waves. It was perfect but for the fact that quantum waves are physically impossible. Nature confirmed quantum theory in every case but physics disowned it, based on its physical tradition, to instead believe in miracles and fairy tales.

3.9.1. Fairy Tales for Physicists

3.9.2. Quantum Theory is Science

3.9.3. The Measurement Problem

3.9.4. Beyond Physicalism

3.9.5. The Unmeasured Reality

3.9.6. Plato’s Cave

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