Einstein assumed like Newton that light particles follow a fixed path from source to screen, so where it hits should be perfectly predictable, but it isn’t, as photons shot in the same way don’t all hit a screen at the same point. Quantum theory explains this by saying that each photon hits the screen at a point randomly chosen from its possibilities. Einstein then concluded that there were two options: either quantum theory was wrong or there were hidden physical causes:
“This is the fundamental problem: either quantum mechanics is incomplete and needs to be completed by a theory of hidden quantities, or it is complete and then the collapse of the wave function must be made physically plausible. This dilemma has not been solved until today, but on the contrary has become more and more critical.” (Audretsch, 2004), p73.
This problem, which Einstein raised and Bohr covered up, still haunts physics today. All attempts to find physical variables that explain quantum randomness have failed, as have all attempts to show that quantum theory is incomplete. The problem that quantum theory works perfectly but allows random events with no physical cause then remains to this day.
What then is the resolution? Both theories, that quantum theory is incomplete or that it is physical, have led nowhere, so the answer must lie elsewhere. Physicalism assumes that quantum theory is either incomplete or physical, but if it is wrong, quantum theory could be true and non-physical. We know that quantum theory always works, and we know that it can’t be physical, so perhaps both are true. If so, we can’t find hidden variables to explain randomness because there are none, and we can’t find a fault in quantum theory because there is none. If quantum events create physical events, as proposed here, then randomness could arise from outside the physical domain.
For example, the laws of Minecraft don’t define where we add a block, nor do the laws of chess define where we move a piece, because that is outside their domain. If I turn off a game or tip over a chess board, it is an action that has no cause within the game. A created scenario can’t explain effects that arise outside itself, so perhaps physical laws can’t explain randomness for the same reason, but why is it triggered by quantum collapse?