Quantum theory works but is it good science? 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 just gives a point physical event, so 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. The only reality is 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 can’t be seen, yet it is the most successful theory in the history of physics! The flaw in the argument is the second statement, that only what we see is real, which is materialism. It is true that what we see is our only reality, but that it is the only reality has never been proven. If only what we see is real, and science is about reality, then quantum theory isn’t scientific, but that we see all reality is just an assumption. The fact is that scientific theories aren’t restricted to what we can observe, and never have been.
For example, the theory of gravity is scientific but we don’t observe gravity, just its effects. Science is actually based on empiricism, as proposed by Lock and Hume. Empiricism is the idea that knowledge comes from experience not beliefs, so theory should be based on practice. Scientific theories then only have to predict physical events, not be about them, so quantum theory is scientific because it does just that.
The myth that science must only describe physical things is logical positivism, a philosophical movement based on materialism that began in the 1920s. It proposes that only what we observe exists, so science should be about nothing else. Rather than talking about thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that we can’t see, why not focus on what we can? Purging science of non-observables seemed good until it was realized that it made most mathematics unscientific, as the unknown x of algebra, the infinitesimal dx of calculus, and even the triangle of geometry, aren’t physical things. Logical positivism is materialism masquerading as an axiom of science when it isn’t, and never was.
This is why positivism didn’t work for any discipline that tried it. Behaviorism tried to reduce all psychology to behavior, until Chomsky showed that it couldn’t explain the productivity of language. Applying positivism to computing would deny human-computer interaction (HCI) concepts like polite computing, and socio-technical concepts like group agreement. Today, physics is the last bastion of positivism, but even there it is failing because it can’t do away with the concept of the observer.
According to logical positivism, physical reality exists objectively, whether it is observed or not, so it should be described that way. The observer is then a subjective concept that has no place in science because it can’t be seen. Unfortunately, the two main theories of modern physics both assume that the observer exists, as quantum theory needs an observer to trigger physical events, and relativity needs an observer frame of reference. If the attempt to ban the observer doesn’t work in physics, how can it work in other disciplines? Instead of an objective universe that we can impartially describe, modern physics now suggests that we live in a participative universe, where every physical event is an observer-observed interaction, so to ignore the observer is to ignore half of reality.
Quantum theory is scientific because science doesn’t have to describe physical things. After all, a ray of light can’t be seen from the side, but that doesn’t make it not exist from the side. Reality carries on whether we see it or not, and according to quantum theory, even causes what we see. If so, every observation is a quantum request for a physical view, just as every click in a game is a view request. The long-sought boundary between the classical and quantum worlds is then the click of observation, but this produces what physics calls the measurement problem.