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.
We assume the observer is made of matter because we see it all around us, so what observes must be the same, but nothing in physics lets matter experience physical events. Based then on no evidence at all, physicalism assumes that everything is physical, even the space and time that evidence suggests are human constructs, leading 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 quantum theory denies 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 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 results 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, defined as 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 change lets reality exist in a way that doesn’t challenge Bell’s result by denying the evidence of science. For example, consider 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.” The universe then still has a true and unique structure that scientists discover rather than invent, but it is quantum not physical. This only requires that quantum events cause physical events, so all physical laws follow from quantum laws, which the evidence suggests is true.
Quantum realism also changes 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 quantum collapse isn’t a physical influence. In this model, quantum collapse is a process restart that occurs faster than light, so Einstein’s law that no physical influence is faster than light still apples.
These changes to realism and locality provide foundations for physics that aren’t denied by experiment. They also leave the axiom of logical induction intact and with it, the methods of science, so a physics founded on quantum theory doesn’t deny what nature does or need miracles to work.
Quantum realism is that quantum waves exist exactly as quantum theory describes. It avoids the quantum paradox by making quantum events real and physical events virtual. 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 when 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 quantum choices occur outside our space.
Abandoning physicalism to fix the foundations of physics then has many benefits, including that the equations of physics are real not imaginary, but it isn’t an easy option. Physicalism was the mother of modern physics, so to abandon it is like a child leaving the safety of home for the first time to explore the unknown world beyond, which some call the unmeasured universe.