Bell’s experiment tested the following axioms of current physics (D’Espagnat, 1979):
1. Physical 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 travel faster than the speed of light.
3. Induction. That logical induction is a valid mode of reasoning.
The result showed that one or more of these assumptions must be wrong. If physical realism and induction are true, then locality must be wrong. If locality and induction are true, there can’t be a real physical world out there. If physical realism and locality are true, then logical induction must be false. To this day, physics has not resolved this issue:
“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
Quantum realism resolves the quantum paradox by changing the first two axioms as follows:
1. Remove the word “physical” from the first axiom so it becomes:
That there is a physical reality whose existence is independent of human observers
This permits a quantum reality to exist independent of human observers.
2. Add the world “physical” to the second axiom so it becomes:
That no physical influence of any kind can propagate faster than the speed of light.
This permits quantum collapse to occur instantly as server-client effects aren’t physical influences, so Bell’s results no longer contradict locality.
The result is that a statement of scientific realism such as:
“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
now becomes instead:
“If one adopts a realistic view of science, then one holds that there is a true and unique structure to the universe which scientists discover rather than invent.”
Quantum realism agrees there is a true and unique structure to the universe that scientists discover rather than invent but the physical world we see just reflects it. Physical realism was the mother of physics but every child leaves its mother at some point, and quantum realism is that point.