Why so much controversy around quantum theory? Because our well established scientific community (establishment), like all institutions, maintains a conservative spirit. I will be fair and recognize that our situation is way better than the situation 500 years ago in the Renaissance, when the Catholic establishment dogmatic attitude would have killed (literally) any rebel mind. But the point is, there's not a problem in the interpretation of QM (quantum mechanics), the problem is that the obvious interpretation runs against long and deeply established beliefs. The fathers of the new science were clever and used a very dry way to explain the mathematical formalism, it was a groundbreaking theory, but at the same time some essential concepts remained a mystery (measurement?). The “bare bones” interpretation was a good tactic because it was like a trojan horse, weird but acceptable.
“almost all relativistic equations which appear in Einstein's publication of 1905 were known already before, mainly through Lorentz, Fitzgerald and Poincaré - simply as an attempt to interpret experimental data quantitatively. But only Einstein created the conceptual foundations (...) He did this by introducing the principle of relativity, which asserts that the laws of physics must be the same in all inertial systems. I maintain that it is this very fact of the existence of such a fundamental principle on which the theory is built which is the reason for the observation that we do not see a multitude of interpretations of the theory of relativity. The situation is quite different in the case of quantum theory, where we do not have such a generally accepted principle which can serve as the foundation of the theory. Indeed, I would suggest that this is the very reason makes it possible that a variety of different interpretations -in the broader sense - coexist.” Anton Zeilinger, On the Interpretation and Philosophical Foundation of Quantum Mechanics, p.2
So, I will not accuse Bohr, Heisenberg and cia of cowardice, they are our heroes; but its time to move forward and make the big move. What is wrong with science is something bigger than science, it´s our philosophy. Our view of our relationship with Nature is wrong.
“By this I mean the thing that is also frequently called the 'hypothesis of the real world' around us. I maintain that it amounts to a certain simplification which we adopt in order to master the infinitely intricate problem of nature. Without being aware of it and without being rigorously systematic about it, we exclude the Subject of Cognizance from the domain of nature that we endeavour to understand. We step with our own person back into the part of an onlooker who does not belong to the world, which by this very procedure becomes an objective world. (...) It is the same elements that go to compose my mind and theworld. This situation is the same for every mind and its world, in spite of the unfathomable abundance of 'cross-references' between them. The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist.”
Schrodinger, WHAT IS LIFE? With MIND AND MATTER & AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, p. 118, p. 127
We are not the detached observers of Einstein and classical science, we are participants in a participatory universe as Wheeler put it.
Quantum mechanics is not a picture of the world, but a tool to deal with Nature, like the membrane in a cell or the big claws of a Tiger. The wavefunction doesn't describe a physical wave but represents in a mathematical way our knowledge of some system. Quantum states store our knowledge. QM doesn't deal with the object, but with the subject-object relation.
Reality is subjective, it arises from a free agent (like ourselves) interaction with the world, and the world is composed of many free agents. Our decisions (the choice of question/experimental setup in science jargon) are as undetermined as the responses of the other agent in the interaction, because of this fundamental uncertainty we have freedom, our freedom is the cause of the uncertainty.
The only law is that there's no Law. What we call physical laws are probabilistic descriptions of the many agents behaviour.
And why is it, that if reality is subjective we can talk with other agents about a common reality? Because once we interact we get entangled, and the entangled agents share some set of “beliefs” (states) about the world.
To interact is to measure, and to measure is to get entangled. We create reality at each instant via our participatory action.
This new insight is a crux in the history of science, we have established (ironically) uncertainty as a feature of the world, and our QM is a method to deal with that. We have also seen the limits of our method, by her nature, science cannot explain subjective experience essence, the qualia (the redness of red and so on...), only the (mathematical) relations between different “objects” of experience. As Wittgenstein said, we can only point to that mystery, the limits of our language point to it.
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