Abstract
Quantum physics demands some radical revision of our fundamental beliefs about physical reality. We know that because there are certain verified physical phenomena—two-slit interference, the disappearance of interference upon monitoring, violations of Bell’s inequality—that have no classical analogs. But the exact nature of that revision has been under dispute since the foundation of quantum theory. I offer a method of clarifying what the commitments of a clearly formulated physical theory are, and apply it to a discussion of some options available to account for another non-classical phenomenon: the Aharonov–Bohm effect.
Highlights
Metaphysicians rightly look to physics for insight into the nature of the physical world
For example, famously opined that the progress of physics marched inexorably toward locality, in the ontology and even in the laws: If one asks what, irrespective of quantum mechanics, is characteristic of the world of ideas of physics, one is first of all struck by the following: the concepts of physics relate to a real outside world, that is, ideas are established relating to things such as bodies, fields, etc., which claim “real existence” that is independent of the perceiving subject—ideas which, on the other hand, have been brought into as secure a relationship as possible with the sense data
What we need to make clear are the physical ontology, the spatiotemporal structure, and the nomology of the theory, by means of presenting the mathematical representation of these various elements along with a commentary that relates the mathematical representation to the physical item it is meant to represent
Summary
Metaphysicians rightly look to physics for insight into the nature of the physical world. The effect (once it was verified) suggested that the electromagnetic scalar and vector potentials, which were regarded as mere mathematical artifacts in the classical theory, should be regarded instead as “physically real”, while the electric and magnetic fields, which were the basic ontology of Maxwell’s theory, should be somehow ontologically downgraded. Practicing physicists nowadays are likely to direct a student asking such questions to the philosophy department. The way this plays out in quantum theory over questions such as the status and “reality” of the wave function is well known, and I do not propose to plow that over-farmed soil yet again here. Benefits accrue on both the conceptual and heuristic sides One requires this sort of clarity to truly understand a physical theory.
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