Quantum physics and scientific consensus

Thanks to Grok for the image.

I’ve been digging into quantum physics for the last few years, and more seriously for the last few months, and I’ve found it a fascinating and sometimes confounding topic. I’ll write more about it as a science in future posts, from a layman’s perspective. I’m nowhere near a quantum physicist.

For now, though, I want to discuss another conclusion that my study has led me to consider. Specifically, what constitutes a “scientific consensus” can be ever-shifting and hard to nail down. And what constitutes the “popular” notion of what is the scientific consensus — and by that I mean, what most people would say most scientists believe — can be diametrically opposed to reality.

In my experience, people in the wider culture think that quantum physics is defined by “quantum mechanics” (an often misused term) as applied to subatomic “particles.” I see it reflected most often in science fiction, with numerous stories, TV shows, and movies based on some of the interpretations of “paradoxical” results of various experiments including the observer effect, superposition, and entanglement. It’s also in the casual scientific media like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, and in mainstream media coverage by their “science” reporters.

Consider the Apple TV+ show “Dark Matter,” based on the novel by the same name. The following is a bit of a spoiler, although it’s all revealed fairly quickly. The story is based on the ideas suggested by the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment that Erwin Schrödinger devised as a reductio ad absurdum to demonstrate the fundamental irrationality of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Note that part specifically. The story — as do a great deal of contemporary references — takes the thought experiment as if it was meant as a statement of the true nature of reality, which it was not. It uses the literary device of the kind of box that Schrödinger described that housed a cat, a radioactive particle, a Geiger counter, and a vial of cyanide gas. Only in the story, rather than the cat being both alive and dead (really, a smear in between those two states) at the same time because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, anyone who goes into the box, suspends their consciousness and thus doesn’t cause the probability wave to collapse into reality, can select from the infinite number of universes to go into whichever reality one pleases.

Sort of. Or something. It’s a little jumbled, and to fully explain it, I would have to go into some of the basic theory. But that’s beyond the scope of this post.

I haven’t read the novel and so I can’t attest to what its author, Black Crouch, actually thinks quantum physics is all about. But the adaptation was quite clear. All of the paradoxes that Schrödinger was alluding to in his thought experiment to refute the Copenhagen interpretation are its literal description of reality. So, reality itself is fundamentally irrational.

As I said, in my experience, that’s what most people think quantum physics actually says. As an Objectivist with a very specific metaphysics — that is, the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of reality — this popular conception is disturbing. The consequence of these ideas, as popularly conceived, is that objective reality doesn’t exist, that existence isn’t primary but rather consciousness is, that the Law of Identify is invalid, and much more.

It was those consequences that led me to study quantum physics. Does science really say that my philosophy is false? Fortunately, it does not. Whew.

And what I’ve discovered so far is that quantum physicists don’t say that, either. At least, not most of them. Or that applied physicists — those who use the theories and the math to do things — simply don’t care about these questions and that theoretical physicists, by and large, don’t subscribe to them, exactly or at all.

In short, the scientific consensus that most people seem to believe exists either doesn’t fully exist or it doesn’t say what they think it does. Describing quantum physics as quantum mechanics based around subatomic particles isn’t actually what quantum physics is all about. Rather, it’s best described as the Standard Model of physics that derives from quantum field theory (QFT) mashed up with special relativity and integrating three of the four fundamental forces (the strong force, the weak force, and electromagnetism) but not yet gravity (as a force).

Don’t quote me here. I’m really simplifying things, because my goal isn’t to describe contemporary thought in quantum physics. Rather, it’s to point out that the old-school quantum mechanics and subatomic particles view — and the Copenhagen interpretation that created so many perceptions of paradoxes that has since been superseded — simply isn’t what constitutes a consensus among quantum physicists.

So, why do such outdated ideas persist? Why do people think there’s a scientific consensus that’s not actually there? Why, even, do some Objectivists apparently think that the only way to refute the irrationality of quantum physics is by jamming “classical physics” (and what does that really mean?) into places where it doesn’t actually apply? And why do some of them seem unaware of — or unwilling to accept — the very real fact that without quantum physics theory, most modern technologies wouldn’t exist?

I could give more examples. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) bases entire characters and storylines around those paradoxes. The Quantum Realm is used to describe the place where subatomic particles dwell and the “normal” rules of time and causation don’t apply and the “multiverse” can be entered into and out of. I mention that only to stress the point: people think that this is what quantum physics says.

Since it’s not, that if there’s a consensus it’s closer to the idea that the Standard Model applies and QFT can actually answer many if not all of the paradoxes and validate an objective reality, the Law of Identity, and more… Why do so many people think something so different?

Even more important, why do people think these things when it’s been over 50 years since quantum physics has actually said different things? Indeed, to provide a hint, why do people think the fundamental constituents of reality are actually particles, little balls of stuff — which is actually the source of the paradoxes themselves? That’s not what QFT says, and in its most consistent interpretation, QFT says that particles don’t exist at all.

I don’t really have an answer as to why. I can say that (apparently) Richard Feynman gave a talk at around the same time that Julian Schwinger gave a talk where he propped up the particle as opposed to Schwinger’s wholehearted support for fields. Feynman was a more dynamic and engaging speaker compared to Schwinger’s dry, mathematical presentation, and so it was Feynman’s ideas that held sway — ideas that he would later reject in aligning more closely with Schwinger’s view.

That’s hugely simplistic, of course. It’s hard to imagine that popular opinion could diverge so completely from scientific opinion such that an entire set of theories could be so unknown. And yet, here we are.

Quantum physics is pure science. Outside of philosophical concerns, it’s not controversial. There aren’t social and political forces at play, like there is with, say, climate science that is so incredibly political. Maybe people kind of like the idea of a weird universe where time travel is possible and there are an infinite number of different versions of themselves. At the very least, it makes for some cool science fiction.

But nobody is actively pushing a particular theory of quantum physics for purely political reasons. That leads me to wonder about climate science and catastrophic anthropogenic climate change (CACC, as I’ll refer to it) theory. Climate science is incredibly complex and, contrary to — once again — popular opinion on either “side,” is a legitimate and important field of study. Is CACC theory real, in the sense that mankind is destroying the planet or our ability to survive as a species? Is no climate change all occurring, or is mankind’s influence on it limited? If CACC is true, what’s the right response so that humans can continue to thrive?

I once thought that I knew the answers to these questions. Now, I’m not so sure. Seeing how the idea of scientific consensus can be so false in a field like quantum physics, I’ve discovered that I need to look deeper into climate science to ascertain for myself what’s the actual consensus and not what’s merely asserted by both or all sides of the CACC debate.

I’ve been saying this a lot as I roll out this Substack, but: stay tuned for more.