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Quantum mechanics is a funny theory. In many respects we don't understand it, but on the other hand we know how to apply it incredibly well, it is probably the most successful theory that we have. This makes it a very unique theory in that we obviously do understand very well because we can apply so well, it has very well defined rules, and yet we seem still to be perplexed by its philosophical problems. But even here within philosophy I don't really think it poses any real problems; it doesn't violate causality in any way, and yet it seems to be no local. To me these to facts are the key to us understanding QM, by which i actually mean interpreting it correctly. Causality is preserved by QM, locality is not. I think if enough inteligent people repeat those words to themselves as a mantra one of them will evidently provide us with a perfect interpretation of QM. I still have faith that one day the next great physicist will write a paper in which he explains the crystal clear meaning of QM in such a way that it will apear to us all to be just an extension of common sense.
My idea then is that we should probably have to give up so in grained piece of common sense tha is wired into our brains as true without us even taking a secound to consider its validity. I'm thinking here along the same lines as when einstein removed the idea of Newton's eternal clocking ticking away keeping time absolute for all observers. Before einstein this idea was unquestioned now to a trained physicist the idea seems laughable. I think the same should be true when we realize the true meaning of QM a preconception we had previously will seem to us so counterintuitive. At the moment the opposite is true it is QM that seems to defy our common sense. What i think may have go is reductionism. I think this is a particularly hard thing for us to give up because it is by redecionism that we can understand the world at all(in terms of science any way). To be able to describe the world we need to break it down into different elements. If however the true nature of the world is not separate elements interacting to form some whole but just simply the whole itself it makes perfect sense that when we describe "an atom" there should be some amount of uncertainty in that description simply because the description is incomplete. My point here is that we should only consider QM to be an actual description of reality when we apply it to a succifiently large system such that we are considering more of a whole system than an individual part. I by no means think that this idea alone is a satisfactory interpretation of QM it still seems that reductionism seems perfectly logical but i think when we laugh at reductionism(or more likely something connected to it but far more subtle) as much as we laugh at Newtons big clock in the sky we will have taken a giat leap down the yellow brick road.
My idea then is that we should probably have to give up so in grained piece of common sense tha is wired into our brains as true without us even taking a secound to consider its validity. I'm thinking here along the same lines as when einstein removed the idea of Newton's eternal clocking ticking away keeping time absolute for all observers. Before einstein this idea was unquestioned now to a trained physicist the idea seems laughable. I think the same should be true when we realize the true meaning of QM a preconception we had previously will seem to us so counterintuitive. At the moment the opposite is true it is QM that seems to defy our common sense. What i think may have go is reductionism. I think this is a particularly hard thing for us to give up because it is by redecionism that we can understand the world at all(in terms of science any way). To be able to describe the world we need to break it down into different elements. If however the true nature of the world is not separate elements interacting to form some whole but just simply the whole itself it makes perfect sense that when we describe "an atom" there should be some amount of uncertainty in that description simply because the description is incomplete. My point here is that we should only consider QM to be an actual description of reality when we apply it to a succifiently large system such that we are considering more of a whole system than an individual part. I by no means think that this idea alone is a satisfactory interpretation of QM it still seems that reductionism seems perfectly logical but i think when we laugh at reductionism(or more likely something connected to it but far more subtle) as much as we laugh at Newtons big clock in the sky we will have taken a giat leap down the yellow brick road.
This question was somewhat unexpected, given your popularity here and your background in high energy physics. I said "there is the less likely option that our understanding of physics might be screwed up". If you believe what you've been thought in physics is 100% correct, it's more than likely that it's not 100% correct and such an approach would be regarded as dogma in most circles. The fact that a theory makes correct predictions does not guarantee 100% that the theory is correct. I am more inclined to think that unless a theory makes intuitive predictions, it's probably wrong to some degree, incomplete or that the observed phenomena are being looked at from the wrong angle. And just like the theory that the Earth was the centre of the universe, scientists of the day managed to accurately predict the movement of the stars, but in a way that didn't make any intuitive sense. They had to invent things like 'epicycles' to explain the retrograde movement of the planets and had charts showing how the planets moved in corkscrew patterns for no apparent reason.