Essay Review Classical Versus Quantum Ontology

Quantum mechanics faces a strange dilemma. On the one hand it has long been claimed to be an irreducibly statistical theory, allowing the calculation of measurement outcome statistics while being unable to predict the behaviour of individual microphysical processes. On the other hand, quantum mechanics has been increasingly used, with stunning success in the past few decades, to gain experimental control over individual objects on an atomic scale. The old philosophical debates among physicists over the interpretation of quantum mechanics have thus reached a new stage where conceptual questions have obtained more precise formulations and former Gedanken experiments have been turned into actual experiments. This situation has given an enormous boost to research into the foundations of quantum mechanics, leading to a variety of promising approaches towards a satisfactory theoretical account of individual microphysical phenomena. It is not clear at present whether such an account requires a modification of the standard quantum formalism or whether it can be achieved within that formalism, on the basis of a consistent realist, individual interpretation. D. Home’s book is devoted to contributing towards a clarification of this question. It is evidently written by an inspired and established participant in the ongoing quest to understand quantum mechanics and its description of the physical world. The author openly admits to his own, Bohmian ontological, preference; but in no place does the book become dogmatic about this although