Delirium Quantum Or, Where I Will Take Quantum Mechanics If It Will Let Me

Once again, I take advantage of the wonderfully liberal and tolerant mood Andrei Khrennikov sets at his yearly conferences by submitting a nonstandard paper for the proceedings. This pseudo-paper consists of excerpts drawn from two of my samizdats [Quantum States: What the Hell Are They? and Darwinism All the Way Down (and Probabilism All the Way Back Up) ] that I think best summarize what I am aiming for on the broadest scale with my quantum foundations program. Section 1 tries to draw a picture of a physical world whose essence is “Darwinism all the way down.” Section 2 outlines how quantum theory should be viewed in light of that, i.e., as being an expression of probabilism (in Bruno de Finetti or Richard Jeffrey’s sense) all the way back up. Section 3 describes how the idea of “identical” quantum measurement outcomes, though sounding atomistic in character, nonetheless meshes well with a William Jamesian style “radical pluralism.” Sections 4 and 5 further detail how quantum theory should not be viewed so much as a “theory of the world,” but rather as a theory of decision-making for agents immersed within a quantum world—that is, a world in continual creation. Finally, Sections 6 and 7 attempt to sketch once again the very positive sense in which quantum theory is incomplete, but still just as complete is it can be. In total, I hope these heady speculations convey some of the excitement and potential I see for the malleable world quantum mechanics hints of.