The Concept of "Reality" in Quantum Mechanics and its Effect on Mind

The concept of reality is one of the challenges we are concerned about nowadays in the philosophy of physics. In fact, this challenge has risen with the advent of quantum mechanics, a challenge that frustrated Einstein with quantum mechanics, of which he was a co-founder, and led him to consider it incomplete (EPR, 1935). According to Einstein, due to this "incompleteness", quantum mechanics -in addition to the standard variables- needs complementary variables that are hidden. These kinds of hidden variables theories are not discussed here. The purpose of this paper is to study the concept of reality in standard quantum mechanics that considers its dominant interpretation, i.e. the Copenhagen interpretation with the principal contribution of Bohr and Heisenberg. This interpretation is very close to logical positivism and the Vienna circle; but it is not. Therefore, in this article, we will examine the views of Bohr and Heisenberg and scientific positivism and their interpretation of "reality." There are elements of reality that are not affected by our knowledge, they have been criticized by empiricist and positivist philosophers, who believe that in any case "physical reality" cannot be more than what we know about it and we are talking about it. This interpretation of "reality" which is based on intersubjectivity, in the second half of the twentieth century, has been influential in other sciences from chemistry to literature and has become a paradigm, also it has affected the human mind. In modern social science "construction of social reality" can be made by something that everyone knows or a "collective intentionality". In reality, this criterion leads humans to the creation of "hyperreality" -a valid forgery or a copy without origin- instead of "reality". "hyperreality" is defined as the conscious inability to distinguish between "simulation" and "reality", especially in advanced postmodern industrial societies, where reality and imagination are entangled and indistinguishable (Baofu, 2009).

Method of Study: 

A comparative method has been used between physics and social science to show how the concepts and paradigms in physics could affect the human mind.

As a result of this research, base of some misconceptions in the modern era have been extracted and also shown their effects, for example, bliss is misunderstood, and a high rate of suicide in modern countries is a consequence of it.

Although quantum mechanics has had experimental successes, its interpretations have fundamental and unanswered problems, and these two (experimental successes of quantum mechanics and interpretations) are two completely independent and separate things that it is wrong to equate them. This mistake has led to the authenticity of anti-realist philosophies. Thus, "weak objectivity" has become the criterion of all reality. The requirement of weak objectivity is communicable", that is, the reality is intersubjective. Hence, in science, "communicability" is the measure of existing scientific reality. Regarding this definition of scientific reality, for example, the media can construct a "social reality" in what is made as "collective intentionality" which is not real, it is a "hyperreality".