The stuff the world is made of : physics and reality ∗ Diederik Aerts

Taking into account the results that we have been obtained during the last decade in the foundations of quantum mechanic we put forward a view on reality that we call the ‘creation discovery view’. In this view it is made explicit that a measurement is an act of a macroscopic physical entity on a microphysical entity that entails the creation of new elements of reality as well as the detection of existing elements of reality. Within this view most of the quantum mechanical paradoxes are due to structural shortcomings of the standard quantum theory, which means that our analysis agrees with the claim made in the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paper, namely that standards quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory. This incompleteness is however not due to the absence of hidden variables but to the impossibility for standard quantum mechanics to describe separated quantum entities. Nonlocality appears as a genuine property of nature in our view and makes it necessary to reconsider the role of space in reality. Our proposal for a new interpretation for space makes it possible to put forward an new hypothesis for why it has not been possible to unify quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equally without relation to anything external. Isaac Newton, 1642 1726. ∗Published as: Aerts, D., 1999, “The stuff the world is made of: physics and reality”, in Einstein meets Magritte: an interdisciplinary reflection, eds. Aerts, D., Broekaert, J. and Mathijs, E., Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht.