On Quantum Mechanics

No, "Quantum Mechanics" is not the name of a reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh.

A lot of people get a thrill out of quantum mechanics because it violates so many common-sense notions that seem to hold true in the "big" world. I've never really liked it, however. And lately I've done some reading that makes me think we got it wrong.

The aspect of quantum mechanics I don't like is the idea that sub-atomic particles don't possess definite states, such as energy and position, but instead possess probability distributions of state.

After reading some of the ideas of Carver Mead, I'm of the disposition that perhaps the use of statistics is a response to the physical limits of measurement. That is, the nature of matter imposes a size threshold below which we cannot measure. It may be a good method for making predictions about sub-atomic behavior, but it probably doesn't represent physical reality.

[And I may be simply re-stating what Mead has written, but without the math. I tend more toward the philosophical approach.]

My suspicions are somewhat corroborated by the idea that statistics are employed at the macro level not to describe specific mechanisms or facts, but rather to bound or contain them. It could be that the use of statistics to describe sub-atomic behavior is a way to bound or enclose the behavior that we can measure, but it really doesn't tell us what is going on inside the black box, or beyond the limits of detection.

I just don't like the assertion that probability is reality at the sub-atomic level.

More later...