ABSTRACT
The primitive connection between mathematics and the physical world make use of everyday experience at the macroscale. With quantum phenomena, one encounters a regime far removed from ordinary experience. One relies on laboratory experiments to define the quantum world; the experimental process refines ordinary everyday experiments such as for counting and logic. One cannot expect to find results that appeal to ‘‘common sense.’’ Here, one must make a choice as to whether the new situation can be described by existing mathematical infrastructure or it requires the invention of new infrastructure. In either case, one must set up a mathematical system, which exists only in the human mind, in order to describe the system of nature. That is, ‘‘mathematics belongs to and exists in the human mind whereas nature belongs to God.’’ Mathematics and nature have separate but intertwined existences. As will become evident later, one must allow for the possibility that human observation (a physical process, not a mathematical one) can affect the state of the natural system.
