Physical Reality: Transcendental Physics or Experimental Metaphysics

Abstract

The pretersensual part of physical reality includes not only theories and conceptions, but also the objective reality itself, viz., being as defined not by man alone. As far as conceptions of the physical reality are concerned, they are subject to experimenting. Experimentation, however, serves to verify the metaphysical conceptions as well – consider the theories of Parmenides (integrity and continuity) and Democritus (atomism, the reduction of a whole to its parts) as an example. This paper examines one of the latest examples of theories put to verification: the famous argument between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, each of whom shared different metaphysical conceptions. Experimental analysis of the metaphysical conceptions of physical reality has shown that future physical theories must be both local (Democritus’ metaphysics) and inseparable (Parmenides’ metaphysics).