238 Structure of the quantum world

the limbo of simultaneous combination of 'cat dead' and 'cat alive'. (I shall
discuss this kind of paradox in §6.6; cf. §6.9, Fig. 6.3, and ENM pp. 290--3 .)
It is not infrequently contended that the difficulties that our present
generations have in coming to terms with the quantum theory are purely a
result of our being wedded to our physical concepts of the past. Accordingly,
each successive generation would become more attuned to these quantum
mysteries, so after sufficiently many generations they would become able to
accept them all without difficulty, whether they be Z-mysteries or X-mysteries.
My own view, however, differs fundamentally from this.
I believe that the Z-mysteries are things that we might indeed get used to
and eventually accept as natural, but that this will not be the case for the
X-mysteries. In my opinion, the X-mysteries are philosophically unacceptable,
and arise merely because the quantum theory is an incomplete theory-or,
rather, because it is not completely accurate at the level of phenomena at
which the X-mysteries begin to appear. It is my view that, in an improved
quantum theory, the X-mysteries will simply be removed (i.e. crossed off) the
list of quantum mysteries. It is merely the Z-mysteries in whose presence we
must learn to snooze peacefully !
Bearing this in mind, there may well be some question as to where to draw
the line between the Z-mysteries and the X-mysteries. Some physicists would
contend that there are no quantum mysteries that should be classified as
X-mysteries in this sense, and that all the strange and seemingly paradoxical
things that the quantum formalism tells us to believe must actually be true of
the world if we look at it in the right way. (Such people, if they are entirely
logical and if they take seriously the 'quantum-state' description of physical
reality, would have to be believers in some form of'many-worlds' viewpoint, as
will be described in §6.2 . In accordance with this viewpoint, Schrodinger's
dead cat and his live cat would inhabit different 'parallel' universes. If you
looked at the cat, then there would be copies of you, also, in each of the two
universes, one seeing a dead cat and the other a live cat.) Other physicists
would tend towards an opposite extreme, and would contend that I have been
too generous with the quantum formalism in agreeing with it that all the EPR­
type puzzles that will be concerning us later will actually be supported by
future experiment. I do not insist that everyone need take the same view as I
do, as to where to draw the line between the Z- and the X-mysteries. My own
choice is governed by the expectations that would be consistent with the
viewpoint that I shall be giving later, in §6. 1 2.
It would be inappropriate for me to attempt to give a completely thorough
account of the nature of quantum theory in these pages. Instead, in this
chapter, I shall give a relatively brief and adequately complete description of
its necessary features, concentrating, to a large extent, on the nature of its
Z-mysteries. In the following chapter, I shall give my reasons for believing
that, because of its X-mysteries, present-day quantum theory must be an
incomplete theory, despite all the wonderful agreement that the theory has had