Miraculous Consilience of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

Two events are said to be (positively) correlated when the occurrence of one increases the probability of the other. Provided that neither event causes the other, a causal model must “tie correlated events together” by postulating the existence of a common cause, or a hidden variable. But, Bell-type examples present multiple correlations that common causes do not explain because they tie the correlations together in the wrong way. Quantum mechanics succeeds where the common cause explanation fails. The successful quantum mechanical unification is a feature of good scientific theories that William Whewell referred to as the consilience of inductions. This essay describes how quantum mechanics achieves this successful consilience, and how it affects our interpretation of the theory.