Fractals may 'explain' quantum wierdness

This could be big news: "what if there were a way [of] showing how quantum theory might emerge from a deeper level of non-weird physics?". The reason it could be big is that it would further solidify the hold of quantum theory on science, and more importantly for culture, on the popular imagination. You only have to look at the effects on art and social sciences of the emerging sciences of chaos and complexity (and heck; I'm working on a fractal model of theological reflection, for goodness sake) over the last decade or so, and it becomes apparent that the imaginative power will be huge. Therefore in terms of passing on the gospel in our culture, well, we're going to have to take it to heart and learn from it (and not rush just now; nothing worse than seeing Christians use half-digested science or philosophy to 'defend' the gospel!). This NS article Can fractals make sense of the quantum world? - physics-math - 30 March 2009 - New Scientist will give you the background to the debate over quantum versus relativistic theories. Palmer, the author of the new approach says "My hypothesis is motivated by two concepts that wouldn't have been known to the founding fathers of quantum theory," he says: black holes and fractals.

Now the thing that could set the cat (Schroedinger's) among the pigeons (especially for some NewAge /new mysticism apologists)is this: "quantum theory is famous for making only statistical predictions - it can only tell you the probability of finding an electron with its quantum-mechanical spin pointing up. This arises naturally, suggests Palmer, because quantum theory is blind to the intricate fractal structure of the invariant set. Just as our eyes cannot discern the smallest details in fractal patterns, quantum theory only sees "coarse grain approximations", as if it is looking through fuzzy spectacles." So out go the appeals to probability etc. Even more relevant, for apologetics in the face of certain 'new atheist' challenges is this "What makes this really interesting is that it gets away from the usual debates over multiple universes and hidden variables and so on," says Bob Coecke, a physicist at the University of Oxford. "It suggests there might be an underlying physical geometry that physics has just missed, which is radical and very positive." However, it may mean that we are back to a more deterministic universe; though I think that chaos is here to stay, so not a fully closed Newtonian box...