Morad asked:

Please tell me, Can we simulate the metaphysical concepts in Immanuel Kant's philosophy with
quantum mechanics in physics?

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In the section on the 'Analogies of Experience' in his book Critique of Pure ReasonKant argued that a
necessary condition for our having experience of an objective world is that determinism must hold
universally.

It is a matter of speculation what Kant would have said if the physics of the day had been quantum
mechanics rather than Newtonian mechanics. One possible response would be to say that Kant
would have acknowledged his error, and set to work providing a non-determinist metaphysical
foundation for quantum mechanics. Commentators on Kant, notably P.F. Strawson in his excellent
book The Bounds of Sensehave argued that the 'flavour' of Kant's philosophy can be preserved
despite the rejection of his claim about determinism. What is required for objective experience,
Strawson argues, is merely a world which displays causal regularities, where things generally happen
in predictable ways. That is sufficient to provide us with a basis for distinguishing 'genuine' objective
experience from subjective hallucinations or dreams.

My own view is that Kant would not be satisfied with this account. I think that he believed, rightly or
wrongly, that it is only by virtue of the truth of universal determinism that every statement about the
past has a determinate truth value, whether we can ever know the truth value or not. Provided
determinism holds, the present state of the universe, according to Newtonian mechanics, retains
information that would be sufficient to deduce all that has gone before. That is a powerful idea. Once
universal determinism is rejected, past events can disappear from the 'memory' of the universe as if
they had never happened.

It is possible that present day physicists or philosophers interested in quantum mechanics might be
attracted to Kantian philosophy for a different reason. What I have said about Kant's 'proof' of
universal determinism applies to the world of possible experience, the 'phenomenal' world in space
and time. But Kant also believed that there exists an unknowable 'noumenal' world outside of space
and time which provides the ultimate ground for the existence of all subjects and objects. It does
seem conceivable that in the light of the difficulties facing a 'hidden variables' interpretation of
quantum mechanics, some might be tempted to see Kant's unknowable 'noumena' as a possible
candidate for the ultimate reality of which quantum effects are the visible appearance. - The sceptic
would say that the only thing to recommend such a view is its complete obscurity.

Geoffrey Klempner