Dr. Adlam
Hi. I agree with your statement:
"...and try as we might,we could not find satisfactory explanations for the quantum probabilities. So we stopped trying, and began applying the term 'fundamental' to cover our lack of understanding.The word 'fundamental' become a disguise for our confusion."
but then you seem to say that really it's okay to stop trying and to give up on the idea of their being a reason, or a "why" for things in nature because at the smallest level, it's all just chance:
"...we will see that the universe simply could not have been otherwise. It is an immensely attractive prospect, but also, surely, an impossible one..but there is no similarly pressing need to explain why these regularities take some particular form rather than another."
This is certainly possible, but it seems to suggest that we "stop trying". We say that fundamentally, there is no answer why things are at the smallest levels. It's just chance. For me, I can't accept this. I think there is a definite mechanism for how things happen at small levels, and these lead to the appearance of chance. I like to think about the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and all the time run up against people saying: It's insoluble; it's just a brute fact; the question makes no sense, etc. It's frustrating, and I disagree but think this attitude comes about because it is a hard question and people give up trying after awhile.
In regard to the appearance of chance at the smaller levels, it seems possible that some very small existent entities are the atoms of not only space but of location. Before these entities were there, there was no space, no volume and no location. We can't say ahead of time where these entities will be formed because before they form, there is no location and no "where". Once they form and cause locations to come into existence, we can look back after the fact, and say they could have been formed in any of an infinite range of locations. We're applying a coordinate system of locations to a situation where there were no locations. So, we think it's just chance why some formed in those locations and that there is no underlying mechanism. Instead, I agree that it was chance but that there is a mechanism for what causes those entities and those locations to form. Once we can figure out the mechanism, we can figure out why it seems like it's all random.
I think Bohm and DeBroglie were advocates of this type of thinking. Anyways, while I'm just an amateur, I'm going to keep trying to figure things out. Thanks for making me think. Sorry for the shameless plug for my website below. Although, the site has many things from previous FQXi essay contests.
Roger
https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing