1 Non-Local Realistic Theories and the Scope of the Bell Theorem∗

We are told that no distinction is to be made between the state of a natural object and what I know about it, or perhaps better, what I can know about it if I go to some trouble. Actually – so they say – there is intrinsically only awareness, observation, measurement. If through them I have procured at a given moment the best knowledge of the state of the physical object that is possibly attainable in accord with natural laws, then I can turn aside as meaningless any further questioning about the “actual state”, inasmuch I am convinced that no further observation can extend my knowledge of it. (Schrödinger 1935, p. 157) From those who made [the Copernican] revolution we learned that the world is more intelligible when we do not imagine ourselves to be at the centre of it. Does not quantum theory place observers…us…at the centre of the picture? There is indeed much talk of ‘observables ’ in quantum theory books. And from some popular presentations the general public could get the impression that the very existence of the cosmos depends on our being here to observe the observables. I do not know that this is wrong. I am inclined to hope that we are indee