Why did you not write this as a reply to me?

GR and QM are generally agreed to indeed be inconsistent.

[Citation needed]

I'll give you that loop-quantum gravity is "quantum mechnical" and "general realtivistic". But it isn't QM or GR.

Quantum mechanics is the theory that reality is described by the Schrodinger equation; loop quantum gravity includes the Schrodinger equation. Its proponents claim that it includes the general relativity field equations as a long distance limit; that is what we mean when we say that one theory is a quantization of another, just like quantum and classical electrodynamics.

And no, I don't read any popular literature. I hope the above helped explain my previous post a bit.

95% probability less than 10% of the physics you read is from journals/arXiv.

Quantum mechanics is not inconsistent with general relativity, the standard ways of quantizing a theory fail for general relativity. This is not a surprise; physicists knew that these standard methods were not complete, they just produced theories that worked well enough when applied in other areas. Based on your post, it is somewhat likely that you read popular material about loop quantum gravity. If that theory is consistent, has the right long distance limits, etc., then it is both a quantum mechanical and general relativistic theory.

GR and QM are generally agreed to indeed be inconsistent. There are various attempts to come up with theories of quantum gravity. One of these attempts follows particle based physics: string theory and extensions of string theory. The other attempt is GR based, and includes loop quantum gravity and canonical quantum gravity (along with extensions, such as fixed-foliation quantum gravity).

I'll give you that loop-quantum gravity is "quantum mechnical" and "general realtivistic". But it isn't QM or GR. This isn't a reasonable way of defending your claim that QM and GR are consistent.

And no, I don't read any popular literature. I hope the above helped explain my previous post a bit.

The short answer is that while we know QM is incomplete, we equally know that it all has to add up to normality -- meaning among other things that QM results, including the weird ones, have to be explainable by the underlying mechanics.

This is not an answer. We need explanations for observed events, to be sure, but it's far from clear that we need QM explanations. After all, buying the QM explanations of the observed events means giving up all the GR explanations of the observed events.

We're not going to discover some result in the future that'll make quantum mechanics -- or general relativity, or any other well-established physical theory -- throw up its hands and disappear.

If we discover that QM is true, we will give up GR. You can't have both. Sorry mate. You could have something like GR, perhaps, but it wouldn't be GR.

We very likely will discover results that'll explain reality better than they do, but that reality includes everything they predict within the domains where they've been shown to work well. Science is not a race, nor a battle.

If you want to make QM-domain specific, fine. QM is true in whatever domains saying QM is true doesn't result in a contradiction with GR. That's nice and ad-hoc, but you can have fun with that. And it'll render all the arguments from the truth of QM to broader claims about reality utterly moot. So again, fail.

Eliezer,

In another post you write: "Quantum mechanics has been around for billions of years before the Sun coalesced from interstellar hydrogen. Quantum mechanics was here before you were, and if you have a problem with that, you are the one who needs to change. QM sure won’t."

Where did you get this notion from? QM is inconsistent with GR. I could just as easily (and just as unreasonably) assert that GR has been around for billions of years... The problem with that assertion would be the same problem with your assertion. There is no evidence for it.

What makes you a QM-pusher instead of a GR-pusher? It's not evidence, and you can't push both. Is this your favorite flavor of the times? As another poster in this thread has noted, the degree of confidence you have in some of the statements you make is way, way off base.

Here's one more example of your radically misplaced confidence. You write: "But since this final conclusion happens to be counterintuitive to a human parietal cortex, it helps to have the brute fact of quantum mechanics to crush all opposition. Damn, have I waited a long time to be able to say that."

I'm glad it made you happy to say it. But you have no good argument for it. Nor do I think that on your views you could possibly have a reason to believe it.

You also write: "We live in a quantum universe where the notion of "same hydrogen atom vs. different hydrogen atom" is physical nonsense."

Let's suppose your misplaced faith in QM is rational (it isn't, but let's suppose it is). And let's suppose that the notion you describe is "physical nonsense". (Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.) It doesn't follow that the notion you describe is nonsense unless you assume that something is nonsense if it is physical nonsense. And here, of course, you are hardly entitled to that assumption. It sounds just like the indefensible verificationist swill spewed by the rabid and wholly irrational logical positivists.

You're worshipping at the altar of science and you're picking and choosing the science you think will help you best defend your funny views, and then you're baldly asserting that this science constitutes a true description of reality EVEN WHEN IT CONTRADICTS other scientific theories (such as GR) that have just as good scientific credentials.

Unless you have some sexy response to this post, I will assume that you would get laughed out of a philosophy of science department.