Penrose (2004: 591):
It seems to me that there are two quite distinct mysteries presented by quantum entanglement, and I believe that the answer to each of them is something of a completely different (although interrelated) character.
The first mystery is the phenomenon itself. How are we to come to terms with quantum entanglement and to make sense of it in terms of ideas that we can comprehend, so that we can manage to accept it as something that forms an important part of the workings of our actual universe?
The second mystery is somewhat complementary to the first. Since, according to quantum mechanics, entanglement is such a ubiquitous phenomenon — and we recall that the stupendous majority of quantum states are actually entangled ones — why is it something that we barely notice in our direct experience of the world? Why do these ubiquitous effects of entanglement not confront us at every turn? I do not believe that this second mystery has received nearly the attention that it deserves, people’s puzzlement having been almost entirely concentrated on the first.
Blogger Comments:
From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the first mystery, quantum entanglement, is explained by distinguishing potential from instance, and recognising that the probabilities of particle instantiations are interdependent.
From the same perspective, the second mystery, why entangled quantum states are not directly experienced, is explained by the fact that only instances can be observed (the construal of experience as first-order meaning). Potential, on the other hand, can only be theorised (the reconstrual of first-order meaning as second-order meaning). It is theory only that provides the means of recognising that quantum states are entangled.
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