And this brings us back to an absolutely fundamental question: what exactly is the ontological status of quantum particles? The pivotal fact has already been noted: instead of bestowing reality upon the macroworld, these putative particles actually receive whatever reality they possess by way of interaction with corporeal objects. One sees thus, on strictly ontological grounds, that Heisenberg had it exactly right when he observed that quantum particles are something “midway between being and nonbeing.” The subcorporeal [classical] realm cannot “emerge” from the transcorporeal [quantum-theoretic] simply through an aggregation of quantum particles, followed by an averaging over the resultant aggregates, as one tends nowadays to imagine: one forgets that, in the transcorporeal realm, there are no actual particles! Real particles — if there be such a thing — do not “emerge” from potentiae as if by magic: what is called for is an active or efficient cause.
—Excerpt from Physics: A Science in Quest of an Ontology
