Socratus,

Why are you quoting Polkinghorne's one-liner on QT ? For his phrase "eventual settlement" read "ultimate truth" and you are back into the psychology of security (closing off the void).

Of course a dualist/realist would have problems in applying the word "understanding" to QT because by including the observer as part of "an event" it questions the very idea of "objective stuff". But it also therefore questions the distinction between "physics" and "metaphysics". Polkinghorne is begging the question of the existence of "something beyond the physical" instead of coping with "physicality" as merely one aspect of "existence", all aspects being same level.

Note also your reference to Aristotle's "nature" assumes No.1 above.(nature=reality).