Quantum Mechanics

I'm honestly pretty confused by quantum mechanics, or at least what we have seen of it so far. It's really hard to believe that something (such as light) can actually choose the state it's in when measured. From what it seems, it's all about probability and you can never be sure what something is unless you are not observing it, which is impossible. According to the How Stuff Works video, Heisenberg said, "We may never know what is real." Many of the ideas mentioned, such as Schrodinger's cat and true reality almost seem philosophical.

In a book I am reading currently in English, I'm learning about philosophy and I just noticed a distinct parallel between what we learned and Plato's philosophy of an "eternal form" or "idea". To apply his philosophy, he would think that there is a perfect model of an atom somewhere, but it is impossible for a person to actually find, so we must get the idea of the perfect model by looking at imperfect examples. If this is kind of what is going on, that definitely helps me grasp the idea a little more.