The World in the Wave Function

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190097714.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Alyssa Ney

Keyword(s):

Wave Function ◽

Dimensional Space ◽

Higher Dimensions ◽

Quantum Nonlocality ◽

High Dimensional ◽

Material Objects ◽

Quantum Theories ◽

Quantum Wave Function ◽

Quantum Wave ◽

Wave Function Realism

What are the ontological implications of quantum theories, that is, what do they tell us about the fundamental objects that make up our world? How should quantum theories make us reevaluate our classical conceptions of the basic constitution of material objects and ourselves? Is there fundamental quantum nonlocality? This book articulates several rival approaches to answering these questions, ultimately defending the wave function realist approach. Wave function realism is a way of interpreting quantum theories so that the central object they describe is the quantum wave function, interpreted as a field in an extremely high-dimensional space. According to this approach, the nonseparability and nonlocality we seem to find in quantum mechanics are ultimately manifestations of a more intuitive, separable, and local picture in higher dimensions.

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Must an Ontology for Quantum Theories Contain Local Beables?

The World in the Wave Function ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190097714.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 166-196

Author(s):

Alyssa Ney

Keyword(s):

Wave Function ◽

Dimensional Space ◽

High Dimensional ◽

High Dimensional Space ◽

Quantum Theories ◽

The World ◽

Macroscopic Objects ◽

Low Dimensional ◽

Wave Function Realism

This chapter considers and responds to the objection that a wave function in a high-dimensional space cannot ultimately constitute the low-dimensional macroscopic objects of experience. It discusses two forms this objection takes: one based on the putative fact that our evidence for quantum theories consists of low-dimensional objects, and another based on the putative fact that quantum theories are about low-dimensional objects, that they have primitive ontologies of local beables. Even admitting that there may be something straightforward and comprehensible about the fundamental ontologies for quantum theories proposed by the wave function realist, the philosophers who raise these objections see a problem with these ontologies in that they cannot serve as the constitutive foundation for the world as we experience it. And this undermines the promise of wave function realism to serve as a framework for the interpretation of quantum theories.

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The Causal Role of Macroscopic Objects

The World in the Wave Function ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190097714.003.0006 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 197-224

Author(s):

Alyssa Ney

Keyword(s):

Wave Function ◽

Dimensional Space ◽

Causal Role ◽

High Dimensional ◽

High Dimensional Space ◽

Macroscopic Objects ◽

Low Dimensional ◽

Object Problem ◽

Wave Function Realism

This chapter considers and critiques some strategies for solving the macro-object problem for wave function realism. This is the problem of how a wave function understood as a field on a high-dimensional space may come to make up or constitute the low-dimensional, macroscopic objects of our experience. It is first noted that simply invoking correspondences between particle configurations and states of the wave function will not suffice to solve the macro-object problem, following issues noted previously by Maudlin and Monton. More sophisticated strategies are considered that appeal to functionalism. It is argued that these functionalist strategies for recovering low-dimensional macroscopic objects from the wave function also do not succeed.

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Finding the Macroworld

The World in the Wave Function ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190097714.003.0007 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 225-250

Author(s):

Alyssa Ney

Keyword(s):

Wave Function ◽

Dimensional Space ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

High Dimensional ◽

High Dimensional Space ◽

Macroscopic Objects ◽

Low Dimensional ◽

Object Problem ◽

Wave Function Realism

This chapter proposes a solution to the macro-object problem for wave function realism. This is the problem of how a wave function in a high-dimensional space may come to constitute the low-dimensional, macroscopic objects of our experience. The solution takes place in several stages. First, it is argued that how the wave function’s being invariant under certain transformations may give us reason to regard three-dimensional configurations corresponding symmetries with ontological seriousness. Second it is shown how the wave function may decompose into low-dimensional microscopic parts. Interestingly, this reveals mereological relationships in which parts and wholes inhabit distinct spatial frameworks. Third, it is shown how these parts may come to compose macroscopic objects.

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Wave Function Realism in a Relativistic Setting

The Foundation of Reality ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198831501.003.0009 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 154-168

Author(s):

Alyssa Ney

Keyword(s):

Wave Function ◽

Quantum Mechanics ◽

Relativistic Quantum ◽

Higher Dimensions ◽

Recent Criticism ◽

Interpretation Of Quantum Mechanics ◽

Quantum Theories ◽

Realist Interpretation ◽

Wave Function Realism

The purpose of the present chapter is to respond to a thread of recent criticism against one candidate framework for interpreting quantum theories, a framework introduced and defended by David Albert and Barry Loewer: wave function realism, a framework for interpreting the ontology of quantum theories according to which what appears to be a nonseparable metaphysics ofentangled objects acting instantaneously across spatial distances is a manifestation of a more fundamental separable and local metaphysics in higher dimensions. Thechapterconsiders strategies for extending the wave function realist interpretation of quantum mechanics to the case of relativistic quantum theories, responding to arguments that this cannot be done.

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