Interlude: Some Alternative Interpretations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Healey
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Bohmian Mechanics ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Fundamental Theory ◽  
Relativistic Invariance ◽  
The World ◽  
And Control ◽  
Non Locality

An understanding of quantum theory is manifested by the ability successfully and unproblematically to use it to further the scientific goals of prediction, explanation, and control of natural phenomena. An Interpretation seeks further to formulate or reformulate it as a fundamental theory that provides a self-contained description of the world. I critically review three prominent but radically different Interpretations of quantum theory (Bohmian mechanics, non-linear theories, Everettian quantum mechanics) and give my reasons for rejecting each as a way of understanding quantum theory. These include problems associated with non-locality, failure of relativistic invariance, empirical inaccessibility, and decision-making. We can achieve a satisfactory understanding of quantum theory and how it successfully advances the goals of science without providing an Interpretation of the theory.

scholarly journals A no-go theorem for theories that decohere to quantum mechanics

2018 ◽  
Vol 474 (2214) ◽  
pp. 20170732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciarán M. Lee ◽  
John H. Selby
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Fundamental Theory ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Physical Principles ◽  
Effective Description

To date, there has been no experimental evidence that invalidates quantum theory. Yet it may only be an effective description of the world, in the same way that classical physics is an effective description of the quantum world. We ask whether there exists an operationally defined theory superseding quantum theory, but which reduces to it via a decoherence-like mechanism. We prove that no such post-quantum theory exists if it is demanded that it satisfy two natural physical principles: causality and purification . Causality formalizes the statement that information propagates from present to future, and purification that each state of incomplete information arises in an essentially unique way due to lack of information about an environment. Hence, our result can be viewed either as evidence that the fundamental theory of Nature is quantum or as showing in a rigorous manner that any post-quantum theory must abandon causality, purification or both.

Quantum Becoming?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Callender
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum Time ◽  
Quantum Non Locality ◽  
Time Quantum ◽  
Temporal Becoming ◽  
Non Locality ◽  
Quantum Wavefunction

Two of quantum mechanics’ more famed and spooky features have been invoked in defending the idea that quantum time is congenial to manifest time. Quantum non-locality is said by some to make a preferred foliation of spacetime necessary, and the collapse of the quantum wavefunction is held to vindicate temporal becoming. Although many philosophers and physicists seek relief from relativity’s assault on time in quantum theory, assistance is not so easily found.

Contemporary Echoes of the World Soul

2021 ◽  
pp. 320-342
Author(s):  
Valia Allori
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Quantum Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

Quantum mechanics is a groundbreaking theory: it not only is extraordinarily empirically adequate but also is claimed to having shattered the classical paradigm of understanding the observer-observed distinction as well as the part-whole relation. This, together with other quantum features, has been taken to suggest that quantum theory can help one understand the mind-body relation in a unique way, in particular to solve the hard problem of consciousness along the lines of panpsychism. In this chapter, after having briefly presented panpsychism, Valia Allori discusses the main features of quantum theories and the way in which the main quantum theories of consciousness use them to account for conscious experience.

scholarly journals Nonlocality in Bell’s Theorem, in Bohm’s Theory, and in Many Interacting Worlds Theorising

Entropy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mojtaba Ghadimi ◽  
Michael Hall ◽  
Howard Wiseman
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Bohmian Mechanics ◽  
Bell’S Theorem ◽  
Bell's Theorem ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Technical Problems ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Weak Notion ◽  
Bohm’S Theory

“Locality” is a fraught word, even within the restricted context of Bell’s theorem. As one of us has argued elsewhere, that is partly because Bell himself used the word with different meanings at different stages in his career. The original, weaker, meaning for locality was in his 1964 theorem: that the choice of setting by one party could never affect the outcome of a measurement performed by a distant second party. The epitome of a quantum theory violating this weak notion of locality (and hence exhibiting a strong form of nonlocality) is Bohmian mechanics. Recently, a new approach to quantum mechanics, inspired by Bohmian mechanics, has been proposed: Many Interacting Worlds. While it is conceptually clear how the interaction between worlds can enable this strong nonlocality, technical problems in the theory have thus far prevented a proof by simulation. Here we report significant progress in tackling one of the most basic difficulties that needs to be overcome: correctly modelling wavefunctions with nodes.

scholarly journals Classical Logic in the Quantum Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 600-616
Author(s):  
Andrea Oldofredi
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum Logic ◽  
Classical Logic ◽  
Theory Of Measurement ◽  
Propositional Calculus ◽  
Bohmian Mechanics ◽  
Physical Content ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Classical Propositional Calculus

It is generally accepted that quantum mechanics entails a revision of the classical propositional calculus as a consequence of its physical content. However, the universal claim according to which a new quantum logic is indispensable in order to model the propositions of every quantum theory is challenged. In the present essay, we critically discuss this claim by showing that classical logic can be rehabilitated in a quantum context by taking into account Bohmian mechanics. It will be argued, indeed, that such a theoretical framework provides the necessary conceptual tools to reintroduce a classical logic of experimental propositions by virtue of its clear metaphysical picture and its theory of measurement. More precisely, it will be shown that the rehabilitation of a classical propositional calculus is a consequence of the primitive ontology of the theory, a fact that is not yet sufficiently recognized in the literature concerning Bohmian mechanics. This work aims to fill this gap.

scholarly journals A Turing test for free will

2012 ◽  
Vol 370 (1971) ◽  
pp. 3597-3610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Theory Of Computation ◽  
Alan Turing ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Before Alan Turing made his crucial contributions to the theory of computation, he studied the question of whether quantum mechanics could throw light on the nature of free will. This paper investigates the roles of quantum mechanics and computation in free will. Although quantum mechanics implies that events are intrinsically unpredictable, the ‘pure stochasticity’ of quantum mechanics adds randomness only to decision-making processes, not freedom. By contrast, the theory of computation implies that, even when our decisions arise from a completely deterministic decision-making process, the outcomes of that process can be intrinsically unpredictable, even to—especially to—ourselves. I argue that this intrinsic computational unpredictability of the decision-making process is what gives rise to our impression that we possess free will. Finally, I propose a ‘Turing test’ for free will: a decision-maker who passes this test will tend to believe that he, she, or it possesses free will, whether the world is deterministic or not.

scholarly journals Non-locality of two ultracold trapped atoms

2010 ◽  
pp. 64-68
Author(s):  
Thomás Fogarty
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Cold Atoms ◽  
Cold Atom ◽  
Quantum Effects ◽  
Trapped Atoms ◽  
The World ◽  
Tennis Balls ◽  
Thermal Vibrations ◽  
Wave Properties ◽  
Non Locality

Quantum mechanics is the physics of the very small and the very cold. When particles are small and cold they take on wave properties and thus act differently to anything you can imagine in the world you see around you. Throwing tennis balls through brick walls, walking through two adjacent doors at the same time, even having a cat that is both dead and alive at the same time might seem weird to you, but in quantum mechanics this is quite normal. It is this strange playground of physics that has attracted people to quantum mechanics, and the advent of cold atom technologies allows us to, not only theoretically but physically, study these weird systems. In recent years, cold atoms have provided an excellent testbed for investigating these quantum effects. As the system is cold, it is incredibly clean and noise-free due to the lack of thermal vibrations and collisions ...

5. Mysteries of the quantum

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-109
Author(s):  
David Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
The State ◽  
Successful Theory ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Faster Than Light ◽  
Non Locality

This chapter introduces the central mysteries of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is an enormously successful theory that lies at the heart of modern physics, but there is no agreement on how to understand it. Simple experiments with light demonstrate why: in understanding those experiments, we have to shift inconsistently back and forth between thinking of the theory as assigning indefinite, delocalized, but known properties to a system, and assigning definite, localized, but unknown properties (this is called the ‘problem of measurement’). Furthermore, when we break a system into subsystems, the state of the system is not determined by the states of the subsystem (this is called ‘entanglement’), and simple arguments seem to tell us that the physical properties of entangled subsystems can influence one another non-locally—faster than light. These three mysteries—measurement, entanglement, non-locality—need to be addressed by any attempt to make sense of quantum theory.

Scientific Realism and the Quantum

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Quantum Field Theory ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Third Way ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Physics

Scientific realism has traditionally maintained that our best scientific theories can be regarded as more or less true and as representing the world as it is (more or less). However, one of our very best current theories—quantum mechanics—has famously resisted such a realist construal, threatening to undermine the realist stance altogether. The chapters in this volume carefully examine this tension and the reasons behind it, including the underdetermination generated by the multiplicity of formulations and interpretations of quantum physics, each presenting a different way the world could be. Authors in this volume offer a range of alternative ways forward: some suggest new articulations of realism, limiting our commitments in one way or another; others attempt to articulate a ‘third way’ between traditional forms of realism and antirealism, or are critical of such attempts. Still others argue that quantum theory itself should be reconceptualised, or at least alternative formulations should be considered in the hope of evading the problems faced by realism. And some examine the nature of these issues when moving beyond quantum mechanics to quantum field theory. Taken together they offer an exciting new set of perspectives on one of the most fundamental questions in the philosophy of modern physics: how can one be a realist about quantum theory, and what does this realism amount to?

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