Are GRW tails as bad as they say?
Philosophy of Science 66 (3):71 (1999)
Abstract
GRW models of the physical world are criticized in the literature for involving wave function "tails" that allegedly create fatal interpretive problems and even compromise standard arithmetic. I find such objections both unfair and misguided. But not all is well with the GRW approach. One complaint I articulate in this paper does not have to do with tails as such but with the specific way in which past physical structures linger forever in the total GRW wave function. By pushing the total proposal towards either the "Many Worlds" approach or the Bohmian approach, this feature diminishes extant GRW claims to preferability. I suggest, however, that the problem here is just an artifact of the particular and ultimately optional genre of collapse mechanism chosen by GRWAuthor's Profile
DOI
10.1086/392715
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Citations of this work
Four Tails Problems for Dynamical Collapse Theories.Kelvin J. McQueen - 2015 - Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 49:10-18.
The quantum measurement problem: State of play.David Wallace - 2007 - In Dean Rickles (ed.), The Ashgate Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Physics. Ashgate.
Non-accessible mass and the ontology of GRW.Cristian Mariani - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 91 (C):270-279.
How Bohm’s Theory Solves the Measurement Problem.Peter J. Lewis - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (5):749-760.
References found in this work
Describing the macroscopic world: Closing the circle within the dynamical reduction program. [REVIEW]G. C. Ghirardi, R. Grassi & F. Benatti - 1995 - Foundations of Physics 25 (1):5-38.
Philoophical Consequences of Quantum Theory.James T. Cushing & Ernan McMullin (eds.) - 1989 - University of Notre Dame Press.