Taking Mermin's Relational Interpretation of QM Beyond Cabello's and Seevinck's No-Go Theorems

Abstract

In this paper we address a deeply interesting debate that took place at the end of the last millennia between David Mermin, Adan Cabello and Michiel Seevinck, regarding the meaning of relationalism within quantum theory. In a series of papers, Mermin proposed an interpretation in which quantum correlations were considered as elements of physical reality. Unfortunately, the very young relational proposal by Mermin was too soon tackled by specially suited no-go theorems designed by Cabello and Seevinck. In this work we attempt to reconsider Mermin's program from the viewpoint of the Logos Categorical Approach to QM. Following Mermin's original proposal, we will provide a redefinition of quantum relation which not only can be understood as a preexistent element of physical reality but is also capable to escape Cabello’s and Seevinck's no-go-theorems. In order to show explicitly that our notion of ontological quantum relation is safe from no-go theorems we will derive a non-contextuality theorem. We end the paper with a discussion regarding the physical meaning of quantum relationalism.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,386

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Relational quantum mechanics and the determinacy problem.Matthew J. Brown - 2009 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (4):679-695.
Reconsidering Mermin’s “In Praise of Measurement”.GianCarlo Ghirardi - 2008 - Foundations of Physics 38 (11):1011-1019.
What is quantum mechanics trying to tell us?David Mermin - 1998 - American Journal of Physics 66 (9):753-767.
Discerning “Indistinguishable” Quantum Systems.Adam Caulton - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (1):49-72.
The Mermin Fixed Point.Veit Elser - 2003 - Foundations of Physics 33 (11):1691-1698.
A comment on Mermin's “Understanding Einstein's 1905 derivation of E=mc2”.Hans C. Ohanian - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (3):215-217.
Plane Geometry in Spacetime.N. David Mermin - 2009 - In Wayne C. Myrvold & Joy Christian (eds.), Quantum Reality, Relativistic Causality, and Closing the Epistemic Circle. Springer. pp. 327--347.
Branching space-time analysis of the GHZ theorem.Nuel Belnap & László E. Szabó - 1996 - Foundations of Physics 26 (8):989-1002.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-10-28

Downloads
13 (#1,013,785)

6 months
5 (#638,139)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

References found in this work

Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science.Hermann Weyl - 1949 - Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Edited by Olaf Helmer-Hirschberg & Frank Wilczek.
The Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics.Simon Kochen & E. P. Specker - 1967 - Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics 17:59--87.
Relational quantum mechanics.Carlo Rovelli - 1996 - International Journal of Theoretical Physics 35 (8):1637--1678.
Interpreting the Quantum World.Jeffrey Bub - 1998 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (4):637-641.

View all 19 references / Add more references