Can We Make Sense of Relational Quantum Mechanics?

Foundations of Physics 48 (4):440-455 (2018)
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Abstract

The relational interpretation of quantum mechanics proposes to solve the measurement problem and reconcile completeness and locality of quantum mechanics by postulating relativity to the observer for events and facts, instead of an absolute “view from nowhere”. The aim of this paper is to clarify this interpretation, and in particular, one of its central claims concerning the possibility for an observer to have knowledge about other observer’s events. I consider three possible readings of this claim, and develop the most promising one, relativism, to show how it fares when confronted with the traditional interpretative problems of quantum mechanics. Although it provides answers to some problems, I claim that there is currently no adapted locality criterion to evaluate whether the resulting interpretation is local or not.

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Quentin Ruyant
Complutense University of Madrid

Citations of this work

Open Problems in Relational Quantum Mechanics.Federico Laudisa - 2019 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 50 (2):215-230.
QBism and Relational Quantum Mechanics compared.Jacques Pienaar - 2021 - Foundations of Physics 51 (5):1-18.

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References found in this work

Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Don Ross, David Spurrett & John G. Collier.
Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - In James Ladyman, Don Ross, David Spurrett & John Collier (eds.), Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. Oxford University Press.
Saving the phenomena.James Bogen & James Woodward - 1988 - Philosophical Review 97 (3):303-352.
Relational quantum mechanics.Carlo Rovelli - 1996 - International Journal of Theoretical Physics 35 (8):1637--1678.
Three measurement problems.Tim Maudlin - 1995 - Topoi 14 (1):7-15.

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