Against Wavefunction Realism

Abstract

I argue that wavefunction realism --- the view that quantum mechanics reveals the fundamental ontology of the world to be a field on a high-dimensional spacetime, must be rejected as relying on artefacts of too-simple versions of quantum mechanics, and not conceptually well-motivated even were those too-simple versions exactly correct. I end with some brief comments on the role of spacetime in any satisfactory account of the metaphysics of extant quantum theories.

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Author's Profile

David Wallace
University of Pittsburgh

References found in this work

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.
The Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics.Simon Kochen & E. P. Specker - 1967 - Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics 17:59--87.
Elementary Quantum Metaphysics.David Albert - 1996 - In J. T. Cushing, Arthur Fine & Sheldon Goldstein (eds.), Bohmian Mechanics and Quantum theory: An Appraisal. Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 277-284.

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