A pragmatist view of the metaphysics of entanglement
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A pragmatist view of the metaphysics of entanglement Richard Healey1
Received: 11 December 2015 / Accepted: 18 August 2016 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract Quantum entanglement is widely believed to be a feature of physical reality with undoubted (though debated) metaphysical implications. But Schrödinger introduced entanglement as a theoretical relation between representatives of the quantum states of two systems. Entanglement represents a physical relation only if quantum states are elements of physical reality. So arguments for metaphysical holism or nonseparability from entanglement rest on a questionable view of quantum theory. Assignment of entangled quantum states predicts experimentally confirmed violation of Bell inequalities. Can one use these experimental results to argue directly for metaphysical conclusions? No. Quantum theory itself gives us our best explanation of violations of Bell inequalities, with no superluminal causal influences and no metaphysical holism or nonseparability—but only if quantum states are understood as objective and relational, though prescriptive rather than ontic. Correct quantum state assignments are backed by true physical magnitude claims: but backing is not grounding. Quantum theory supports no general metaphysical holism or nonseparability; though a claim about a compound physical system may be significant and true while similar claims about its components are neither. Entanglement may well have have few, if any, first-order metaphysical implications. But the quantum theory of entanglement has much to teach the metaphysician about the roles of chance, causation, modality and explanation in the epistemic and practical concerns of a physically situated agent. Keywords Entanglement · Metaphysical holism · Quantum theory · Quantum state · Chance · Causation · Nonseparability
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Richard Healey [email protected] Philosophy Department, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027, USA
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1 Introduction Many philosophers believe that quantum entanglement has important metaphysical implications. In this paper I explain why I disagree. My disagreement rests on two claims. First, entanglement is not a physical relation between physical systems but a feature of the way certain quantum states must be represented. Second, even though they are objective, these and other quantum states are not novel physical objects, fields or magnitudes: nor do they represent physical relations or properties of objects to which they are assigned. It’s quicker to say systems are entangled than that their quantum states must be mathematically represented in a certain way, but that is almost always what physicists mean by entanglement. That is what Schrödinger meant when he introduced the concept, as I explain in Sect. 2. Section 3 is a brief introduction to different conceptions of entanglement, so conceived. It was Einstein who first perceived metaphysical intimations of entanglement in what he took to be the “orthodox” view of quantum states. Section 4
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