Finding the world in the wave function: some strategies for solving the macro-object problem
- PDF / 619,296 Bytes
- 23 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 35 Downloads / 235 Views
Finding the world in the wave function: some strategies for solving the macro-object problem Alyssa Ney1
Received: 4 January 2016 / Accepted: 20 February 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017
Abstract Realists wanting to capture the facts of quantum entanglement in a metaphysical interpretation find themselves faced with several options: to grant some species of fundamental nonseparability, adopt holism, or (more radically) to view localized spacetime systems as ultimately reducible to a higher-dimensional entity, the quantum state or wave function. Those adopting the latter approach and hoping to view the macroscopic world as grounded in the quantum wave function face the macro-object problem. The challenge is to articulate the metaphysical relation obtaining between three-dimensional macro-objects and the wave function so that the latter may be seen in some sense as constituting the former. This paper distinguishes several strategies for doing so and defends one based on a notion of partial instantiation. Keywords Entanglement · Wave function · Wave function realism · Interpretation of quantum mechanics
1 Introduction The goal of this paper is to consider some strategies for solving the macro-object problem for wave function realism. This is the problem of finding an account of the existence of macroscopic objects assuming a metaphysics in which objects in spacetime are not fundamental; rather what is fundamental is the quantum wave function, a field characterized by an assignment of values to points in a much different kind of space, one adequate to realizing the full range of possible quantum states.
B 1
Alyssa Ney [email protected] University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA
123
Synthese
In what follows, I will not provide a positive argument for wave function realism as a metaphysical interpretation of quantum mechanics. This has been done in other work (Lewis 2004; Ney and Albert 2013; Ney forthcoming; Ismael manuscript). Here I will rather attempt to defend the approach as many believe that it is a good argument against wave function realism that it does not have the resources to provide a compelling account of the existence of macro-objects (Monton 2002; Maudlin 2007; Allori 2013). It is not essential to the success of wave function realism as an interpretation of quantum mechanics that it capture the genuine existence of macroscopic objects like tables and chairs as opposed to their appearances (Ney 2015). Nonetheless, it would be interesting if the wave function realist could solve this problem, not just avoid it, and so in this paper I will investigate the best way to do so. Probably the most influential solution I will consider is due to Albert (1996, 2013, 2015), the main advocate of wave function realism. The limitations of Albert’s approach result from its dependence on metaphysical resources (accounts of microreduction) that were developed for fundamental ontologies more similar to our manifest image. The metaphysical framework I develop here is instead tailor-made to the
Data Loading...
