Is the world a heap of quantum fragments?
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Is the world a heap of quantum fragments? Samuele Iaquinto1
•
Claudio Calosi2
Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Fragmentalism was originally introduced as a new A-theory of time. It was further refined and discussed, and different developments of the original insight have been proposed. In a celebrated paper, Jonathan Simon contends that fragmentalism delivers a new realist account of the quantum state—which he calls conservative realism—according to which: (i) the quantum state is a complete description of a physical system, (ii) the quantum (superposition) state is grounded in its terms, and (iii) the superposition terms are themselves grounded in local goings-on about the system in question. We will argue that fragmentalism, at least along the lines proposed by Simon, does not offer a new, satisfactory realistic account of the quantum state. This raises the question about whether there are some other viable forms of quantum fragmentalism. Keywords Fragmentalism Quantum state Obtainment Interaction Decoherence Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief T.S Eliot, The Waste Land
& Samuele Iaquinto [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin, Via Sant’Ottavio 20, 10124 Turin, Italy
2
Department of Philosophy, Universite´ de Gene`ve, Rue de Candolle 2, 1211 Gene`ve 4, Switzerland
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S. Iaquinto , C. Calosi
1 Fragmentalism and its applications Fragmentalism was originally introduced as a new A-theory of time in Fine (2005). It has been further refined and discussed,1 and different developments of the original insight have been proposed.2 Recently it has been considered, and even advocated, as a possible interpretation of physical theories such as Special Relativity.3 In a celebrated paper, Simon suggests that fragmentalism offers a new insight into Quantum Mechanics as well.4 In particular, Simon contends that fragmentalism delivers a new realist account of the quantum state—which he calls conservative realism—according to which: (i) a quantum state provides a complete description of a given physical system, (ii) a quantum (superposition) state is grounded5 in its terms,6 and (iii) the superposition terms are themselves grounded in local goings-on about the components of the system in question—if the system is composed of other subsystems. Much deserves to be said about the details of Simon’s proposal. Yet, in this paper, we simply focus on his main insight about the quantum domain.7 This key insight, we take it, is to identify different terms in a superposition state with state of affairs that belong to different Fine’s fragments. In what follows we offer an argument against this identification.
2 Fragments and superpositions Simon (2018) takes fragmentalism to be any metaphysical view which incorporates the insight [T]hat there is a symmetric coordination relation between facts, such that facts that are pairwise incompatible (l
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