Quantum Mechanics and Perspectivalism

Abstract

Experimental evidence of the last decades has made the status of ``collapses of the wave function'' even more shaky than it already was on conceptual grounds: interference effects turn out to be detectable even when collapses are typically expected to occur. Non-collapse interpretations should consequently be taken seriously. In this paper we argue that such interpretations suggest a perspectivalism according to which quantum objects are not characterized by monadic properties, but by relations to other systems. Accordingly, physical systems may possess different properties with respect to different ``reference systems''. We discuss some of the relevant arguments, and argue that perspectivalism both evades recent arguments that single-world interpretations are inconsistent and eliminates the need for a privileged rest frame in the relativistic case.

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Dennis Dieks
Utrecht University

Citations of this work

Modal Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics.Olimpia Lombardi & Dennis Dieks - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
QBism and the limits of scientific realism.David Glick - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (2):1-19.
Open Problems in Relational Quantum Mechanics.Federico Laudisa - 2019 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 50 (2):215-230.
Scientific perspectivism in the phenomenological tradition.Philipp Berghofer - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (3):1-27.

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References found in this work

Relational quantum mechanics.Carlo Rovelli - 1996 - International Journal of Theoretical Physics 35 (8):1637--1678.

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