Realism and Objectivism in Quantum Mechanics

Alberto Cordero-Lecca

Bernard d’Espagnat

This chapter describes the theory as a variety of realism. The particular version of realism that is called there "macro-objectivism" seems hardly compatible with quantum mechanics. It is a kind of realism that is at the antipodes of micro- or macro-objectivism. In a sense, its first promoter was E. Schrodinger, but it was systematized and carried to its logical extreme 10 years ago by H. Everett. This theory received support from Wheeler and, more recently, from De Witt. The relativity of state theory obviously has extremely attractive aspects, along with some other features that are very hard to accept. One of its weaknesses is, in a way, a consequence of its success: as shown above, it is a theory that cannot be disproved by any specific experiment, since people cannot observe the split. For this reason it can rightly be called a "metaphysical theory," provided that the prefix "meta-" is given roughly the same sense as in meta-mathematics.

G. C. Ghirardi

Takuya Okabe

A hypothetical formulation of quantum mechanics is presented so as to reconcile it with macro-realism. On the analogy drawn from thermodynamics, an objective description of wave packet reduction is postulated, in which a characteristic energy scale and a time scale are introduced to separate the quantum and classical conceptions.

Hans Primas

Stanley Gudder