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arXiv:2201.09316 · Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

Operational theories as structural realism

Emily Adlam

Published Jun 17, 2022• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF
DOI
10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.05.007

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Abstract I point out an underdetermination of physics, in particular of Quantum Mechanics: that of the relation between the operators and their physical meaning. The set of operators for which we attribute physical meaning is, from relational, structural, and dynamical points of view, indistinguishable from any set of operators obtained from the former by a unitary transformation that commutes with the Hamiltonian. The same is true for the structures inhabiting the world, in particular there are structures isomorphic to the structure of an observer, but they would attribute the meaning of position and other physical meanings to different operators. In particular, space itself is underdetermined from the structure of the theory. Different structures that are isomorphic to an observer would call “position” different observables, and consequently would call “space” different structures. I show that they are highly non-unique. A solution would be that all possible assignments of physical meaning to the operators allowed by the symmetries of the formalism are equally valid. But this leads to a problem: there would be no correlation between the content of the mind of an observer about the external world, and the actual properties of the external world. This has unexpected consequences: it refutes structural realism, and it shows that, in addition to the structure, the substance underlying the structures matters for consciousness to exist.