© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

Terms Privacy Legal Notice

arXiv:2512.24198

A short technical comment on Bub's There is No Quantum World (arXiv:2512.18400v2) and a brief remark on related Grangier's reply (arXiv:2512.22965v1)

Krzysztof Sienicki

quant-phphysics.hist-phSubmitted Dec 30, 2025• Announced Dec 31, 2025• 0 citations

Abstract

This note is a friendly technical check of Jeffrey Bub's There is No Quantum World (arXiv:2512.18400v2). I flag one unambiguous mathematical slip (a cardinality identity that implicitly assumes the Continuum Hypothesis) and then point out a few places where the discussion of infinite tensor products, ``sectorization,'' and measurement updates would benefit from sharper wording. Nothing here is meant as a critique of Bub's interpretive goals; the aim is simply to separate what is mathematically forced from what depends on choices of algebra, representation, or philosophical stance. I end with a short remark on Philippe Grangier's reply (arXiv:2512.22965v1).

Comments: 5 pages, 10 references. Comments on arXiv:2512.18400v2 and rXiv:2512.22965v1

Related papers

Comment on "There is No Quantum World" by Jeffrey Bub

Philippe Grangier

In a recent preprint [1] Jeffrey Bub presents a discussion of neo-Bohrian interpretations of quantum mechanics, and also of von Neumann's work on infinite tensor products [2]. He rightfully writes that this work provides a theoretical framework that deflates the measurement problem and justifies Bohr's insistence on the primacy of classical concepts. But then he rejects these ideas, on the basis that the infinity limit is "never reached for any real system composed of a finite number of elementary systems". In this note we present opposite views on two major points: first, admitting mathematical infinities in a physical theory is not a problem, if properly done; second, the critics of [3,4,5] comes with a major misunderstanding of these papers: they don't ask about "the significance of the transition from classical to quantum mechanics", but they start from a physical ontology where classical and quantum physics need each other from the beginning. This is because they postulate that a microscopic physical object (or degree of freedom) always appears as a quantum system, within a classical context. Here we argue why this (neo-Bohrian) position makes sense.

quant-pharXiv:2512.22965•Dec 30, 2025•0 citations

Interpreting the Quantum World

Asher Peres

This is an "Essay-Review" of a book with the same title, by Jeffrey Bub (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

arXiv:quant-ph/9711003•Nov 5, 1997•2 citations

Comments on “There Is No Axiomatic System for the Quantum Theory”

J. Acácio de Barros

arXiv:1204.6035•International Journal of Theoretical Physics•Feb 1, 2011•4 citations

Comment on arXiv:2511.21731v1: Identifying Quantum Structure in AI Language: Evidence for Evolutionary Convergence of Human and Artificial Cognition

Krzysztof Sienicki

This note is a friendly technical check of arXiv:2511.21731v1. I highlight a few places where the manuscript's interpretation of (i) the reported CHSH/Bell-type calculations and (ii) Bose--Einstein (BE) fits to rank-frequency data seems to go beyond what the stated procedures can firmly support. I also point out one internal inconsistency in the "energy-level spacing" analogy. The aim is constructive: to keep the interesting empirical observations, while making clear what they do (and do not) imply about quantum entanglement in the usual Hilbert-space sense, especially when "energy" is defined by rank.

cs.AICross-listedarXiv:2601.06104•Jan 6, 2026•0 citations

Some remarks on “externalisms”

Hilary Putnam

David Albert has proved an important theorem, a surprising one, which certainly has relevance to the way we will understand quantum mechanics in the future. Whether its moral is really the “non-narratibility” of the history of the quantum world is, however, dependent on interpretative questions about which philosophers and physicists – even philosophers and physicists who, like David Albert and myself, are looking for what the late, great, J. S. Bell called an “unromantic” interpretation of quantum mechanics – are sure to disagree. In this brief comment I want to say what Albert has certainly shown , and what depends on those interpretative questions (and, of course, what those questions are). By an “unromantic” interpretation, what Bell meant is an intelligible and mathematically precise interpretation in which there is no talk about “consciousness” reducing the wave packet, “measurements” are simply described as a subclass of physical interactions, and, of course, there is no loose talk about the world consisting of “information.”

Routledge eBooks•Aug 21, 2012•0 citations

“On the existence of empty waves in quantum theory”: a comment

Marek Żukowski

Physics Letters A•Apr 1, 1993•5 citations

This note is a friendly technical check of Jeffrey Bub's There is No Quantum World (arXiv:2512.18400v2). I flag one unambiguous mathematical slip (a cardinality identity that implicitly assumes the Continuum Hypothesis) and then point out a few places where the discussion of infinite tensor products, ``sectorization,'' and measurement updates would benefit from sharper wording. Nothing here is meant as a critique of Bub's interpretive goals; the aim is simply to separate what is mathematically forced from what depends on choices of algebra, representation, or philosophical stance. I end with a short remark on Philippe Grangier's reply (arXiv:2512.22965v1).

In a recent preprint [1] Jeffrey Bub presents a discussion of neo-Bohrian interpretations of quantum mechanics, and also of von Neumann's work on infinite tensor products [2]. He rightfully writes that this work provides a theoretical framework that deflates the measurement problem and justifies Bohr's insistence on the primacy of classical concepts. But then he rejects these ideas, on the basis that the infinity limit is "never reached for any real system composed of a finite number of elementary systems". In this note we present opposite views on two major points: first, admitting mathematical infinities in a physical theory is not a problem, if properly done; second, the critics of [3,4,5] comes with a major misunderstanding of these papers: they don't ask about "the significance of the transition from classical to quantum mechanics", but they start from a physical ontology where classical and quantum physics need each other from the beginning. This is because they postulate that a microscopic physical object (or degree of freedom) always appears as a quantum system, within a classical context. Here we argue why this (neo-Bohrian) position makes sense.

This note is a friendly technical check of arXiv:2511.21731v1. I highlight a few places where the manuscript's interpretation of (i) the reported CHSH/Bell-type calculations and (ii) Bose--Einstein (BE) fits to rank-frequency data seems to go beyond what the stated procedures can firmly support. I also point out one internal inconsistency in the "energy-level spacing" analogy. The aim is constructive: to keep the interesting empirical observations, while making clear what they do (and do not) imply about quantum entanglement in the usual Hilbert-space sense, especially when "energy" is defined by rank.

David Albert has proved an important theorem, a surprising one, which certainly has relevance to the way we will understand quantum mechanics in the future. Whether its moral is really the “non-narratibility” of the history of the quantum world is, however, dependent on interpretative questions about which philosophers and physicists – even philosophers and physicists who, like David Albert and myself, are looking for what the late, great, J. S. Bell called an “unromantic” interpretation of quantum mechanics – are sure to disagree. In this brief comment I want to say what Albert has certainly shown , and what depends on those interpretative questions (and, of course, what those questions are). By an “unromantic” interpretation, what Bell meant is an intelligible and mathematically precise interpretation in which there is no talk about “consciousness” reducing the wave packet, “measurements” are simply described as a subclass of physical interactions, and, of course, there is no loose talk about the world consisting of “information.”