Some epistemological aspects of the quantum measurement problem

Torsten Jepsen

Hongfang Li

The problem of quantum measurement is an important epistemological problem in philosophical researches of quantum mechanics.Aim at von Neumann's wave packet collapse hypothesis and Bohr's quantum-classical dichotomy,physicists had put forward some alternative solutions that are different from the standard interpretation since 1950s.As historical outcomes in endless flow of development of scientific theory,these alternative solutions indicate that the development of scientific theory always tends to aspects of consistency,apprehensible and testability.

Časlav Brukner

Joel Brooks Hunter

Emily Adlam

Abstract This book aims to reconceptualize the quantum measurement problem as a problem of epistemology, and to explore the epistemic problems faced by a number of popular interpretations of quantum mechanics. It argues that a number of well-known solutions to the measurement problem, including the many-worlds interpretation and the observer-relative interpretations, face potentially fatal epistemic problems. It also delves into the relationship between physics and epistemology, using the measurement problem to motivate an account of scneitifc epistemology which highlights the role of coherence in justifying the use we make of measurements and observations in the scientific process.

Inge Svein Helland

In this paper, epistemology and ontology of quantum states are discussed based on a completely new way of founding quantum theory. The fundamental notions are conceptual variables in the mind of an observer or in the joint minds of a group of observers. These conceptual variables are very often accessible, that is, it is possible to find values of the variables by doing experiments or by making measurements. An important notion is that of maximal accessibility. It is shown here that this new machinery may facilitate the discussion of when a specific quantum state can be given an ontological interpretation, and also the more speculative question whether all states can be given such an interpretation. The discussion here is general, and has implications for the basic problem of how one should look upon information from experiments and measurement, in particularly the question concerning when this information may reflect properties of the real world.