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Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks

The Charge of Anthropocentrism

Simon Friederich

Published Jan 1, 2015• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Epistemic accounts of quantum states such as quantum Bayesianism and the Rule Perspective are formulated in terms of notions such as ‘agent’, ‘epistemic situation’, and ‘state assignment’, which are neither themselves fundamental physical notions nor in any evident way reducible to such notions. In the present section I discuss an objection to the employment of such ‘ anthropocentric notions’ (as I will call them), which claims that they are far too vague and too imprecise to be used in foundational accounts. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

DOI
10.1057/9781137447159_8

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Epistemic accounts of quantum states such as quantum Bayesianism and the Rule Perspective are formulated in terms of notions such as ‘agent’, ‘epistemic situation’, and ‘state assignment’, which are neither themselves fundamental physical notions nor in any evident way reducible to such notions. In the present section I discuss an objection to the employment of such ‘ anthropocentric notions’ (as I will call them), which claims that they are far too vague and too imprecise to be used in foundational accounts. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The previous chapter addressed the challenge of making sense of the notion of a quantum state assignment being performed correctly without thereby acknowledging the notion of a quantum state a quantum system ‘is in’. The present chapter discusses what interpretation of quantum probabilities goes best with the account that I have called the ‘Rule Perspective’ and started to develop in the previous chapter. The first section considers what quantum probabilities should be taken to be probabilities of in the Rule Perspective; the second investigates what philosophical interpretation of probabilities applies best to quantum probabilities thus conceived. The third section considers two objections to the resulting account of quantum probabilities. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
A quantum state, via the Born Rule, assigns probabilities to the different possible values of observables of a quantum system. It is only in virtue of these probabilities — or, alternatively, expectation values — that quantum mechanics is empirically testable. Since assigning a state to a system means assigning probabilities to the values of observables, it may seem natural to read Peierls’ claim that the state ‘represents our knowledge of the system’ (Peierls [1991], p. 19) as a shorthand for saying that the state represents our knowledge of these probabilities. The latter view is sometimes even straightforwardly identified with the epistemic conception of states, for example by Marchildon, who claims that ‘[i]n the epistemic view [of quantum states], the state vector (or wave function or density matrix) does not represent the objective state of a microscopic system […], but rather our knowledge of the probabilities of outcomes of future measurements’ (Marchildon [2004], p. 1454). However, according to an argument due to Fuchs and endorsed by Timpson, 31 the idea that quantum states represent our knowledge about quantum probabilities should not be regarded as the core claim of the epistemic conception of quantum states, simply because, as they argue, this idea is in fact incompatible with the latter. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The main ambition of this work has been to explore the prospects for dissolving the foundational problems of quantum theory by adopting the epistemic conception of quantum states and reflecting on how it should be spelled out in detail. This differs (at least in emphasis, if not more profoundly) from the main ambition of those — ‘realistically minded’ — philosophers whose declared aim is to determine what reality is like if it is as quantum theory says. If the Rule Perspective is correct, quantum theory does not really say anything about reality at all: features of reality are described not by quantum states, but by NQMCs, and while quantum theory helps us ascribe probabilities to the NQMCs, it does not typically make any statements as to which NQMCs are true and which are false. However, even though quantum theory does not in that sense say anything about reality, we can learn a lot about reality by reflecting on what features it must have for quantum theory’s undisputed empirical success to be possible. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
As announced in the introductory chapter, one of the core motivations for the therapeutic approach developed here is to investigate whether the doctrine of the Copenhagen interpretation, that quantum theory is fine as it stands and needs neither completion nor revision nor reinterpretation in speculative terms, can be vindicated. Having outlined the essential ingredients of the Rule Perspective in the previous chapters as an account designed to fulfil these therapeutic ambitions, it is natural to ask whether the Rule Perspective may be nothing else than the Copenhagen interpretation in new clothing. Since the Copenhagen interpretation is nowadays widely regarded as a failure, the question amounts to a criticism of the Rule Perspective and, so, deserves to be answered in the part of this work that addresses objections. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
The paper discusses objections against non-hidden variable versions of the epistemic conception of quantum states - the view that quantum states do not describe the properties of quantum systems but reflect, in some way to be specified, the epistemic conditions of agents assigning them. In the first half of the paper, the main motivation for the epistemic conception of quantum states is sketched, and a version of it is outlined, which combines ideas from an earlier study of it [Friederich 2011] with elements of Richard Healey's recent pragmatist interpretation of quantum theory [Healey 2012]. In the second half, various objections against epistemic accounts of quantum states are discussed in detail, which are based on criticisms found in the literature. Possible answers by the version outlined here are compared with answers from the quantum Bayesian point of view, which is at present the most discussed version of the epistemic conception of quantum states.
The notion of adiabaticity has played important role in the history of physics. Roughly speaking, it lies on the border of statics and dynamics, taking into account dynamical effects but in the limit of infinitely slow changes. That is, the system is no longer static but its evolution is “infinitely slow.” A typical situation where one applies adiabatic ideas is when a physical system may be divided into two subsystems with completely different time scales: a so-called slow subsystem and fast subsystem . These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.