The Reality of the Wavefunction: Old Arguments and New

Martin Ringbauer

Claudio Calosi, Vincenzo Fano, Pierluigi Graziani +1 more

Different realistic attitudes towards wavefunctions and quantum states are as old as quantum theory itself. Recently Pusey, Barret and Rudolph (PBR) on the one hand, and Auletta and Tarozzi (AT) on the other, have proposed new interesting arguments in favor of a broad realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics that can be considered the modern heir to some views held by the fathers of quantum theory. In this paper we give a new and detailed presentation of such arguments, propose a new taxonomy of different realistic positions in the foundations of quantum mechanics and assess the scope, within this new taxonomy, of these realistic arguments.

Allen C. Dotson

Claudio Calosi, Vincenzo Fano, Pierluigi Graziani +1 more

Abstract: Different realistic attitudes towards wavefunctions and quantum states are as old as quantum theory itself. Recently Pusey, Barret and Rudolph (PBR) on the one hand, and Auletta and Tarozzi (AT) on the other, have proposed new interesting arguments in favor of a broad realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics that can be considered the modern heir to some views held by the fathers of quantum theory. In this paper we give a new and detailed presentation of such arguments, propose a new taxonomy of different realistic positions in the foundations of quantum mechanics and assess the scope, within this new taxonomy, of these realistic arguments.

Juan Ramón González Álvarez

It is broadly believed that everything in the universe is found to be made from a few basic building blocks called fundamental particles, governed by four fundamental forces. However, physicists such as John Archibald Wheeler suggested that information is fundamental to the physics of the universe. According to this it from bit doctrine, all things physical are information-theoretic in origin. This doctrine is based in the old Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics; an interpretation which is internally inconsistent and no applicable to the cosmos as a whole. Modern consistent interpretations of quantum mechanics eliminate the old myths about measurement processes and observers' consciousness and reintroduce the idea of a wholly physical reality, invalidating the it from bit doctrine. Utilizing a new phase space formulation of quantum mechanics developed recently by the author, the concepts of bit and it are reconsidered. We introduce the new states D as quantum bits and the new Hamiltonians H as quantum its. The new concepts of it and bit introduced in this work have a well-defined and rigorous definition, unlike Wheeler's concepts. Moreover, the new concepts apply on situations where the traditional wavefunction theory does not work. The it H is not derivable from the bit D and, as a consequence, the old it from bit doctrine gets substituted by the new it and bit. After showing why the physical entropy used in the science of thermodynamics is not a measure of the ignorance of human observers, the final part of this Essay is devoted to emphasize the importance that the bit acquires in modern science when confronted to the delicious multiplicity of the far-from-equilibrium regimes, where the certainty of Newtonian and Schrodinger motion begin to fade in favour of a complex non-geometrical, 'living', conception of Nature: an it and bit conception.

Martin Ringbauer, B. Duffus, Cyril Branciard +3 more