This paper offers a critique of the Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics with particular focus on a paper by Caves, Fuchs, and Schack containing a critique of the “objective preparations view ” or OPV. It also aims to carry the discussion beyond the hardened positions of Bayesians and proponents of the OPV. Several claims made by Caves et al. are rebutted, including the claim that different pure states may legitimately be assigned to the same system at the same time, and the claim that the quantum nature of a preparation device cannot legitimately be ignored. Both Bayesians and proponents of the OPV regard the time dependence of a quantum state as the continuous dependence on time of an evolving state of some kind. This leads to a false dilemma: quantum states are either objective states of nature or subjective states of belief. In reality they are neither. The present paper views the aforesaid dependence as a dependence on the time of the measurement to whose possible outcomes
This paper offers a critique of the Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics with particular focus on a paper by Caves, Fuchs, and Schack containing a critique of the “objective preparations view ” or OPV. It also aims to carry the discussion beyond the hardened positions of Bayesians and proponents of the OPV. Several claims made by Caves et al. are rebutted, including the claim that different pure states may legitimately be assigned to the same system at the same time, and the claim that the quantum nature of a preparation device cannot legitimately be ignored. Both Bayesians and proponents of the OPV regard the time dependence of a quantum state as the continuous dependence on time of an evolving state of some kind. This leads to a false dilemma: quantum states are either objective states of nature or subjective states of belief. In reality they are neither. The present paper views the aforesaid dependence as a dependence on the time of the measurement to whose possible outcomes
The Quantum Bayesian view of Caves, Fuchs and Schack is presented, this being a view according to which quantum state assignments are purely personal and subjective, just as probability assignments are for subjective Bayesians. It is noted that the rationale for the approach derives from an interesting conjunction of a general realism about physics, combined with anti-realism about much of the structure of quantum mechanics. More detail of the position is then provided and the important question of how the approach handles the shifty divide between system and apparatus explained. Finally, the view is defended from three common objections: that it is tacitly solipsistic; that it is overly instrumentalist; and last, that it cannot adequately deal with the data that would be experimentally available in a Wigner’s Friend scenario.
I consider the "Quantum Bayesian" view of quantum theory as expounded in a 2006 paper of Caves, Fuchs, and Schack. I argue that one can accept a generally personalist, decision-theoretic view of probability, including probability as manifested in quantum physics, while nevertheless accepting that in some situations, including some in quantum physics, probabilities may in a useful sense be thought of as objectively correct. This includes situations in which the ascription of a quantum state should be thought of as objectively correct. I argue that this does not cause any prima facie objectionable sort of action at a distance, though it may involve adopting the attitude that certain dispositional properties of things are not "localized" at those things. Whether this insouciant view of nonlocality and objectivity can survive more detailed analysis is a matter for further investigation.
Quantum mechanics is the most useful and powerful theory physicists have ever devised. Yet today, nearly 90 years after its formulation, disagreement about the meaning of the theory is stronger than ever. New interpretations appear every year. None ever disappear. Probability theory is considerably older than quantum mechanics and has also been plagued from the beginning by questions about its meaning. And quantum mechanics is inherently and famously probabilistic. For the past decade, Carl Caves, Chris Fuchs, and Rüdiger Schack have been arguing that the confusion at the foundations of quantum mechanics arises out of a confusion, prevalent among physicists, about the nature of probability [1]. They maintain that if probability is properly understood, the notorious quantum paradoxes either vanish or assume less vexing forms. Most physicists have a frequentist view of probability: Probabilities describe objective properties of ensembles of “identically prepared” systems. Caves, Fuchs, and Schack take a personalist Bayesian view: An agent assigns a probability p to a single event as a measure of her belief that the event will take place [2]. Such an agent is willing to pay less than $ p for a coupon that will pay her $1 if the event happens, and she is willing to underwrite and sell such a coupon for more than $ p . Surprisingly, the standard rules for probability follow from the requirement that an agent should never face certain loss in a single event. (For example, if p exceeded 1, she would pay more than $1 for a coupon that returned at most $1; if p were negative, she would pay somebody to take a coupon from her that might cost her another $1.) Avoiding certain loss is the only constraint on an agent's probability assignments. The probability of an event is not inherent in that event. Different agents, with different beliefs, will in general assign different probabilities to the same event. The personalist Bayesian view of probability is widely held [3], though not by many physicists. It has profound implications for the meaning of quantum mechanics, which Fuchs and Schack call quantum Bayesianism—QBism for short. Since quantum states determine probabilities, if probabilities are indeed assigned by an agent to express her degree of belief, then the quantum state of a physical system is not inherent in that system but assigned by an agent to encapsulate her beliefs about it. State assignments, like probabilities, are relative to an agent.
Zurek's existential interpretation of quantum mechanics suffers from three classical prejudices, including the belief that space and time are intrinsically and infinitely differentiated. These compel him to relativize the concept of objective existence in two ways. The elimination of these prejudices makes it possible to recognize the quantum formalism's ontological implications — the relative and contingent reality of spatiotemporal distinctions and the extrinsic and finite spatiotemporal differentiation of the physical world — which in turn makes it possible to arrive at an unqualified objective existence. Contrary to a widespread misconception, viewing the quantum formalism as being fundamentally a probability algorithm does not imply that quantum mechanics is concerned with states of knowledge rather than states of Nature. On the contrary, it makes possible a complete and strongly objective description of the physical world that requires no reference to observers. What objectively exists, in a sense that requires no qualification, is (i) the trajectories of macroscopic objects, whose fuzziness is empirically irrelevant, (ii) the properties and values of whose possession these trajectories provide indelible records, and (iii) the fuzzy and temporally undifferentiated states of affairs that obtain between measurements and are described by counterfactual probability assignments.
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.