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Many-Valued Logics in Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

Jarosław Pykacz

Published Jan 1, 1995• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A many–valued logic from an old neglected Lukasiewicz paper is adopted to describe results of physical (esp. quantum) experiments. Truth–values of propositions are interpreted as probabilities of their experimental confirmation. It is shown that the Lindenbaum algebra of the obtained logic is an orthomodular partially ordered set, i.e. a “quantum logic” in the Birkhoff–von Neumann sense. Short outline of the historical development of applications of many–valued logics in foudations of quantum mechanics is given.

DOI
10.1163/9789004457430_027

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•Jan 1, 2010•0 citations
A many–valued logic from an old neglected Lukasiewicz paper is adopted to describe results of physical (esp. quantum) experiments. Truth–values of propositions are interpreted as probabilities of their experimental confirmation. It is shown that the Lindenbaum algebra of the obtained logic is an orthomodular partially ordered set, i.e. a “quantum logic” in the Birkhoff–von Neumann sense. Short outline of the historical development of applications of many–valued logics in foudations of quantum mechanics is given.
In this paper, we propose a new interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which Born probabilities are interpreted as many-valued truth values of statements concerning results of not-yet-performed experiments on quantum objects, or equivalently [0,1]-valued degrees to which quantum objects possess all their properties prior to measurements. The interpretation is based on mathematical results already published by the author, according to which any Birkhoff–von Neumann quantum logic can be isomorphically represented as a family of fuzzy sets or, equivalently, many-valued propositional functions.
Sentences Associated with a Quantum System and Their Truth Values In a sense this chapter is marginal to the content of this volume; the reader can skip it without prejudice to the comprehension of chapters to follow. Quantum logic is a discipline that branched off from the 1936 paper of Birkhoff and von Neumann and has the orthomodular-poset structures encountered in previous chapters as basic mathematical carriers: that is why we think it worthwhile to devote some pages to the subject. But the main interests quantum logic calls into play are in the territory of logicians and philosophers: that is why we (who are neither logicians nor philosophers) shall confine ourselves to a very simplified introduction to the subject. Roughly, the starting question is whether the propositions of a quantum system can be associated with, or can be interpreted as, sentences of a language (or propositional calculus) and which rules this language inherits from the ordered structure of propositions. In raising this question one has in mind the fact that when the physical system is classical its propositions form a Boolean algebra, and Boolean algebras are the algebraic models of the calculus of classical logic. Thus the question above can also be phrased as follows: when a Boolean algebra is relaxed into an orthomodular nondistributive lattice, which logic is it the model of? “Quantum logic” is the name that designates the answer, but there are several views about the content of this name. Here we sketch one approach to a quantum logic.
Quantum logic has been introduced by Birkhoff and von Neumann as an attempt to base the logical primitives, the propositions and the relations and operations among them, on quantum theoretical entities, and thus on the related empirical evidence of the quantum world. We give a brief outline of quantum logic, and some of its algebraic properties, such as nondistributivity, whereby emphasis is given to concrete experimental setups related to quantum logical entities. A probability theory based on quantum logic is fundamentally and sometimes even spectacularly different from probabilities based on classical Boolean logic. We give a brief outline of its nonclassical aspects; in particular violations of Boole-Bell type consistency constraints on joint probabilities, as well as the Kochen-Specker theorem, demonstrating in a constructive, finite way the scarcity and even nonexistence of two-valued states interpretable as classical truth assignments. A more complete introduction of the author can be found in the book "Quantum Logic" (Springer, 1998)
This paper deals with the foundations of quantum mechanics. We start by outlining the characterisation, due to Birkhoff and Von Neumann, of the logical structures of the theories of classical physics and quantum mechanics, as boolean and modular lattices respectively. We then derive these descriptions from what we claim are basic properties of any physical theory - i.e. the notion that a quantity in such a theory may be analysed into parts and that the results of this analysis may be treated in languages with an underlying boolean structure. We shall see that in the course of constructing a model of a theory with these properties different indistinguishable possibilities will arise for how the elements of the model may be named, that is to say different possibilities arise for how they can be associated with points from Set. Taking a particular collection of possibilities gives the usual boolean lattice of the propositions of classical physics. Taking all possibilities - in a sense, the set of all things that may be described by physical theories - gives the lattice of quantum mechanical propositions. This gives an interpretation of quantum mechanics as the complete set of such possible descriptions, the complete physical description of the world.
Summary Foundational studies in quantum theory have consisted in large part of attempts to avoid paradoxical situations in describing properties of a physical system. Quantum logic addresses some of the perplexing problems that plague interpretations of quantum theory by invoking a non-classical propositional calculus for the set of propositions of a quantum system. Historically, quantum logic derives from von Neumann’s observation that the set of projection operators on a Hilbert space constitute a ‘logic’ of experimental propositions. More than two decades passed from the pioneering work of Birkho and von Neumann before interest in quantum logic was re-ignited by Mackey’s probabilistic analysis of quantum theory. Piron’s axiomatization provided a signicant