Abstract Present quantum mechanics has been a source of puzzlement since its inception in 1927. The theory has been undoubtedly successful predicting results in a large number of experimental situations. However, its heavy epistemological legacy, coming from the initial ideas of Niels Bohr about complementarity and about the possibility for physical description, has turned quantum mechanics in a kind of ontological black box. This work is an attempt to overcome such epistemological opacity, proposing an interpretation that will present Bohrian quantum mechanics formalism and the pilot-wave framework as two complementary and mutually non-exclusive theoretical descriptions of quantum phenomena. The two theories will, hopefully, become the foundations of a new and more complete approach to quantum reality. One that will, simultaneously, serve as a highly efficient predictive formalism and also as an intelligible description about quantum phenomena in four-dimensional spacetime. I will start from the pilot-wave framework, proposing that quantum waves are memory carrying structures that encode probabilistic distributions of the fundamental behaviors of corpuscles. This nomological information, as I will call it, will have a necessitarian weight upon all corpuscles behaviors, in the sense that the only behaviors allowed in Nature are the ones that can be encoded or have been encoded in the quantum wave carriers. Such a picture of quantum physics will imply that corpuscles exchange nomological information with the carrier waves, by means of the guidage or pilot-wave effect. Secondly, I will suggest that the actual Bohrian quantum mechanics formalism, the one used in the Copenhagen School interpretation, describes not the actual states and properties of quantum corpuscular entities, but the nomological information about those states and properties. As such Bohrian quantum mechanics is a description about not the actual physical observable dynamics, but about the dynamics of the nomological information encoded in the carrier quantum waves. The adoption and consistent interplay of both theoretical descriptions, pilot-wave mode and Bohrian mode, will serve epistemological completeness in the study of quantum phenomena.
Abstract Present quantum mechanics has been a source of puzzlement since its inception in 1927. The theory has been undoubtedly successful predicting results in a large number of experimental situations. However, its heavy epistemological legacy, coming from the initial ideas of Niels Bohr about complementarity and about the possibility for physical description, has turned quantum mechanics in a kind of ontological black box. This work is an attempt to overcome such epistemological opacity, proposing an interpretation that will present Bohrian quantum mechanics formalism and the pilot-wave framework as two complementary and mutually non-exclusive theoretical descriptions of quantum phenomena. The two theories will, hopefully, become the foundations of a new and more complete approach to quantum reality. One that will, simultaneously, serve as a highly efficient predictive formalism and also as an intelligible description about quantum phenomena in four-dimensional spacetime. I will start from the pilot-wave framework, proposing that quantum waves are memory carrying structures that encode probabilistic distributions of the fundamental behaviors of corpuscles. This nomological information, as I will call it, will have a necessitarian weight upon all corpuscles behaviors, in the sense that the only behaviors allowed in Nature are the ones that can be encoded or have been encoded in the quantum wave carriers. Such a picture of quantum physics will imply that corpuscles exchange nomological information with the carrier waves, by means of the guidage or pilot-wave effect. Secondly, I will suggest that the actual Bohrian quantum mechanics formalism, the one used in the Copenhagen School interpretation, describes not the actual states and properties of quantum corpuscular entities, but the nomological information about those states and properties. As such Bohrian quantum mechanics is a description about not the actual physical observable dynamics, but about the dynamics of the nomological information encoded in the carrier quantum waves. The adoption and consistent interplay of both theoretical descriptions, pilot-wave mode and Bohrian mode, will serve epistemological completeness in the study of quantum phenomena.
Bohmian Mechanics (Dürr et al. 1992) and the Pilot Wave theory (Valentini 1991) provide two opposite understandings of what guides the particles. On one hand there is a universal nomological wave-function (Dürr et al. 1997), which dictates the motion of the particles (the primitive ontology), on the other hand there is universal Ψ-field, which acts causally on the particle configuration. Both views have to face many challenges. Among them, the nomological interpretation has to account for how the law – the wave-function - is grounded in the primitive ontology (Esfeld 2013), while the causal interpretation has to solve the problem of how an entity in configuration space can be the cause of a motion in physical space (Esfeld et al. 2013). Considering now the problem of the nomological interpretation, the anchorage of the lawlike wave-function to the primitive ontology was provided by Esfeld, who recently proposed to ground the wave-function in a dispositional property instantiated by all the particles taken as a whole (Esfeld et al. 2013). However, two challenges come here: the first concerns the tension in deciding whether or not the dispositional property should be part of the primitive ontology, and the second concerns the weak explanatory power that the dispositionalist account can provide. The debate has led to an interesting structuralist account (Esfeld et al. 2015, Lam 2015), which is to regard the wave-function as a modal structure, which relates all the particles of the universe in a non-local fashion, hence explaining the dynamics of the particles. Regarding the problems of the causal interpretation, Valentini thinks of the Ψ- field not as concrete and as physical as an electromagnetic field, but as a ‘more abstract field’ (Valentini 1991): in fact, it lives in configuration space and for this reason it does not admit test particles. Moreover, he does not regard it as an efficient cause of the particle configuration, but as a formal cause, in an Aristotelian-Thomistic sense, in such a way that it should be considered as a guiding form. According to his Aristotelian view of formal cause, the motion is the fulfilling of what exists potentially, which is represented by the Ψ-field (Valentini 1991). The reason why the Ψ-field should be regarded as a real ‘guiding form’ is twofold: on one hand it is its form that determines the trajectories of the particles, on the other hand, its role is to storage formal information between the particles. After having analyzed both representations of the ‘Ψ’, as a modal structure in the first scenario, and as a formal cause in the second, I will claim that, if we hold Esfeld’s account of the universal wave-function in Bohmian Mechanics and the characterization by Valentini of the pilot wave, then the two views do not differ as much as it is normally thought, because in both the wave-function is regarded as a dynamical structure. This reconciliation is especially achieved if we consider that, being all the particles identical, both theories may be reformulated in a reduced-configuration space.
Quantum mechanics is often perceived as conceptually paradoxical because it appears to conflict with deeply rooted intuitions about fixed reality, determinism, and observation. This paper does not propose a new physical theory. Instead, it offers an epistemological reframing of quantum mechanics: not as a direct mathematical unveiling of a fully fixed pre-existing reality, but as a highly precise description of phenomenological structures emerging through observational conditions and interaction. The paper explores: the distinction between mathematical predictive success and ontological completeness, the role of human perception in constructing “fixed reality” intuitions, the phenomenological nature of qualities such as color and temperature, the possibility that some conceptual tensions in quantum mechanics arise from assumptions inherited from macroscopic cognition, and how quantum theory may be interpreted as describing observable structures rather than fixed hidden states. The work intentionally avoids mystical, anti-scientific, or consciousness-centric interpretations of quantum mechanics. It does not deny the existence of reality, nor reject modern physics. Rather, it attempts to clarify what exactly mathematical models are describing when applied to quantum phenomena. This text is positioned as a conceptual and phenomenological reorganization of perspective — a small doorway toward reconsidering how humans frame “reality” itself.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by , And that has made all the difference . Robert Frost (1916) The explanatory role of empty waves in quantum theory In this chapter we are concerned with two classes of interpretations of quantum mechanics: the epistemological (the historically dominant view) and the ontological. The first views the wave function as just a repository of (statistical) information on a physical system. The other treats the wave function primarily as an element of physical reality, whilst generally retaining the statistical interpretation as a secondary property. There is as yet only theoretical justification for the program of modelling quantum matter in terms of an objective spacetime process; that some way of imagining how the quantum world works between measurements is surely better than none. Indeed, a benefit of such an approach can be that “measurements” lose their talismanic aspect and become just typical processes described by the theory. In the quest to model quantum systems one notes that, whilst the formalism makes reference to “particle” properties such as mass, the linearly evolving wave function ψ( x ) does not generally exhibit any feature that could be put into correspondence with a localized particle structure. To turn quantum mechanics into a theory of matter and motion, with real atoms and molecules consisting of particles structured by potentials and forces, it is necessary to bring in independent physical elements not represented in the basic formalism. The notion of an “empty wave” is peculiar to those representatives of this class of extended theories which postulate that the additional physical element is a corpuscle-like entity or point particle. For clarity, we shall develop the discussion in terms of a definite model of this kind whose properties are well understood and which it is established reproduces the empirical content of quantum mechanics: the de Broglie–Bohm theory, a prominent representative of the class of ontological interpretations (Holland, 1993).
Niels Bohr thought that what quantum mechanics has taught us is not only to understand something new, but also a new meaning of the term “to understand”. Bohr wanted to free himself from ontology by putting emphasis on epistemology; i.e. on certain conditions for observation and description. He believed that the epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics was a crucial one. Basically it has two important aspects. 1. Bohr's philosophy leads to a break with the so-called correspondence theory for truth and meaning. It states that true propositions are descriptions of a world that is independent of our observations; i.e. that on a regular basis one can compare with reality, that is, in compare the two areas against each other. Bohr believed that this did not make sense, since in many situations cannot add meaning to a world that has a sich structure (the thing-in-itself), which in turn can be depicted when observed. 2. All knowledge is attained under certain conditions for description. Bohr thought that the long-lasting criterion for valid knowledge is that can communicate it unambiguously to each other. When Bohr emphasised that we are suspended in language in the sense that all knowledge determines what can say about the world in an understandable way, and not what the world actually is, this must be understood in the sense that only know the world as recognised; i.e., structured on the basis of the conditions for description, to which are, as part of the world, necessarily are subjected to. Bohr's emphasis on conditions for descriptions invalidates the well-known distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. An important feature of the descriptive use of ordinary language, as well as in classical physics, is that description is based on a dividing line between subject and object. This results in idealism and materialism not being tenable positions. Furthermore, it is such that cannot use the designation of things independently of the designation of time and space. Logical principles are only meaningfully applied in situations relating to our conditions for observation. So based on inspiration from Bohr, Favrholdt developed a more adequate and comprehensive philosophy, where he, among other things, states that all humans possess a fundamental language, underlying all languages. This constitutes a number of concepts – the core – where the correct use is dictated by the structure of the world, which humans learn through sensory perception and action.
To revisit and analyze the histories formalism of quantum mechanics, this chapter will refer to the basic idea of the nomological interpretation of the quantum wave function as described in the previous chapter. The quantum wave functions can be interpreted as nomological and non-ontological elements of Bohmian mechanics. This inspires us that, in quantum histories formalism, the multiple conditions/criteria of determining the possible families of histories, whose validity can be examined by reasonable tests regarding the properties of subsystems, can be argued as lawful or nomological, while the quantum histories can be argued as the fundamental physical reality. We will specifically focus on this novel depiction of the formalism concerning quantum reality, which enables us to reconsider the numerous objections to the histories interpretation that were raised in previous chapters and re-examine/resolve from the nomological perspective the several aforementioned ontological and logical issues of quantum histories interpretation. However, there still remain challenging issues in the understanding of quantum histories.
Some two centuries before the quantum revolution, Newton (1) suggested that corpuscles of light generate waves in an aethereal medium like skipping stones generate waves in water, with their motion then being affected by these aether waves. Times have changed. Light corpuscles are now known as photons, and the majority of physicists have dispensed with the notion of aether. Nevertheless, certain features of Newton's metaphor live on in one particular version of quantum mechanics. According to pilot wave theory, first proposed by de Broglie (2) and later developed by Bohm (3) with Einstein's encouragement, microscopic elements such as photons and electrons consist of both particle and wave, the former being guided by the latter. Although this physical picture has not been widely accepted, it has had some notable proponents, including Bell (4). Its principal appeal is that it restores realism and determinism to quantum mechanics, its weakness that the physical nature of the guiding wave field remains unclear. At the time that pilot wave theory was developed and then overtaken by the Copenhagen interpretation as the standard view of quantum mechanics, there was no macroscopic pilot wave analog to draw upon. Now there is.