`Probabilistic knowledge' as `objective knowledge' in quantum mechanics: potential immanent powers instead of actual properties

DOI10.1142/9789813146280_0006MaRDI QIDQ2956239zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors C. De Ronde

Publication date 16 January 2017

Published in Probing the Meaning of Quantum Mechanics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.07378

zbMATH Keywords

quantum probabilityobjectivityimmanent powerspotentia

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05)

Abstract: In classical physics, probabilistic or statistical knowledge has been always related to ignorance or inaccurate subjective knowledge about an actual state of affairs. This idea has been extended to quantum mechanics through a completely incoherent interpretation of the Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics in terms of "strange" quantum particles. This interpretation, naturalized through a widespread "way of speaking" in the physics community, contradicts Born's physical account of {Psi} as a "probability wave" which provides statistical information about outcomes that, in fact, cannot be interpreted in terms of 'ignorance about an actual state of affairs'. In the present paper we discuss how the metaphysics of actuality has played an essential role in limiting the possibilities of understating things differently. We propose instead a metaphysical scheme in terms of powers with definite potentia which allows us to consider quantum probability in a new light, namely, as providing objective knowledge about a potential state of affairs.

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Cited in

(7)

• Immanent powers versus causal powers (propensities, latencies and dispositions) in quantum mechanics
• Quantum probability: a reliable tool for an agent or a reliable source of reality?
• The logos categorical approach to quantum mechanics. II. Quantum superpositions and intensive values
• The logos categorical approach to quantum mechanics. I: Kochen-Specker contextuality and global intensive valuations
• Measuring quantum superpositions. (Or, ``It is only the theory which decides what can be observed.)
• Quantum superpositions and the representation of physical reality beyond measurement outcomes and mathematical structures
• A new objective definition of quantum entanglement as potential coding of intensive and effective relations

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