Holism, physical theories and quantum mechanics

DOI10.1016/J.SHPSB.2004.08.001MaRDI QIDQ640096zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors M. P. Seevinck

Publication date 17 October 2011

Published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0402047

zbMATH Keywords

entanglementquantum mechanicsholismsupervenienceclassical physics

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) History of quantum theory (81-03)

Abstract: Motivated by the question what it is that makes quantum mechanics a holistic theory (if so), I try to define for general physical theories what we mean by `holism'. For this purpose I propose an epistemological criterion to decide whether or not a physical theory is holistic, namely: a physical theory is holistic if and only if it is impossible in principle to infer the global properties, as assigned in the theory, by local resources available to an agent. I propose that these resources include at least all local operations and classical communication. This approach is contrasted with the well-known approaches to holism in terms of supervenience. The criterion for holism proposed here involves a shift in emphasis from ontology to epistemology. I apply this epistemological criterion to classical physics and Bohmian mechanics as represented on a phase and configuration space respectively, and for quantum mechanics (in the orthodox interpretation) using the formalism of general quantum operations as completely positive trace non-increasing maps. Furthermore, I provide an interesting example from which one can conclude that quantum mechanics is holistic in the above mentioned sense, although, perhaps surprisingly, no entanglement is needed.

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Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1579275 (Why is no real title available?)
• Lectures on Quantum Theory
• Nonlocality, asymmetry, and distinguishing bipartite states

Cited in

(14)

• Holism and nonseparability by analogy
• Path integrals and holism
• Individuation in quantum mechanics
• Anthropomorphic quantum Darwinism as an explanation for classicality
• Quantum state holism: a case for holistic causation
• Is nature quantum non-local, complex holistic, or what? II: Applications
• Quantum holism: nonseparability as common ground
• Gauge theories and holisms
• Entanglement criteria for the three-qubit states
• Limited holism and real-vector-space quantum theory
• Experimental proposal for testing the emergence of environment induced (EIN) classical selection rules with biological systems
• Completely top-down hierarchical structure in quantum mechanics
• Two notions of holism
• One sided indeterminism alone is not a useful resource to simulate any nonlocal correlation

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