Respecting one's fellow: QBism's analysis of Wigner's friend

DOI10.1007/S10701-020-00369-XzbMATH Open1454.81018arXiv2008.03572OpenAlexW3050990017MaRDI QIDQ828402FDOQ828402

Authors: John B. DeBrota, Christopher A. Fuchs, R. Schack 

Publication date: 8 January 2021

Published in: Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: According to QBism, quantum states, unitary evolutions, and measurement operators are all understood as personal judgments of the agent using the formalism. Meanwhile, quantum measurement outcomes are understood as the personal experiences of the same agent. Wigner's conundrum of the friend, in which two agents ostensibly have different accounts of whether or not there is a measurement outcome, thus poses no paradox for QBism. Indeed the resolution of Wigner's original thought experiment was central to the development of QBist thinking. The focus of this paper concerns two very instructive modifications to Wigner's puzzle: One, a recent no-go theorem by Frauchiger and Renner, and the other a thought experiment by Baumann and Brukner. We show that the paradoxical features emphasized in these works disappear once both friend and Wigner are understood as agents on an equal footing with regard to their individual uses of quantum theory. Wigner's action on his friend then becomes, from the friend's perspective, an action the friend takes on Wigner. Our analysis rests on a kind of quantum Copernican principle: When two agents take actions on each other, each agent has a dual role as a physical system for the other agent. No user of quantum theory is more privileged than any other. In contrast to the sentiment of Wigner's original paper, neither agent should be considered as in "suspended animation." In this light, QBism brings an entirely new perspective to understanding Wigner's friend thought experiments.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.03572

Recommendations

• Wigner's friend as a rational agent
• Consistent descriptions of quantum measurement
• When Greenberger, Horne and Zeilinger meet Wigner's friend
• Single-world theory of the extended Wigner's friend experiment
• The measurement problem and two dogmas about quantum mechanics

zbMATH Keywords

QBismresponse to Frauchiger and Renner thought experimentWigner's friend

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Towards better understanding QBism
• Unknown quantum states: The quantum de Finetti representation
• Why QBism is not the Copenhagen interpretation and what John Bell might have thought of it
• Subjective probability and quantum certainty
• Quantum Bayesianism: a study
• On de Finetti's instrumentalist philosophy of probability
• Quantum theory and the limits of objectivity
• Quantum information versus epistemic logic: an analysis of the Frauchiger-Renner theorem
• Quantum Bayesianism as the basis of general theory of decision-making
• Wigner's friend as a rational agent
• Title not available (Why is that?)

Cited In (22)

• Consistent descriptions of quantum measurement
• The relational dissolution of the quantum measurement problems
• Extending the agent in QBism
• Wave-particle duality and the objectiveness of ``true and ``false
• Logic meets Wigner's friend (and their friends)
• No relation for Wigner's friend
• Relational analysis of the Frauchiger-Renner paradox and interaction-free detection of records from the past
• Single-world theory of the extended Wigner's friend experiment
• Wigner's friend as a rational agent
• Consciousness and the Wigner's friend problem
• A logico-epistemic investigation of Frauchiger and Renner's paradox
• Quantum epistemology and constructivism
• A phenomenology of identity: Qbism and quantum (non-)particles
• When Greenberger, Horne and Zeilinger meet Wigner's friend
• Wigner's convoluted friends
• Perspectival quantum realism
• A quintet of quandaries: five No-Go theorems for relational quantum mechanics
• QBism and relational quantum mechanics compared
• Stable facts, relative facts
• The view from a Wigner bubble
• Epistemic-pragmatist interpretations of quantum mechanics: a comparative assessment
• Unitary-only quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself: on the Frauchiger-Renner paradox

This page was built for publication: Respecting one's fellow: QBism's analysis of Wigner's friend

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q828402)