Assessing the Montevideo interpretation of quantum mechanics

DOI10.1016/J.SHPSB.2014.04.001zbMATH Open1329.81038arXiv1406.4351OpenAlexW2002199100MaRDI QIDQ905645FDOQ905645

Authors: Jeremy Butterfield 

Publication date: 27 January 2016

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

Abstract: This paper gives a philosophical assessment of the Montevideo interpretation of quantum theory, advocated by Gambini, Pullin and co-authors. This interpretation has the merit of linking its proposal about how to solve the measurement problem to the search for quantum gravity: namely by suggesting that quantum gravity makes for fundamental limitations on the accuracy of clocks, which imply a type of decoherence that "collapses the wave-packet". I begin (Section 2) by sketching the topics of decoherence, and quantum clocks, on which the interpretation depends. Then I expound the interpretation, from a philosopher's perspective (Sections 3, 4 and 5). Finally, in Section 6, I argue that the interpretation, at least as developed so far, is best seen as a form of the Everett interpretation: namely with an effective or approximate branching, that is induced by environmental decoherence of the familiar kind, and by the Montevideans' "temporal decoherence".

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.4351

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zbMATH Keywords

decoherenceEverett interpretationquantum clocksMontevideo interpretation

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Relativistic cosmology (83F05) Open systems, reduced dynamics, master equations, decoherence (81S22)

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Cited In (4)

• Analysis of some arguments on quantum interpretation
• An axiomatic formulation of the Montevideo interpretation of quantum mechanics
• Less decoherence and more coherence in quantum gravity, inflationary cosmology and elsewhere
• Undecidability as solution to the problem of measurement: fundamental criterion for the production of events

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