Repository logo
 

Peaceful Coexistence: Examining Kent’s Relativistic Solution to the Quantum Measurement Problem

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Conference Object

Change log

Authors

Butterfield, Jeremy Nicholas  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0215-5802

Abstract

Can there be ‘peaceful coexistence’ between quantum theory and special relativity? Thirty years ago, Shimony hoped that isolating the culprit (i.e. the false assumption) in proofs of Bell inequalities as Outcome Independence would secure such peaceful coexistence: or, if not secure it, at least show a way—maybe the best or only way—to secure it. In this paper, I begin by being sceptical of Shimony’s approach, urging that we need a relativistic solution to the quantum measurement problem (Sect. 2). Then I analyse Outcome Independence in Kent’s realist one-world Lorentz-invariant interpretation of quantum theory (Sects. 3 and 4). Then I consider Shimony’s other condition, Parameter Independence, both in Kent’s proposal and more generally, in the light of recent remarkable theorems by Colbeck, Renner and Leegwater (Sect. 5). For both Outcome Independence and Parameter Independence, there is a striking analogy with the situation in pilot-wave theory. Finally, I will suggest that these recent theorems make some kind of peaceful coexistence mandatory for someone who, like Shimony, endorses Parameter Independence.

Description

Keywords

5108 Quantum Physics, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 51 Physical Sciences

Journal Title

Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics

Conference Name

Reality and Measurement in Algebraic Quantum Theory (NWW2015)

Journal ISSN

2194-1009
2194-1017

Volume Title

261

Publisher

Springer Singapore

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Nagoya University, Graduate School of Information Science. Supported in part by the JSPS KAKENHI No. 26247016 and the John Templeton Foundation ID 35771.