{"title":"Anti-foundationalist Coherentism as an Ontology for Relational Quantum Mechanics","authors":"Emma Jaura","doi":"10.1007/s10701-024-00794-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>There have been a number of recent attempts to identify the best metaphysical framework for capturing Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM). All such accounts commit to some form of fundamentalia, whether they be traditional objects, physical relations, events or ‘flashes’, or the cosmos as a fundamental whole. However, Rovelli’s own recommendation is that ‘a natural philosophical home for RQM is an anti-foundationalist perspective' (Rovelli in Philos Trans R Soc 376:10, 2018). This gives us some prima facie reason to explore options beyond these foundationalist frameworks, and take seriously a picture that lacks fundamentalia. I construct an argument from elimination in favour of an anti-foundationalist interpretation of RQM. The argument notes that <i>priority monism</i> and <i>priority pluralism</i> are exhaustive foundationalist options, and then shows that there are reasons to reject their union with RQM. I finish by recommending <i>metaphysical coherentism</i> as a promising anti-foundationalist alternative, which captures the key characteristics of RQM through accepting symmetrical dependence, whilst avoiding challenges by jettisoning any commitment to fundamental entities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":569,"journal":{"name":"Foundations of Physics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10701-024-00794-2.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Foundations of Physics","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-024-00794-2","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PHYSICS, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
There have been a number of recent attempts to identify the best metaphysical framework for capturing Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM). All such accounts commit to some form of fundamentalia, whether they be traditional objects, physical relations, events or ‘flashes’, or the cosmos as a fundamental whole. However, Rovelli’s own recommendation is that ‘a natural philosophical home for RQM is an anti-foundationalist perspective' (Rovelli in Philos Trans R Soc 376:10, 2018). This gives us some prima facie reason to explore options beyond these foundationalist frameworks, and take seriously a picture that lacks fundamentalia. I construct an argument from elimination in favour of an anti-foundationalist interpretation of RQM. The argument notes that priority monism and priority pluralism are exhaustive foundationalist options, and then shows that there are reasons to reject their union with RQM. I finish by recommending metaphysical coherentism as a promising anti-foundationalist alternative, which captures the key characteristics of RQM through accepting symmetrical dependence, whilst avoiding challenges by jettisoning any commitment to fundamental entities.
期刊介绍:
The conceptual foundations of physics have been under constant revision from the outset, and remain so today. Discussion of foundational issues has always been a major source of progress in science, on a par with empirical knowledge and mathematics. Examples include the debates on the nature of space and time involving Newton and later Einstein; on the nature of heat and of energy; on irreversibility and probability due to Boltzmann; on the nature of matter and observation measurement during the early days of quantum theory; on the meaning of renormalisation, and many others.
Today, insightful reflection on the conceptual structure utilised in our efforts to understand the physical world is of particular value, given the serious unsolved problems that are likely to demand, once again, modifications of the grammar of our scientific description of the physical world. The quantum properties of gravity, the nature of measurement in quantum mechanics, the primary source of irreversibility, the role of information in physics – all these are examples of questions about which science is still confused and whose solution may well demand more than skilled mathematics and new experiments.
Foundations of Physics is a privileged forum for discussing such foundational issues, open to physicists, cosmologists, philosophers and mathematicians. It is devoted to the conceptual bases of the fundamental theories of physics and cosmology, to their logical, methodological, and philosophical premises.
The journal welcomes papers on issues such as the foundations of special and general relativity, quantum theory, classical and quantum field theory, quantum gravity, unified theories, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, cosmology, and similar.