Defending Many Worlds via Case Discrimination: An Attempt to Showcase the Conceptual Incoherence of Anti-Realist Interpretations and Relational Quantum Mechanics
{"title":"Defending Many Worlds via Case Discrimination: An Attempt to Showcase the Conceptual Incoherence of Anti-Realist Interpretations and Relational Quantum Mechanics","authors":"Michael Huber","doi":"10.3390/quantum5020023","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In this work, an alternative attempt to motivate the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is undertaken. The usual way of arguing for MWI mostly revolves around how it might solve the measurement problem in a more straightforward and concise manner than rival interpretations. However, here an effort is made to defend MWI in an indirect manner, namely via repeated case discrimination and a process of ‘conceptual elimination’. That is, it will be argued that its major rivals, with QBism and Relational Quantum-Mechanics being among the most noteworthy ones, either face conceptual incoherence or conceptually collapse into a variant of MWI. Finally, it is argued that hidden-variable theories face severe challenges when being applied to Quantum Field Theory such that appropriate modifications may lead back to MWI, thereby purportedly leaving MWI as the only viable option.","PeriodicalId":34124,"journal":{"name":"Quantum Reports","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quantum Reports","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3390/quantum5020023","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Physics and Astronomy","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
In this work, an alternative attempt to motivate the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is undertaken. The usual way of arguing for MWI mostly revolves around how it might solve the measurement problem in a more straightforward and concise manner than rival interpretations. However, here an effort is made to defend MWI in an indirect manner, namely via repeated case discrimination and a process of ‘conceptual elimination’. That is, it will be argued that its major rivals, with QBism and Relational Quantum-Mechanics being among the most noteworthy ones, either face conceptual incoherence or conceptually collapse into a variant of MWI. Finally, it is argued that hidden-variable theories face severe challenges when being applied to Quantum Field Theory such that appropriate modifications may lead back to MWI, thereby purportedly leaving MWI as the only viable option.