12
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Quantum Theory Needs No 'Interpretation' But 'Theoretical Formal-Conceptual Unity' (Or: Escaping Adan Cabello's "Map of Madness" With the Help of David Deutsch's Explanations)

      Preprint

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          In the year 2000, in a paper titled Quantum Theory Needs No 'Interpretation', Chris Fuchs and Asher Peres presented a series of instrumentalist arguments against the role played by 'interpretations' in QM. Since then --quite regardless of the publication of this paper-- the number of interpretations has experienced a continuous growth constituting what Adan Cabello has characterized as a "map of madness". In this work, we discuss the reasons behind this dangerous fragmentation in understanding and provide new arguments against the need of interpretations in QM which --opposite to those of Fuchs and Peres-- are derived from a representational realist understanding of theories --grounded in the writings of Einstein, Heisenberg and Pauli. Furthermore, we will argue that there are reasons to believe that the creation of 'interpretations' for the theory of quanta has functioned as a trap designed by anti-realists in order to imprison realists in a labyrinth with no exit. Taking as a standpoint the critical analysis by David Deutsch to the anti-realist understanding of physics, we attempt to address the references and roles played by 'theory' and 'observation'. In this respect, we will argue that the key to escape the anti-realist trap of interpretation is to recognize that --as Einstein told Heisenberg almost one century ago-- it is only the theory which can tell you what can be observed. Finally, we will conclude that what QM needs is not a new interpretation but instead, a theoretical (formal-conceptual) consistent, coherent and unified scheme which allows us to understand what the theory is really talking about.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          01 August 2020
          Article
          2008.00321
          598e476d-3171-42e0-bd0f-2c051400ff31

          http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

          History
          Custom metadata
          19 pages
          physics.hist-ph quant-ph

          Quantum physics & Field theory,History of physics
          Quantum physics & Field theory, History of physics

          Comments

          Comment on this article