Two Dogmas about Quantum Mechanics

old_uid2440
titleTwo Dogmas about Quantum Mechanics
start_date2007/03/16
schedule16h30
onlineno
location_infosalle 315 (directions)
summaryI discuss what Pitowsky (2007) has called two 'dogmas' about quantum mechanics. The first dogma is Bell's assertion that measurement should never be introduced as a primitive in a fundamental mechanical theory like classical or quantum mechanics, but should always be open to a dynamical analysis in principle. The second dogma is the view that the quantum state has an ontological significance analogous to the ontological significance of the classical state (which specifies a complete catalogue of a system's properties), i.e., that the quantum state is a (perhaps incomplete) representation of physical reality. I argue that both dogmas are called into question by a 'no cloning' principle that distinguishes quantum information from classical information. I distinguish two measurement problems: a problem about individual events, which I argue is a pseudo-problem, and a tractable problem about probabilities, which finds a solution in the phenomenon of decoherence.
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