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Quantum Propensities

Suárez, Mauricio (2006) Quantum Propensities. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This paper reviews four attempts throughout the history of quantum mechanics to explicitly employ dispositional notions in order to solve the quantum paradoxes, namely: Margenau’s latencies, Heisenberg’s potentialities, Maxwell’s propensitons, and the recent selective propensities interpretation of quantum mechanics. Difficulties and challenges are raised for all of them, and it is concluded that the selective propensities approach nicely encompasses the virtues of its predecessors. Finally, some strategies are discussed for reading dispositional notions into two other well-known interpretations of quantum mechanics, namely the GRW interpretation and Bohmian mechanics.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
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Suárez, Mauricio
Additional Information: Forthcoming in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. A previous draft appeared as LSE Discussion Paper 88/06, April 2006
Keywords: Propensities, dispositions, quantum mechanics, problem of measurement
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Depositing User: Prof Mauricio Suárez
Date Deposited: 10 Mar 2007
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2010 15:14
Item ID: 3228
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Date: December 2006
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/3228

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