Evans, Peter W. (2025) Is quantum mechanics merely a theory for us? Foundations of Physics, 55 (77). ISSN 1572-9516
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Abstract
This paper develops an agent-centric account of measurement that treats the preferred-basis problem is fundamentally perspectival. On this view, the system–apparatus–environment decomposition and the observables that are apt to become classically robust are determined by the physical constitution and epistemic constraints of an embodied class of agents. Decoherence then stabilises those agent-specified observables, yielding facts that are stable for us without positing an absolute, observer-independent basis. On this picture, ‘measurements’ are public not because they are metaphysically privileged, but because agents like us share the relevant sensorimotor and operational structure. I motivate this account through a discussion of two recent no-go results for relational quantummechanics(RQM) (Brukner,2021;Pienaar,2021), and a subsequent response (DiBiagio and Rovelli, 2022): my aim is not to defend RQM per se, but to refine the relational insight with a principled account of basis selection rooted in embodiment. I provide a phenomenological gloss, drawing on body-schema considerations, to argue that quantum mechanics is best understood as an idiosyncratically human description of interactions with the physical world—a structurally constrained, agent-indexed framework within which classicality emerges.
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| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Relational quantum mechanics; Decoherence; Preferred-basis problem; Agent-centric quantum mechanics | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Peter W. Evans | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 21 Oct 2025 12:31 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 21 Oct 2025 12:31 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 26982 | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Foundations of Physics | ||||||
| Publisher: | Springer | ||||||
| DOI or Unique Handle: | 10.1007/s10701-025-00887-6 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics |
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| Date: | 17 October 2025 | ||||||
| Volume: | 55 | ||||||
| Number: | 77 | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1572-9516 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26982 |
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