Mason, Lucy (2025) Perspectives on the Quantum State. Foundations of Physics, 55 (68).
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Abstract
There are two main styles of interpreting the quantum state: either focusing on the fundamentality of the quantum state (a state or wavefunction realist view), or on how projection operators represent observable properties (an observable-first approach). Rather than being incompatible, I argue that these correspond to taking a 3rd person and 1st person perspective respectively. I further contend that the 1st person perspective - and the observable-first approach that goes with it - is better suited to explain measurement, based on the way that the metrology literature characterises measurement through the quantifiable properties of a system. Finally, I show how the 1st person, observable-first approach can emerge in the world through the process of decoherence, hence showing the compatibility of the two approaches and resolving the need to choose absolutely between them.
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| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | ||||||
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| Keywords: | quantum state; perspectives; emergence; measurement; | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics | ||||||
| Depositing User: | Dr Lucy Mason | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 07 Nov 2025 13:10 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 07 Nov 2025 13:10 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 27144 | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Foundations of Physics | ||||||
| Official URL: | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-0... | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics | ||||||
| Date: | 2025 | ||||||
| Volume: | 55 | ||||||
| Number: | 68 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27144 |
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Perspectives on the Quantum State. (deposited 20 May 2025 14:21)
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