SMuK 2021 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 4: Quantum Theory 3

AGPhil 4.1: Talk

Wednesday, September 1, 2021, 14:00–14:30, H8

On the objectivity of measurements — •Elias Okon — UNAM (Mexico)

Recent arguments, involving entangled systems shared by sets of Wigner*s friend arrangements, allegedly show that the assumption that the experiments performed by the friends yield definite outcomes is incompatible with quantum predictions. From this, it is concluded that the results of (at least some) quantum measurements, cannot be thought of as being actual or objective. Here, I will show that these arguments depend upon a mistaken assumption, regarding the correlations between the results of "the friends" and those of "the Wigners," which leads to invalid predictions. It is not, then, that the assumption of definite outcomes leads to trouble, but that the results derived with such an assumption are contrasted with faulty predictions. I will trace these inadequate predictions to a lack of recognition i) that hidden variables, with their inevitable contextual and non-local nature, are being (implicitly) postulated, and ii) that, in spite of such features, signaling is fully avoided. As for the "correct" predictions for the scenarios under consideration, I will show that the proposed experiments would allow for an empirical discrimination between hidden-variable and objective collapse models. Along the way, I will illustrate my claims with explicit calculations in the context of pilot-wave theory.