Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Informational foundations of quantum theory: critical reconsideration from the point of view of a phenomenologist

  • Manuscript
  • Published:
Continental Philosophy Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Several contemporary interpretations of quantum mechanics use the concept of information as a tool for addressing and explaining the quantum world. In the article, I focus on Zeilinger-Brukner's informational foundations of quantum theory (IFQT). I propose that with a phenomenological approach—which, unlike most of the contemporary interpretations of quantum mechanics, exceeds the mere dichotomy between realism and anti-realism—we can address the epistemological questions re-opened by IFQT and the parts of the interpretation that are recognized as problematic by its critics. After the phenomenological supplementation IFQT can provide both, ontic and epistemic answer to the question "Why quantum?" As we apply Husserl's concept of the world as our common objective ground to the IFQT explanation, we can make a justifiable step away from the solipsism/subjectivism, which is, according to the critics, the main problem of IFQT. Thus, I propose in conclusion, a phenomenological approach to quantum physics can offer a background for the much needed dialog between realists and anti-realists as well as for a comprehensive contemporary interpretation of the quantum world.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Code availability

Not applicable.

Notes

  1. Lurçat (2007, pp. 229–258), Bilban (2020, pp. 204–221).

  2. Merlau-Ponty (1964, 1985), London and Bauer (1983), Heelan (1988, 2004), Bitbol (1996), French (2002), Lurçat (2007).

  3. See: French (2020, pp. 205–226).

  4. See for example: Wiltsche and Berghofer (2020), Berghofer (2020), Berghofer e al. (2020), Bitbol (2020).

  5. Bilban (2013, 2014, 2020).

  6. For the relevance of these particular authors for the contemporary philosophical debate on quantum mechanics and its interpretation, see Wiltsche and Berghofer (2020, especially Bitbol, pp. 227–243), and Fuchs (2011).

  7. Bitbol (2020, p. 230).

  8. Brukner and Zeilinger (2003, pp. 323−355), Weizsäcker (1985).

  9. Zeilinger (2005, p. 743).

  10. Ibid, p. 743.

  11. Zeilinger (2003, p. 317). Following their papers written in English, this sentence should be translated as: “Reality and information are the same.” However, Zeilinger (personal communication), prefers the expression “Wirklichkeit,” thus emphasizing the subjective or inter-subjective character of such reality.

  12. Zeilinger (1999, p. 635). Highlighted by Bilban.

  13. Brukner and Zeilinger (2003, p. 327).

  14. Kofler and Zeilinger (2010, pp. 469–480).

  15. Zeilinger (1999, p. 636).

  16. Ibid, p. 637.

  17. Ibid; Kofler and Zeilinger (2010).

  18. Brukner and Zeilinger (2003, pp. 351–352).

  19. Zeilinger (2003).

  20. Daumer et al (2006, pp. 129–132).

  21. Timpson (2013; Wheeler, 1990).

  22. Zeilinger (1999, p. 642).

  23. Timpson (2013, p. 192).

  24. Petersen (1963, p. 12).

  25. Fuchs (2003, p. 430).

  26. Timpson (2010, p. 222).

  27. Ibid, p. 222.

  28. Husserl (1970).

  29. Ibid, p. 119.

  30. Husserl (1998, p. 73).

  31. Ibid, pp. 198–201.

  32. Landgrebe (1940, pp. 41–42).

  33. Ibid, p. 41.

  34. Moran and Cohen (2012, p. 132).

  35. Husserl (1970; Kockelmans, 1994).

  36. Husserl (1970, p. 164).

  37. Hribar (1970, p. 509).

  38. Zeilinger (2005, p. 743).

  39. I retain the expression "reality" as used by Zeilinger and Brukner. Following the phenomenological approach, the expression "world" would be more appropriate, however, I presuppose that the term "reality" as used, though not thoroughly explained, by Zeilinger and Brukner, has a similar, compatible meaning for the authors.

  40. Zeilinger (1999, p. 635). Zeilinger and Brukner see the foundational principle for quantum mechanics as dependent on the character of information. After the phenomenological supplementation, we regard information as intentional information, information about reality. The way we refer to reality by using the information of reality can thus still depend on the character of information (as by Zeilinger and Brukner), while it can also be dependent on the mere relationship between information and reality or on the character of reality itself. Because of the intentional character of the information, these influences cannot be separated (information is always information about reality and reality is always given by information). Compare this to Fuchs' and Peres' statement: "If the world is such that we can never identify a reality independent of our experimental activity, then we must be prepared for that, too." Fuchs & Peres (2000, p. 70).

  41. Brukner and Zeilinger (2003, p. 349).

  42. Kofler and Zeilinger (2010, pp. 470–471).

  43. For an excellent appeal of decoherence within the context of phenomenological approach to quantum to quantum physics, see French (2020, p. 215).

  44. Wheeler (1990).

  45. Zeilinger (1999, p. 642).

  46. Timpson (2010, p. 222).

References

  • Berghofer, Philipp. 2020. Scientific perspectivism in the phenomenological tradition. European Journal of Philosophy of Science 10 (3): 1–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berghofer, Philipp, Philip Goyal, and Harald A. Wiltsche. 2020. Husserl, the mathematization of nature, and the informational reconstruction of quantum theory. Continental Philosophy Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-020-09523-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bilban, Tina. 2020. The phenomenological approach to quantum mechanics: A better understanding of contemporary philosophy of quantum mechanics by revisiting Bohr and Husserl. Horizon 9 (1): 204–221.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bilban, Tina. 2013. Husserl’s reconsideration of the observation process and its possible connections with quantum mechanics: Supplementation of informational foundations of quantum theory. Prolegomena. 12 (2): 459–486.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bilban, Tina. 2014. Realism ad antirealism in informational foundations of quantum theory. Quanta 3 (1): 32–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bitbol, Michel. 1996. Schrödinger’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bitbol, Michel. 2020. Is the life-world reduction sufficient in quantum physics? Continental Philosophy Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-020-09515-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brukner, Časlav, and Anton Zeilinger. 2003. Information and Fundamental Elements of the Structure of Quantum Theory. In Time, Quantum and Information, ed. Lutz Castell and Otfried Ischebeck, 323–354. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Daumer, Martin et al. 2006. Message of the Quantum. In Are there Quantum Jumps? and On the Present Status of Quantum Mechanics, eds. Angelo Bassi et al, AIP Conference Proceedings 844, 192–132. American Institute of Physics.

  • French, Steven. 2002. A Phenomenological Approach to the Measurement Problem: Husserl and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 22: 467–491.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • French, Steven. 2020. From a Lost History to a New Future: Is a Phenomenological Approach to Quantum Physics Viable? In Phenomenological Approaches to Physics, eds. Harald A. Wiltsche & Phillip Berghofe, 205 –226. Cham: Springer Nature.

  • Fuchs, Christopher. A., and Asher Peres. 2000. Quantum theory needs No ‘Interpretation'. Physics today 53 (3): 70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, Christopher A. 2003. Notes on a Paulian Idea: Foundational, Historical, Anecdotal and Forward Looking Thoughts on the Quantum (Selected Correspondence). Växjö: Växjö University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, Christopher A. 2011. Coming of Age with Quantum Information: Notes on Paulian Idea. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, Christopher, A. 2014. My Struggles with the Block Universe. Samizdat. arXIV: 1405.2390 [quant-ph]. Accessed 16 April 2021.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heelan, Patrick Aidan. 1988. Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heelan, Patrick Aidan. 2004. The Phenomenological Role of Consciousness in Measurement. Mind and Matter 2 (1): 61–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hribar, Tine. 1997. Fenomen uma. Foreword in Ideje za čisto fenomenologijo in fenomenološko filozofijo, Edmund Husserl, 15–23. Ljubljana: Slovenska Matica.

    Google Scholar 

  • Husserl, Edmund. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology – An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, transl. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Husserl, Edmund. 1998. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, First book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, transl. F. Kersten. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

  • Kockelmans. Joseph J. . 1994. Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kofler, Johannes, and Anton Zeilinger. 2010. Quantum Information and Randomness. European Review 18 (04): 469–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landgrebe, Ludwig. 1940. The World as a Phenomenological Problem. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1 (1): 38–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • London, Fritz, and Edmond Bauer. 1983. The theory of observation in quantum mechanics. In Quantum theory and measurement, eds. John Archibald Wheeler & Wojciech Hubert Zurek, 217−259. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  • Lurçat, François. 2007. Understanding Quantum Mechanics with Bohr and Husserl. In Luciano Boi, Pierre Kerszberg, and Frédéric Patras, 229–258, ed. Rediscovering Phenomenology, 2007. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merlau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964. Le visible et l’invisible. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merlau-Ponty, Maurice. 1985. L’oeil et l’esprit. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran, Dermot, and Joseph Cohen. 2012. The Husserl Dictionary. London: Continuum International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petersen, Aage. 1963. Philosophy of Niels Bohr. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 19 (7): 8–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Timpson, Christopher G. 2010. Information, Immaterialism, Instrumentalism: Old and New in Quantum Information. In Philosophy of Quantum Information and Entanglement, eds. Alisa Bokulich A and Gregg Jaeger, 208–228. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Timpson, Christopher G. 2013. Quantum Information Theory and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Weizsäcker, von, Carl Friedrich. 1985. Aufbau der Physik. München, Wien: Carl Hanser Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheeler, John Archibald. 1990. Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links. In Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information, ed. Wojciech Hubert Zurek, 3–28. Redwood City: Westview Press.

  • Wiltsche, Harald A., and Philipp Berghofer (editors) 2020. Phenomenological Approaches to Physics. Cham: Springer Nature.

  • Zeilinger, Anton. 1999. A Foundational Principle for Quantum Mechanics. Foundations of Physics 29: 631–643.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeilinger, Anton. 2003. Einstein’s Schleier. München: Verlag C. H. Beck oHG.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeilinger, Anton. 2005. Concept the Message of the Quantum. Nature 438: 743.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The research is part of the project The Contemporality of the Understanding Context and the Expression of Personal and Social Freedom (J7-8283), supported by Slovenian Research Agency.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inštitut Nove Revije, Vodovodna cesta 101, 1000, Ljubjana, Slovenia

    Tina Bilban

Authors
  1. Tina Bilban
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Tina Bilban wrote the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tina Bilban.

Ethics declarations

Availability of data and material

Not applicable.

Conflicts of interest

Not applicable.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bilban, T. Informational foundations of quantum theory: critical reconsideration from the point of view of a phenomenologist. Cont Philos Rev 54, 581–594 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-021-09552-x

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-021-09552-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation