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Quantum realism: Naïveté is no excuse

Conclusions

The work of Gleason and of Kochen and Specker has been thought to refute a naïve realist approach to quantum mechanics. The argument of this paper substantially bears out this conclusion. The assumptions required by their work are not arbitrary, but have sound theoretical justification. Moreover, if they are false, there seems no reason why their falsity should not be demonstrable in some sufficiently ingenious experiment. Suitably interpreted, the work of Bell and Wigner may be seen to yield independent arguments for the falsity of naïve realistic approach to quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is no more like classical statistical mechanics than its creators thought it was.

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Many of the ideas in this paper have been distilled from a Ph.D. thesis presented to the Harvard Philosophy Department in December 1977. I wish to thank Michael Friedman and Hilary Putnam for helpful discussions and constructive criticism of my work; Arthur Fine for stimulating my interest in this topic by his writings; and the Thyssen Foundation for support of research.

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Healey, R. Quantum realism: Naïveté is no excuse. Synthese 42, 121–144 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413708

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Keywords

  • Quantum Mechanic
  • Statistical Mechanic
  • Realist Approach
  • Theoretical Justification
  • Classical Statistical Mechanic