Skip to main content

Quantum holism: nonseparability as common ground

Synthese volume 197, pages 4131–4160 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Quantum mechanics seems to portray nature as nonseparable, in the sense that it allows spatiotemporally separated entities to have states that cannot be fully specified without reference to each other. This is often said to implicate some form of “holism.” We aim to clarify what this means, and why this seems plausible. Our core idea is that the best explanation for nonseparability is a “common ground” explanation (modeled after common cause explanations), which casts nonseparable entities in a holistic light, as scattered reflections of a more unified underlying reality.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

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

Notes

  1. Causal Inference is intended as a rational principle of default reasoning (likewise for all subsequent principles marked ‘Inference’), akin to the principle: “If a is a bird then a can fly.” Such principles need not be perfect, and may only hold “all else equal.” Rational principles of default reasoning are an important topic in their own right (Koons 2013), but they are not our topic. For present purposes all that matters is that Causal Inference, and our subsequent principles marked ‘Inference’ are good principles of scientific inference. Whether that is a matter of rationality, or merely pragmatic, or something else entirely, is a side issue.

  2. For a detailed discussion of these mechanisms, see the Surgeon General’s report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2010).

  3. As Hofer-Szabó et al. (1999, p. 378; c.f. Arntzenius 2010) write: “Reichenbach’s Common Cause Principle is the claim that if there is a correlation between two events A and B and a direct causal connection between the correlated events is excluded then there exists a common cause of the correlation...”

  4. We follow Fine (1994, p. 271) in holding that nonempty sets are dependent on their members.

  5. On this combinatorial way of thinking, basic objects are treated as independently varying elements. Their quantities are treated as dimensions along which they vary internally, and their relations are treated as degrees of freedom in the configurations they can assume. This yields a space of ways a world can be built, from a given collection of individuals displaying a fixed range of quantities and standing in a fixed range of relations. To yield a full notion of metaphysical possibility the approach then needs to be generalized to allow for variation in the individuals, quantities, and relations found in a world. What is metaphysically impossible, in this sense, is what is not constructively possible. Independent variation of objects with a common ground turns out to be metaphysically impossible for the same reason that independent variation of the facts about Jenann’s friend and about Jonathan’s friend is metaphysically impossible.

  6. Wilson (2010, p. 601) suggests that two notions of distinctness have been conflated in the literature: nonidentity, and the capacity for either entity to exist without the other. We are suggesting a third sense of the notion, in grounding-theoretic terms. Our notion of distinctness may not be so far from what Hume himself (1978, p. 634) had in mind:

    Whatever is distinct, is distinguishable; and whatever is distinguishable, is separable by the thought or imagination. All perceptions are distinct. They are, therefore, distinguishable and separable, and may be conceiv’d as separately existent, and may exist separately, without any contradiction or absurdity.

  7. We allow that brute necessary connections are intelligible in a setting in which we have already formed clear and distinct ideas of objects a and b. For then we can conceive of absolute constraints on their covariation by imaginatively imposing a brute metaphysical restriction on their covariation on top of these preconceived objects. We leave open, however, whether it is possible to form clear and distinct ideas of objects that we cannot discriminate by their observable effects or otherwise preconceive, as is standard with the posits of physics. For a general discussion of the role of modality in an empiricist setting, see Ismael (manuscript-a).

  8. There is a difficult background issue lurking, concerning when a given notion (such as our notion of “common source explanation”) should be regarded as generally unified, or perhaps unified just by analogy, or perhaps unified purely nominally. We think that common source explanation is generally unified, but strictly speaking we only require the claim that Source Inference is a default rational explanatory approach. For more on the systematic analogy between causation and grounding, see Schaffer (2016).

  9. The mathematical objects that represent the reduced states of the multiple components do not in general uniquely determine the state of a whole system in an entangled state, but are instead compatible with multiple states of the whole.

  10. Singlet is what one predicts if an excited hydrogen molecule with x-spin 0 decays into a pair of hydrogen atoms. By conservation of angular momentum the total x-spin of the pair of atoms must be 0. (Also, by conservation of momentum, the two atoms must head in opposite directions.) Such entangled (or non-factorizable) states are mathematically permitted in quantum mechanics, since not every vector in the Hilbert space can be written as the tensor product of arbitrary basis vectors. Indeed there is reason to think that entangled states are generic in quantum mechanics, and that any plurality of particles whatsoever will be in an entangled state.

  11. There is an escape clause: strictly speaking the Kochen-Specker Theorem only applies to noncontextual hidden variable theories, where a noncontextual theory is one on which the value of a given observable is independent of which other observables happen to be measured along with it, or the disposition of the device used to measure it. One might still adopt a contextual hidden variable theory. But noncontextuality is a deep principle in quantum mechanics, connected to the standard principles of individuation for quantum observables. So while denying noncontextuality is a formal possibility, the option has found few defenders, and there is little in the way of a clear positive proposal for a contextual hidden variable theory. See Shimony (1984) and Cabello (1997) for some further discussion.

  12. For a useful overview of Bell’s Theorem and surrounding issues, see Shimony (2009).

  13. In this vein, Cramer (1986) develops a “transactional” interpretation on which the measurement outcome sends a backwards propagating absorber wave (“the confirmation wave”), which interacts with a forward propagating emission wave (“the offer wave”) at the start of the experiment, to form a standing wave between the start of the experiment and the site of measurement. For further discussion of the transactional interpretation see Wharton (2010), Kastner (2013), and Wharton and Price (2013).

  14. See Maudlin (2002) for a detailed discussion of the interaction between quantum nonlocality and relativity.

  15. Caveat: the term ‘nonseparable’ gets used in many different ways in the literature. See Healey (2008) for an excellent guide. Our non-relativistic usage corresponds to Healey’s (2008, Sect. 6) notion of “spatial separability.”

  16. In this vein d’Espagnat (1979, p. 181) concludes: “Most particles or aggregates of particles that are ordinarily regarded as separate objects have interacted at some time in the past with other objects. The violation of separability seems to imply that in some sense all these objects con-stitute an indivisible whole.” Likewise Maudlin (1998, p. 56) says: “The physical state of a complex whole cannot always be reduced to those of its parts, or to those of its parts together with their spatiotemporal relations... The result of the most intensive scientific investigations in history is a theory that contains an ineliminable holism.” And to add just one more of the many examples which could be given, Gisin and Aspect (2014, p. 43; in a section entitled “Quantum Holism”) write: “Roughly speaking, the strange theory of quantum physics tells us that it is possible and even commonplace for two widely separated objects in space to form in reality a single entity! And that’s entanglement. If we then prod one of the two parts, both will quiver.”

  17. In what follows we move back and forth between object talk (Alice and Bob) and event talk (Alice-up and Bob-down). Our underlying view is that the events are not distinct precisely because the objects they involve are not distinct. Just as the event of Jenann’s friend riding a horse is not distinct from the event of Jonathan’s friend riding a horse if there is a single common friend, so the event of Alice-up is not distinct form the event of Bob-down if Alice and Bob themselves spring from a common ground.

  18. We expect replacement theories to preserve the core mathematical structure and empirical successes of the theories they replace, and entanglement looks to have both features. See Ruetsche (2013) for a deeper, albeit more equivocal, assessment of quantum field theories.

  19. As noted in Sect. 3.1.2, there is still the option of a nonlocal retrocausal common cause story, but we are operating under the working assumption that this is not a preferred option. That said we do acknowledge that the retrocausal approach has at the very least an aspect of plausibility, precisely for providing a sort of common source explanation for the correlated randomness of entangled systems. So we see Source Inference as helping to account for some of the plausibility that the retrocausal account can boast.

  20. Our thanks to Ned Hall for helping us clarify these issues.

  21. One alternative is to add fundamental entanglement relations to the ontology (Teller 1986; see Morganti 2009, pp. 276–280; Calosi 2014, pp. 922–926) for specific application of this idea to the inference under discussion in the main text). On this alternative approach the coordinated randomness found in Alice’s and Bob’s behaviors is to be explained by positing a new fundamental relation alongside their spatial relations. See Sect. 4.3 for further discussion.

  22. The idea of the whole being prior to its parts is reminiscent of the classical monistic idea in metaphysics. In this vein Proclus (1987, p. 79) writes: “[T]he monad is everywhere prior to the plurality... In the case of bodies, the whole that precedes the parts is the whole that embraces all separate beings in the cosmos.” See Schaffer (2010a), Appendix, (2010b) for more historical discussion.

  23. More precisely, the partial trace operation allows one to recover the density operator for any partial subsystem A from the whole system AB by tracing out B. Wallace and Timpson (2010, p. 710) are right that we need a decomposition of the universe into parts like A and like B to make sense of this, but it does not follow that we need to assign any density operator to A or to B in the fundamental ontology. Once we have a universe replete with parts, the only fundamental density operator needed is the universal one. (We thank David Wallace for discussion of these points.)

  24. For a system of n particles, the associated configuration space has 3n dimensions. Imagine that one has a system of two particles in a three-dimensional space, where one is only interested in positions at times. Then one needs to specify, for each time, six pieces of information: the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of particle1, and the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of particle2. One can equally specify six pieces of information in terms of a point in six-dimensional space, where the location of the point in the first three dimensions represents the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of particle1, and the location of the point in the second three dimensions represents the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of particle2. So explained, configuration space might seem like a (perhaps perverse) way of mathematically representing the action in manifest space. But in quantum mechanics, configuration space has a life of its own. The wave function is a complex amplitude field living in configuration space. Schrödinger’s equation describes the temporal evolution of the wave function. To the extent that Schrödinger’s equation gives the dynamics, there is then a “face value” reading of the dynamics as describing the temporal evolution of a field in configuration space. There is thus a “leave your preconceptions at the door” way of thinking about quantum mechanics—which the wave function realist adopts—on which the fundamental action is in configuration space.

  25. We thank Ned Hall for raising this line of questioning.

  26. One option would be to treat causal connections pragmatically, as strategic pathways to bringing about ends for creatures that can only intervene on the world at the macroscopic level. The approximate, emergent separability of the world at the macroscopic level would then be enough to support Causal Inference as a good principle for such creatures. See Ismael (2013) for further exploration of this view.

  27. Maudlin (2014, pp. 11–12) says: “Einstein offers two possible ways to reject the conclusion of his argument: accept telepathy or reject the claim that systems spatially separated from one another even have ‘independent real situations’. Unfortunately, Einstein never discusses this second option in detail.” Maudlin also says that it is obscure what this second option would be, or how it would impact Einstein’s argument. We are attempting to clarify exactly this. (Maudlin then supposes that the theory might posit no local beables whatsoever; we are suggesting that the theory may posit no local fundamental beables but may still posit local derivative beables, and thereby make sense of laboratory experiments.)

  28. Indeed Einstein’s Inference clashes with many historical philosophical ideas, ranging from Aristotle’s idea that the heart and the lungs are both grounded in the common organism, to the classical monistic idea that all separate parts of the cosmos are grounded in the encompassing whole. We are not saying that these ideas are correct, but only that they are coherent and not obviously false.

  29. For a defense of something more sophisticated but in the vicinity of Manifest Principle, based on the idea that a physics which would explain the manifest world needs at least a foothold of “primitive ontology” in manifest space, see Allori (2013). Though for a development of the alternative picture, based on the idea that the fundamental space plays an individuative role vis-à-vis the fundamental entities, see Ismael (manuscript-b).

  30. Thanks to Heather Demarest, David Glick, Ned Hall, Richard Healey, Michael Townsen Hicks, Carla Merino-Rajme, George Musser, David Wallace, the participants at the White Stallion Ranch Metaphysics Workshop, and two anonymous Synthese referees.

References

  • Albert, D. (1996). Elementary quantum metaphysics. In J. T. Cushing, A. Stock, & S. Goldstein (Eds.), Bohmian mechanics and quantum theory: An appraisal (pp. 277–284). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allori, V. (2013). Primitive ontology and the structure of fundamental physical theories. In A. Ney & D. Albert (Eds.), The wave function: Essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics (pp. 58–75). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arntzenius, F. (2010). Reichenbach’s common cause principle. In Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-Rpcc. Retrieved November 24, 2013.

  • Aspect, A., Dalibard, J., & Roger, G. (1982). Experimental tests of bell’s inequalities using time-varying analyzers. Physical Review Letters, 49, 1804–1807.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, J. S. (1964). On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox. Physics, 1, 195–200.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, J. S. (1981). Bertlmann’s socks and the nature of reality. Le Journal de Physique Colloques, 42–C2, 41–61.

  • Bohm, D. (1951). Quantum theory. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cabello, A. (1997). A proof with 18 vectors of the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem. In M. Ferrero & A. van der Merwe (Eds.), New developments on fundamental problems in quantum physics (pp. 59–62). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calosi, C. (2014). Quantum mechanics and priority monism. Synthese, 191, 915–928.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cramer, J. (1986). The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. Review of Modern Physics, 58, 647–688.

    Google Scholar 

  • d’Espagnat, B. (1973). Quantum logic and non-separability. In J. Mehra (Ed.), The physicist’s conception of nature (pp. 714–735). Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • d’Espagnat, B. (1979). The quantum theory and reality. Scientific American, 241, 158–181.

    Google Scholar 

  • Einstein, A. (1949). Remarks to the essays appearing in this collective volume. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-scientist (pp. 663–688). Evanston, IL: Open Court Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Einstein, A., Podolosky, B., & Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum-mechanical descriptions of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review, 47, 777–780.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (1994). Essence and modality. Philosophical Perspectives, 8, 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (2012). Guide to ground. In F. Correia & B. Schnieder (Eds.), Metaphysical grounding: Understanding the structure of reality (pp. 37–80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gisin, N. (2005). Can relativity be considered complete? From Newtonian nonlocality to quantum nonlocality and beyond. arXiv:quant-ph/0512168.

  • Gisin, N., & Aspect, A. (2014). Quantum chance: Nonlocality, teleportation, and other quantum marvels. Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleason, A. (1957). Measures on the closed subspaces of a hilbert space. Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics, 6, 885–893.

    Google Scholar 

  • Healey, R. (1991). Holism and nonseparability. Journal of Philosophy, 88, 393–421.

    Google Scholar 

  • Healey, R. (2008). Holism and nonseparability in physics. In Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-holism. Retrieved November 24, 2013.

  • Hofer-Szabó, G., Rédei, M., & Szabó, L. (1999). On Reichenbach’s common cause principle and Reichenbach’s notion of common cause. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 50, 377–399.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howard, D. (1997). Space-time and separability: Problems of identity and individuation in fundamental physics. In R. Cohen, M. Horne, & J. Stachel (Eds.), Potentiality, entanglement, and passion-at-a-distance: Quantum mechanical studies for Abner Shimony (Vol. Two, pp. 113–141). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hume, D. (1978). In P. H. Nidditch (Ed.), A treatise of human nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ismael, J. (2013). Causation, free will, and naturalism. In D. Ross, J. Ladyman, & H. Kincaid (Eds.), Scientific metaphysics (pp. 208–236). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ismael, J. manuscript-a. Simplicity as a guide to metaphysics.

  • Ismael, J. manuscript-b. What entanglement might be telling us.

  • Kastner, R. (2013). The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics: The realm of possibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kochen, S., & Specker, E. (1967). The problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics, 17, 59–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koons, R. (2013). Defeasible reasoning. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-defeasible. Retrieved November 26, 2013.

  • Lange, M. (2002). An introduction to the philosophy of physics: Locality, fields, energy, and mass. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loewer, B. (1996). Humean supervenience. Philosophical Topics, 24, 101–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maudlin, T. (1998). Part and whole in quantum mechanics. In E. Castellani (Ed.), Interpreting bodies: Classical and quantum objects in modern physics (pp. 46–60). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maudlin, T. (2002). Quantum non-locality and relativity: Metaphysical intimations of modern physics (2nd ed.). Chichester: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maudlin, T. (2014). What bell did. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 47, 1–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morganti, M. (2009). Ontological priority, fundamentality, and monism. Dialectica, 63, 271–288.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ney, A. (2013). Ontological reduction and the wave function ontology. In A. Ney & D. Albert (Eds.), The wave function: Essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics (pp. 168–183). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • North, J. (2013). The structure of a quantum world. In A. Ney & D. Albert (Eds.), The wave function: Essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics (pp. 184–202). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Penrose, R. (2004). The road to reality: A complete guide to the laws of the universe. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Proclus (1987). Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides (G. R. Morrow & J. M. Dillon, Trans). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  • Reichenbach, H. (1956). The direction of time. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruetsche, L. (2013). Interpreting quantum theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2010a). Monism: The priority of the whole. Philosophical Review, 119, 31–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2010b). The internal relatedness of all things. Mind, 119, 341–376.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2012). Grounding, transitivity, and contrastivity. In F. Correia & B. Schnieder (Eds.), Metaphysical grounding: Understanding the structure of reality (pp. 122–138). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2016). Grounding in the image of causation. Philosophical Studies, 173, 49–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schrödinger, E. (1935). Discussion of probability relations between separated systems. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 31, 555–563.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimony, A. (1984). Contextual hidden variables theories and Bell’s inequalities. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 35, 25–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimony, A. (2009). Bell’s Theorem. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bell-theorem. Retrieved November 24, 2013.

  • Sider, T. (2011). Writing the book of the world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sober, E. (1988). The principle of the common cause. In J. Fetzer (Ed.), Probability and causality: Essays in honor of Wesley C. Salmon (pp. 211–229). Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

  • Sullivan, W. (1972). The Einstein Papers: Part III. The New York Times 121.41703, March 29.

  • Teller, P. (1986). Relational holism and quantum mechanics. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 37, 71–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2010. How tobacco smoke causes disease: The biology and behavioral basis for smoking-attributable disease: A report of the surgeon general. US Government Printing Office.

  • Van Fraassen, B. (1980). The scientific image. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, D., & Timpson, C. (2010). Quantum mechanics on spacetime I: Spacetime state realism. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 61, 697–727.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wharton, K. (2010). A novel interpretation of the Klein-Gordon equation. Foundations of Physics, 40, 313–332.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wharton, K., & Price, H. (2013). Dispelling the quantum spooks: A clue that Einstein missed? arXiv:13077.7744

  • Wilson, J. (2010). What is Hume’s dictum, and why believe it? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 80, 595–637.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Jenann Ismael

  2. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Jonathan Schaffer

Authors
  1. Jenann Ismael
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan Schaffer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan Schaffer.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ismael, J., Schaffer, J. Quantum holism: nonseparability as common ground. Synthese 197, 4131–4160 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1201-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1201-2

Keywords

  • Entanglement
  • Non-separability
  • Grounding
  • Common ground
  • Holism
  • Monism