Abstract
This article probes the question of what interpretations of quantum mechanics actually accomplish. In other domains, which are briefly considered, interpretations serve to make alien systematizations intelligible to us. This often involves clarifying the status of their implicit ontology. A survey of interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics supports the evaluation that these interpretations make a contribution to philosophy, but not to physics. Interpretations of quantum field theory are polarized by the divergence between the Lagrangian field theory, which leads to the Standard Model of Particle physics and the Algebraic quantum field theory that discounts an ontology of particles. Ruetsche’s interpretation offers a potential for loosening the sharp polarization that presently obtains. A brief evaluation focuses on the functional ontology of quantum field theory considered as an effective theory.
Highlights
Interpreting quantum mechanics has flourished as a cottage industry among philosophers of science and some philosophically inclined physicists
Though Bohr’s restrictions on the use of classical concepts was assimilated into scientific discourse, his underdeveloped doctrines that classical concepts stemming from ordinary language play a definitive role in measurement, and that quantum physics is a rational generalization of classical physics were widely regarded as speculative philosophical issues
For Bohr and for the physicists using quantum mechanics to solve outstanding problems the mathematical formalism was treated as a tool, not as a theory to be interpreted
Summary
Interpreting quantum mechanics has flourished as a cottage industry among philosophers of science and some philosophically inclined physicists. This is close to the final stage in the process of replacing mthopoetic by rational thought This method of interpreting native ontological commitments as conceptual structures that play a functional role extends to other fields. If stars are small lights not far from the earth’s surface that occasionally flash across the sky as shooting stars, the idea of a particular star having a much slower and more controlled trajectory becomes intelligible, even though we find it unacceptable These examples illustrate different functions an interpretation may accomplish. Philosophers have a long tradition of analyzing conceptual systems, the structure and interpretation of theories, the role of empirical evidence, methods of confirmation and falsification, and basic issues in ontology and epistemology. We will focus on the issue of how this allegedly superior perspective might untangle the ontological and epistemological threads woven together in the tapestry of quantum mechanics
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