[Fis] The Measurement Problem from the Perspective of an Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

[Joseph Brenner]

Dear John and All,

I have read this paper, but it seems to me that the word 'idealization' has a key place in it. Thus, the statement that 'quantum mechanics is about the structure of information' begs the question of what information is being discussed. Is it not conceivable, in the 'macroworld', that the elements of the processes of energy transfer/transformation involved in information do not commute and require a non-Boolean algebra?

I thus am unable, given my lack of knowledge of quantum mechanics, to see the implications of the paper for the 'structure of information in a genuinely partly deterministic world' such as the one (I think) we live in.' If there are such implications, I would be sincerely interested in knowing them. If there are no such implications, the paper gives a useful picture of the cut.  

Best regards,

Joseph
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Collier 
  To: fis 
  Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2015 8:28 PM
  Subject: [Fis] The Measurement Problem from the Perspective of an Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics


  A paper by my former graduate advisor, Jeff Bub, who was a student of David Bohm’s.

  http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/17/11/7374

   

  The Measurement Problem from the Perspective of an Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

   

  The aim of this paper is to consider the consequences of an information-theoretic interpretation of quantum mechanics for the measurement problem. The motivating idea of the interpretation is that the relation between quantum mechanics and the structure of information is analogous to the relation between special relativity and the structure of space-time. Insofar as quantum mechanics deals with a class of probabilistic correlations that includes correlations structurally different from classical correlations, the theory is about the structure of information: the possibilities for representing, manipulating, and communicating information in a genuinely indeterministic quantum world in which measurement outcomes are intrinsically random are different than we thought. Part of the measurement problem is deflated as a pseudo-problem on this view, and the theory has the resources to deal with the remaining part, given certain idealizations in the treatment of macrosystems.

   

  John Collier

  Senior Research Associate and Professor Emeritus, 

  Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal

  http://web.ncf.ca/collier

   



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