Assessing the Montevideo Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
arXiv:1406.4351 · doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2014.04.001
Abstract
This paper gives a philosophical assessment of the Montevideo interpretation of quantum theory, advocated by Gambini, Pullin and co-authors. This interpretation has the merit of linking its proposal about how to solve the measurement problem to the search for quantum gravity: namely by suggesting that quantum gravity makes for fundamental limitations on the accuracy of clocks, which imply a type of decoherence that "collapses the wave-packet". I begin (Section 2) by sketching the topics of decoherence, and quantum clocks, on which the interpretation depends. Then I expound the interpretation, from a philosopher's perspective (Sections 3, 4 and 5). Finally, in Section 6, I argue that the interpretation, at least as developed so far, is best seen as a form of the Everett interpretation: namely with an effective or approximate branching, that is induced by environmental decoherence of the familiar kind, and by the Montevideans' "temporal decoherence".
arXiv comment28 pages, no figures, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (online) May 2014
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