Do quantum states evolve? Apropos of Marchildon's remarks

Abstract

Marchildon's (favorable) assessment (quant-ph/0303170, to appear in Found. Phys.) of the Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics raises several issues, which are addressed. Proceeding from the assumption that quantum mechanics is fundamentally a probability algorithm, this interpretation determines the nature of a world that is irreducibly described by this probability algorithm. Such a world features an objective fuzziness, which implies that its spatiotemporal differentiation does not "go all the way down". This result is inconsistent with the existence of an evolving instantaneous state, quantum or otherwise.

To appear in Foundations of Physics; 22 pages, LaTeX

References in corpus (7)

• Decoherence, irreversibility and the selection by decoherence of quantum states with definite probabilities
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• Making sense of a world of clicks
• Why the laws of physics are just so
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• Reflections on the Spatiotemporal Aspects of the Quantum World

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Probabilities from envariance?
• The Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics: An overview
• This elusive objective existence
• Objective probability and quantum fuzziness
• The Utility of Time-Symmetric Quantum Counterfactuals: A Response to Kastner
• Defending the Pondicherry interpretation: A response to Shafiee, Jafar-Aghdami, and Golshani