Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction to volumes 1 and 2
- PART I ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES
- PART 2 APPLICATIONS AND CRITICISMS
- 8 Introduction: proliferation and realism as methodological principles
- 9 Linguistic arguments and scientific method
- 10 Materialism and the mind–body problem
- 11 Realism and instrumentalism
- 12 A note on the problem of induction
- 13 On the quantum theory of measurement
- 14 Professor Bohm's philosophy of nature
- 15 Reichenbach's interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 16 Niels Bohr's world view
- 17 Hidden variables and the argument of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen
- Sources
- Name index
- Subject index
13 - On the quantum theory of measurement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction to volumes 1 and 2
- PART I ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES
- PART 2 APPLICATIONS AND CRITICISMS
- 8 Introduction: proliferation and realism as methodological principles
- 9 Linguistic arguments and scientific method
- 10 Materialism and the mind–body problem
- 11 Realism and instrumentalism
- 12 A note on the problem of induction
- 13 On the quantum theory of measurement
- 14 Professor Bohm's philosophy of nature
- 15 Reichenbach's interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 16 Niels Bohr's world view
- 17 Hidden variables and the argument of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen
- Sources
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
THE PROBLEM
Within classical physics the relation between physical theory and ordinary experience was conceived in the following way: ordinary experience is something that can be described and understood in terms of physics. Such a description involves, apart from physical theory, certain approximations. But the conditons under which those approximations apply (they correspond to the initial conditions of, say, celestial mechanics), taken together with the theory, are supposed to be sufficient for giving a full account of ordinary experience. Consequently, classical theory of measurement (which, like any other theory of measurement, links together terms of ordinary experience and theoretical terms), is a piece of applied physics and all processes which happen during measurement can be analysed on the basis of the equations of motion only.
When we enter quantum mechanics (QM), we are apparently presented with a completely different picture. For according to the current interpretation of elementary quantum mechanics, ordinary experience – and this now means classical physics – and physical theory (and this now means QM), belong to two completely different levels and it is impossible to give an account of the first in terms of the second. Any transition from the quantum level to the level of classical physics must be taken, not as a transition within QM from the general to the particular, but as an essentially new element which is incapable of further analysis.
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- Information
- Realism, Rationalism and Scientific MethodPhilosophical Papers, pp. 207 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981
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