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The Projection Postulate: A New Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Paul Teller
Paul Teller*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago
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Abstract

Previous work has shown that the problem of measurement in quantum mechanics is not correctly seen as one of understanding some allegedly univocal process of measurement in nature which corresponds to the projection postulate. The present paper introduces a new perspective by showing that how we are to understand the nature of the change of quantum mechanical state on measurement depends very sensitively on the interpretation of the state function, and by showing how attention to this dependence can greatly sharpen the problems and relations between them. In particular, the problems take a form resembling their traditional formulation only on an inexact value interpretation, according to which the state function attributes inexact values of quantities to systems. On other interpretations we can apply (with various drawbacks) the subensemble idea, according to which a discontinuous change of quantum mechanical description results on measurement simply because we need a new state function to describe a new object.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 369 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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Footnotes

†

Arthur Fine, Geoffrey Hellman, and two referees provided helpful comments on this work. The research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant #SES-8203560.

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