This is not in the least place due to the peculiar circumstances in which the PBR Theorem was introduced to the world. It is my view that such clarification is to be welcomed, as there seems to be some confusion about it going around. Instead, my aim is to clarify the current import of \(\psi\)-ontology theorems on this debate. Nor do I wish to claim that there are no good arguments in favor of an ontic interpretation (see e.g. My criticism should not be interpreted as an endorsement of an epistemic interpretation of quantum states. More accurately, I shall argue that, somewhat provocatively, \(\psi\)-ontology theorems have little to say about the metaphysical status of quantum states. In this paper I clarify what this reading should be taken to be.
Being formal results, they can only give an answer to a specific well-defined reading of the central question. The most famous of these results is the PBR Theorem, named after Pusey, Barrett, and Rudolph.
#PSI COMPENDIUM SERIES#
But in the present situation, the “yes” comes in the form of a series of formal results known as \(\psi\)-ontology theorems. In recent years, we find ourselves in the peculiar situation that despite a lack of consensus on what the answer to this second question should be, there is some consensus that the answer to the central question should be “yes” (provided one buys into some assumptions).Īt first sight, this seems as unhelpful as giving the same “yes”-answer to the question “particle or wave?”. About as old is the more important question of what that central question means. It is a question that presumably arose in tandem with the first axiomatizations of quantum mechanics in the early twentieth century. This paper is about the central question “Is the quantum state real?”.
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