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Whence Deep Realism for Everettian Quantum Mechanics?

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Abstract

‘Shallow’ and ‘deep’ versions of scientific realism may be distinguished as follows: the shallow realist is satisfied with belief in the existence of the posits of our best scientific theories; by contrast, deep realists claim that realism can be legitimate only if such entities are described in metaphysical terms. We argue that this methodological discussion can be fruitfully applied in Everettian quantum mechanics, specifically on the debate concerning the existence of worlds and the recent dispute between Everettian actualism and quantum modal realism. After presenting what is involved in such dispute, we point to a dilemma for realists: either we don’t have the available metaphysical tools to answer the deep realist’s demands, and realism is not justified in this case, or such demands of metaphysical dressing are not mandatory for scientific realism, and deep versions of realism are not really required.

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Notes

  1. As an anonymous referee pointed out, one must be careful with such a claim, mainly because —at least in MWI— the worlds are actual, so it seems that “they are not possible worlds in the sense used e.g. in modal logic”. However, the multiplicity of worlds in the MWI is one way of treating possible worlds, viz. to treat them as actual (not merely possible).

  2. We would like to thank an anonymous referee for pointing that out.

  3. A detailed defense for such a distinction of philosophical disciplines can be found in Arenhart and Arroyo [4].

  4. We would like to thank an anonymous referee for pointing that out.

  5. We are adhering to Conroy’s [19, 20] terminology insofar we are discussing her work; nevertheless it should be noted that the traditional one is “Relative-state interpretation”. Conroy [19, 20] claims that the RFI is the closest interpretation of what Everett [23] did, but we will not discuss that here.

  6. Recall, again, that the debate between Lewis and Plantiga is a dispute about the furniture of the world!

  7. Notice that despite the name of the Challenge, Chakravartty [16, p. 160] clearly does not endorse it (at least in the sense put forward by French): “[i]t is simply not the case that every last question regarding the ontological natures of things must be settled in order for realism about them to be viable!”. This was also called the “Meta-Chakravartty’s Challenge” [8]. See also Chakravartty [17] for more details about his denial of his own Challenge, as framed by French [24].

  8. Recall that we have defined in Sect. 2 “ontology” as a subset or branch of “metaphysics”.

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Acknowledgments

We presented an earlier version of this paper at the “VII International Workshop on Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information: Quantum Ontology and Metaphysics” (online, 2021). We thank the participants, especially Christian de Ronde, Diederik Aerts, and Otávio Bueno, for insightful comments that significantly improved this paper’s philosophical content. The same extends to two anonymous referees for their suggestions, which allowed us to clarify and better develop our main point.

Funding

R. W. Arroyo: Support: Grant #2021/11381-1, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). J. R. B. Arenhart: Partially funded by CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development).

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Author notes

  1. Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo and Jonas R. Becker Arenhart contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science, University of Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo

  2. Research Group on Logic and Foundations of Science, Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq), Florianópolis, SC, Brazil

    Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo & Jonas R. Becker Arenhart

  3. International Network on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil

    Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo & Jonas R. Becker Arenhart

  4. Department of Philosophy, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil

    Jonas R. Becker Arenhart

  5. Graduate Program in Philosophy, Federal University of Maranhão, São Luís, MA, Brazil

    Jonas R. Becker Arenhart

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  1. Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo
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Correspondence to Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo.

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Arroyo, R.W., Arenhart, J.R.B. Whence Deep Realism for Everettian Quantum Mechanics?. Found Phys 52, 121 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-022-00643-0

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