Functionalising the wavefunction

Lorenzo Lorenzetti

doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002

Functionalising the wavefunction

Lorenzo Lorenzetti^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

144 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Functionalism is the view that being x is to play the role of x. This paper defends a functionalist account of three-dimensional entities in the context of Wave Function Realism (WFR), that can explain in details how we can recover three-dimensional entities out of the wavefunction. In particular, the essay advocates for a novel version of WFR in terms of a functional reductionist approach in the style of David Lewis. This account entails reduction of the upper entities to the bottom ones, when the latter behave appropriately. As applied to WFR, it shows how the wavefunction can turn out to be identical to three-dimensional objects, provided certain conditions. The first major goal of the paper is thus to put forward an improved and more rigorous version of WFR, which dissolves several extant issues about the theory, and can serve as a starting point for the future literature about the topic. Moreover, the second major goal of the article is to take WFR as a case study to demonstrate the pros of functional reductionism, especially in the form defended here, thereby helping to bring this view back in the philosophy of science debate. The positive upshots of this paper suggest a possible application of functional reductionism also to other contexts.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	141-153
Number of pages	13
Journal	Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Volume	96
Early online date	1 Nov 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
I am very grateful to Karim Thébault, James Ladyman, Alexander Franklin, Eleanor Knox, Christian Wüthrich, Baptiste Le Bihan, Tim Maudlin and Claudio Calosi for their helpful comments and discussions on several versions of this paper. I also would like to thank the anonymous referees for their feedback, as well as the audiences at the 2021 annual conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, the 6th annual conference of the Society for the Metaphysics of Science, the 8th biennial meeting of the European Philosophy of Science Association, and the Geneva Symmetry Group seminars series. This research has been supported and funded by SWW DTP (AHRC).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)

Keywords

Quantum mechanics
WAVEFUNCTIONS
Reductionism
Functionalisation

Access to Document

10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002Licence: CC BY

Full-text PDF (final published version)
This is the final published version of the article (version of record). It first appeared online via Elsevier at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
Final published version, 400 KBLicence: CC BY

Handle.net

Persistent link

Cite this

@article{9b0d8f75c1594f5e95c65551592e938d,

title = "Functionalising the wavefunction",

abstract = "Functionalism is the view that being x is to play the role of x. This paper defends a functionalist account of three-dimensional entities in the context of Wave Function Realism (WFR), that can explain in details how we can recover three-dimensional entities out of the wavefunction. In particular, the essay advocates for a novel version of WFR in terms of a functional reductionist approach in the style of David Lewis. This account entails reduction of the upper entities to the bottom ones, when the latter behave appropriately. As applied to WFR, it shows how the wavefunction can turn out to be identical to three-dimensional objects, provided certain conditions. The first major goal of the paper is thus to put forward an improved and more rigorous version of WFR, which dissolves several extant issues about the theory, and can serve as a starting point for the future literature about the topic. Moreover, the second major goal of the article is to take WFR as a case study to demonstrate the pros of functional reductionism, especially in the form defended here, thereby helping to bring this view back in the philosophy of science debate. The positive upshots of this paper suggest a possible application of functional reductionism also to other contexts.",

keywords = "Quantum mechanics, WAVEFUNCTIONS, Reductionism, Functionalisation",

author = "Lorenzo Lorenzetti",

note = "Funding Information: I am very grateful to Karim Th{\'e}bault, James Ladyman, Alexander Franklin, Eleanor Knox, Christian W{\"u}thrich, Baptiste Le Bihan, Tim Maudlin and Claudio Calosi for their helpful comments and discussions on several versions of this paper. I also would like to thank the anonymous referees for their feedback, as well as the audiences at the 2021 annual conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, the 6th annual conference of the Society for the Metaphysics of Science, the 8th biennial meeting of the European Philosophy of Science Association, and the Geneva Symmetry Group seminars series. This research has been supported and funded by SWW DTP (AHRC). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Author(s)",

year = "2022",

month = dec,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002",

language = "English",

volume = "96",

pages = "141--153",

journal = "Studies in History and Philosophy of Science",

issn = "1879-2510",

publisher = "Elsevier Limited",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Functionalising the wavefunction

AU - Lorenzetti, Lorenzo

N1 - Funding Information: I am very grateful to Karim Thébault, James Ladyman, Alexander Franklin, Eleanor Knox, Christian Wüthrich, Baptiste Le Bihan, Tim Maudlin and Claudio Calosi for their helpful comments and discussions on several versions of this paper. I also would like to thank the anonymous referees for their feedback, as well as the audiences at the 2021 annual conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, the 6th annual conference of the Society for the Metaphysics of Science, the 8th biennial meeting of the European Philosophy of Science Association, and the Geneva Symmetry Group seminars series. This research has been supported and funded by SWW DTP (AHRC). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)

PY - 2022/12/1

Y1 - 2022/12/1

N2 - Functionalism is the view that being x is to play the role of x. This paper defends a functionalist account of three-dimensional entities in the context of Wave Function Realism (WFR), that can explain in details how we can recover three-dimensional entities out of the wavefunction. In particular, the essay advocates for a novel version of WFR in terms of a functional reductionist approach in the style of David Lewis. This account entails reduction of the upper entities to the bottom ones, when the latter behave appropriately. As applied to WFR, it shows how the wavefunction can turn out to be identical to three-dimensional objects, provided certain conditions. The first major goal of the paper is thus to put forward an improved and more rigorous version of WFR, which dissolves several extant issues about the theory, and can serve as a starting point for the future literature about the topic. Moreover, the second major goal of the article is to take WFR as a case study to demonstrate the pros of functional reductionism, especially in the form defended here, thereby helping to bring this view back in the philosophy of science debate. The positive upshots of this paper suggest a possible application of functional reductionism also to other contexts.

AB - Functionalism is the view that being x is to play the role of x. This paper defends a functionalist account of three-dimensional entities in the context of Wave Function Realism (WFR), that can explain in details how we can recover three-dimensional entities out of the wavefunction. In particular, the essay advocates for a novel version of WFR in terms of a functional reductionist approach in the style of David Lewis. This account entails reduction of the upper entities to the bottom ones, when the latter behave appropriately. As applied to WFR, it shows how the wavefunction can turn out to be identical to three-dimensional objects, provided certain conditions. The first major goal of the paper is thus to put forward an improved and more rigorous version of WFR, which dissolves several extant issues about the theory, and can serve as a starting point for the future literature about the topic. Moreover, the second major goal of the article is to take WFR as a case study to demonstrate the pros of functional reductionism, especially in the form defended here, thereby helping to bring this view back in the philosophy of science debate. The positive upshots of this paper suggest a possible application of functional reductionism also to other contexts.

KW - Quantum mechanics

KW - WAVEFUNCTIONS

KW - Reductionism

KW - Functionalisation

UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002

U2 - 10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002

DO - 10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.10.002

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

C2 - 36332523

SN - 1879-2510

VL - 96

SP - 141

EP - 153

JO - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

JF - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

ER -

Functionalising the wavefunction

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Handle.net

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this