Quantum Processes under Epistemic Constraints

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation on the foundations of quantum theory isolates and then formalizes a physically relevant concept that I have called "Epistemic Constraint." Here, epistemic constraints are the definite, intersubjectively agreeable, ordinary-language conditions under which experiments are described. The usual formulation of the quantum measurement problem, which I call the Schrodingerian measurement problem, has the structure of an anomaly: if we take quantum theory at face value, we expect no definite values, and yet we see definite values in experiments. The responses to this problem have been either to solve it or to dissolve it. These responses, which have taken the form of interpretation, modification, or reconstruction of quantum mechanics, seek either to derive (conceptually or mathematically) epistemic constraints from within quantum mechanics or suitable modifications of it, as is the case with certain interpretations and modifications, or to posit the epistemic constraint, or parts of it, as a primitive assumption with the goal of deriving quantum mechanics, as is the case in some reconstruction programs. In contrast to the Schrodingerian measurement problem, which had the structure of an anomaly, this dissertation develops the Bohrian Program, which (for lack of a better comparison) has a structure similar to the problem historically associated with Euclid's fifth postulate. It seeks to keep epistemic constraints as primitive in an onto-epistemic sense. It then seeks new physical conclusions from the joint consideration of quantum mechanics and epistemic constraints, without seeking to derive one from the other. Among other results, this leads to a notion of the probability of instantiability of the Born Rule that specifies when to apply the Born Rule and when to apply a unitary transformation to a quantum state.