The Modal-Hamiltonian Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Making Sense of the Quantum World

Abstract

This book introduces the Modal-Hamiltonian Interpretation (MHI) of quantum mechanics, a realist non-collapse interpretation belonging to the family of Modal Interpretations and expressed in the algebraic formalism. The interpretation is modal because it adopts an irreducible concept of possibility, and is Hamiltonian because the Hamiltonian operator of the quantum system defines the observables that acquire actual definite values. The book shows that the MHI can account for the measurement problem both in its traditional version and in the most recent measuring scenarios and that, when applied to well-known physical models, it agrees with the everyday practice of physics. Its closed-system perspective leads to a top-down view of quantum mechanics according to which entanglement and decoherence are essentially relative phenomena. From an ontological perspective, the MHI proposes an ontology of properties, in which the category of object is absent, so that quantum systems are non-objectual bundles of properties. From this perspective, the MHI offers a unified account of the ontological challenges of quantum mechanics: contextuality, non-separability, and indistinguishability.