2007/05/15 by Willem M. de Muynck, de Muynck, Willem M.
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #European Union Policy and Governance #European and International Law Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #Political Systems and Governance #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0705.2144
Contribution to the Conference on ``Pragmatism & quantum mechanics'', CREA, Ecole Polytechnique & CNRS, Paris, February 22-23, 2007
arxiv created 2007/05/15 · openalex publication_date 2007/05/15 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In the past both instrumentalism and empiricism have inspired certain pragmatic elements into the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The relation of such pragmatisms with the correspondence principle is discussed. It is argued that neither Bohr nor Heisenberg did take `correspondence' in one of these forms, and that it, in particular, was Bohr's classical attitude which caused him to apply in an inconsistent way his correspondence principle to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment, thus causing much confusion. It is demonstrated that an empiricist pragmatism is conducive to an explanation of violation of the Bell inequalities as a consequence of `complementarity' in the sense of `mutual disturbance in a joint nonideal measurement of incompatible observables' rather than as being caused by `nonlocal influences'.