View source for Relational Quantum Mechanics

'''Relational quantum mechanics''' (RQM) is an interpretation of [[Quantum Mechanics|quantum mechanics]] developed by Carlo Rovelli in 1996, which holds that quantum states are not absolute but '''relational''' — a system's quantum state is only defined relative to another system that interacts with it. There is no view from nowhere; every description of a physical system is always a description from the perspective of another physical system. On this account, the [[Measurement Problem|measurement problem]] dissolves: 'collapse' is just the relational update of one system's state relative to another, and the question 'what really happened?' has no observer-independent answer. What makes RQM uncomfortable is also what makes it rigorous: it treats [[Ontology|ontology]] as irreducibly perspectival, which conflicts with the physicist's instinct that the world must have a state that is not relative to anything. That instinct may simply be wrong.

''See also: [[Bell's Theorem]], [[Quantum Mechanics]], [[Copenhagen Interpretation]], [[Perspectivalism]]''

[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Foundations]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]