Assessing the Montevideo Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the Montevideo interpretation of quantum mechanics, linking it to quantum gravity and decoherence, and argues it functions as an effective Everett-like interpretation with approximate branching.

Contribution

It provides a philosophical assessment of the Montevideo interpretation, clarifying its connection to quantum gravity, decoherence, and the Everett interpretation framework.

Findings

Links quantum gravity-induced clock limitations to wave-packet collapse

Interprets the Montevideo approach as an effective Everett interpretation

Highlights the role of environmental and temporal decoherence

Abstract

This paper gives a philosophical assessment of the Montevideo interpretation of quantum theory, advocated by Gambini, Pullin and co-authors. This interpretation has the merit of linking its proposal about how to solve the measurement problem to the search for quantum gravity: namely by suggesting that quantum gravity makes for fundamental limitations on the accuracy of clocks, which imply a type of decoherence that "collapses the wave-packet". I begin (Section 2) by sketching the topics of decoherence, and quantum clocks, on which the interpretation depends. Then I expound the interpretation, from a philosopher's perspective (Sections 3, 4 and 5). Finally, in Section 6, I argue that the interpretation, at least as developed so far, is best seen as a form of the Everett interpretation: namely with an effective or approximate branching, that is induced by environmental decoherence of the familiar kind, and by the Montevideans' "temporal decoherence".