On the Structure and Function of Scientific Perspectivism in Quantum Mechanics

TL;DR

This paper extends scientific perspectivism to quantum mechanics by representing quantum structures categorically through interrelated local perspectives, emphasizing the contextual and multilevel nature of quantum knowledge.

Contribution

It introduces a categorical framework for quantum algebra of events using local Boolean frames, advancing a perspectivist and mediated realistic epistemology in quantum theory.

Findings

Quantum world modeled via interrelated local perspectives.

Categorical structure captures quantum contextuality.

Supports a multilevel, nontrivial coherent picture of quantum phenomena.

Abstract

Contemporary scientific perspectivism is re-evaluated and extended to a comprehensive perspectivist methodology and 'mediated' realistic epistemology, especially, with reference to quantum mechanics. In the present study, this is realized by representing categorically the global structure of a quantum algebra of events in terms of structured multitudes of interrelated local Boolean frames, realized as suitable perspectives or contexts for measuring physical quantities. The philosophical meaning of the proposed approach implies that the quantum world can be consistently approached and comprehended through a multilevel structure of locally variable perspectives, which interlock, in a category-theoretical environment, to form a coherent picture of the whole in a nontrivial way. Thus, in contrast to a panoptical "view from nowhere" of the classical paradigm, quantum theory acknowledges in an essential way a perspectival/contextual character of scientific knowledge.