Subjectivists about Quantum Probabilities Should be Realists about Quantum States

TL;DR

The paper argues that if quantum probabilities are subjective, then agents should be realists about quantum states, believing they correspond to actual physical states, based on empirical and logical reasoning.

Contribution

It demonstrates that subjectivists about quantum probabilities should also accept realism about quantum states, challenging the view that states are merely beliefs.

Findings

Subjectivists should be realists about quantum states.

Arguments for realism hold when probabilities are subjective.

Limitations on theorizing are unjustified by empirical success.

Abstract

There is a significant body of literature, which includes Itamar Pitowksy's "Betting on Outcomes of Measurements," that sheds light on the structure of quantum mechanics, and the ways in which it differs from classical mechanics, by casting the theory in terms of agents' bets on the outcomes of experiments. Though this approach, by itself, is neutral as to the ontological status of quantum observables and quantum states, some, notably those who adopt the label "QBism" for their views, take this approach as providing incentive to conclude that quantum states represent nothing in physical reality, but, rather, merely encode an agent's beliefs. In this chapter, I will argue that the arguments for realism about quantum states go through when the probabilities involved are taken to be subjective, if the conclusion is about the agent's beliefs: an agent whose credences conform to quantum probabilities should believe that preparation procedures with which she associates distinct pure quantum states produce distinct states of reality. The conclusion can be avoided only by stipulation of limitations on the agent's theorizing about the world, limitations that are not warranted by the empirical success of quantum mechanics or any other empirical considerations. Subjectivists about quantum probabilities should be realists about quantum states.