A reply to Rovelli's response to our "Assessing Relational Quantum Mechanics''

TL;DR

This paper critically defends the authors' assessment of Relational Quantum Mechanics against Rovelli's rebuttal, highlighting unresolved conceptual issues and emphasizing the importance of clarity and empirical adequacy in evaluating quantum theories.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed critique of Rovelli's response, reaffirming the authors' original assessment and exposing ongoing conceptual problems in RQM.

Findings

RQM fails to provide a satisfactory realistic description of the world.

Rovelli's reply does not address fundamental conceptual difficulties.

The critique emphasizes the importance of empirical and logical standards in evaluating quantum theories.

Abstract

In a recent paper, Rovelli responds to our critical assessment of Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM). His main argument is that our assessment lacks merit, because we fail to understand, or cope with, the premises of his theory; instead, he argues, we judge his proposal, blinded by the preconceptions inherent to ``our camp''. Here, we explicitly show that our assessment judges RQM on its own terms, together with the basic requirements of precision, clarity, logical soundness and empirical suitability. Under those circumstances, we prove false Rovelli's claim that RQM provides a satisfactory, realistic, non-solipsistic description of the world. Moreover, his reply serves us to further exhibit the serious problems of the RQM proposal, as well as the failures of its author to understanding the basic conceptual difficulties of quantum theory.