The Information-Theoretic View of Quantum Mechanics and the Measurement Problem(s)

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the information-theoretic approach to quantum mechanics proposed by Bub and Pitowsky, challenging their claims about the measurement problem and the assumptions underlying their analysis.

Contribution

The paper provides a critical analysis of Bub and Pitowsky's claims, arguing their arguments are inconclusive due to unwarranted extensions of relativistic distinctions.

Findings

Bub and Pitowsky's distinction is controversial in the context of quantum foundations.

Their analysis of the measurement problem relies on assumptions deemed unnecessary.

The critique questions the validity of extending relativistic distinctions to quantum mechanics.

Abstract

Until recently Jeffrey Bub and Itamar Pitowsky, in the framework of an information theoretic view of quantum mechanics, claimed first that to the measurement problem in its ordinary formulation there correspond in effect two measurement problems (simply called the big and the small measurement problems), with a different degree of relevance and, second, that the analysis of a quantum measurement is a problem only if other assumptions, taken by Pitowsky and Bub to be unnecessary 'dogmas', are assumed. Here I critically discuss this unconventional stance on the measurement problem and argue that the Bub and Pitowsky arguments are inconclusive, mainly because they rely on an unwarranted extension to the quantum realm of a distinction concerning the foundations of special relativity which is in itself rather controversial.