The trouble with pilot-wave theory: a critical evaluation

TL;DR

This paper critically examines objections to pilot-wave theory, clarifying its novel dynamics and implications, and advocates understanding it as a distinct, potentially revolutionary, nonequilibrium extension of quantum mechanics.

Contribution

It provides a nuanced critique of common objections, clarifies the theory's novelty, and argues for its recognition as an empirically distinct framework.

Findings

Highlights the misunderstood radical nature of pilot-wave dynamics

Clarifies implications for measurement, Lorentz invariance, and conservation laws

Argues for pilot-wave theory as a distinct nonequilibrium theory

Abstract

Objections to pilot-wave theory frequently come in three mutually-contradictory categories: that the theory is too bizarrely different from ordinary physics, that the theory is not radically different enough, and that the physics of pilot-wave theory is after all just the same as quantum physics. After a brief review of pilot-wave theory, we critically evaluate these objections. We show how the radical nature of pilot-wave theory is often misunderstood or overlooked. We highlight the novelty of its dynamics, and clarify its implications for our understanding of measurement, as well as discussing the status of Lorentz invariance, conservation laws, and the Born rule. We examine Einstein's early work on pilot-wave theory and argue that he turned away from it for reasons which are no longer compelling. We urge that the theory be understood on its own terms, as a generalised nonequilibrium theory empirically distinct from quantum mechanics, with all its potentially revolutionary implications.