Logic Meets Wigner's Friend (and their Friends)
Abstract
We take a fresh look at Wigner's Friend thought-experiment and some of its more recent variants and extensions, such as the Frauchiger-Renner (FR) Paradox. We discuss various solutions proposed in the literature, focusing on a few questions: What is the correct epistemic interpretation of the multiplicity of state assignments in these scenarios? Under which conditions can one include classical observers into the quantum state descriptions, in a way that is still compatible with traditional Quantum Mechanics? Under which conditions can one system be admitted as an additional `observer' from the perspective of another background observer? When can the standard axioms of multi-agent Epistemic Logic (that allow "knowledge transfer" between agents) be applied to quantum-physical observers? In the last part of the paper, we propose a new answer to these questions, sketch a particular formal implementation of this answer, and apply it to obtain a principled solution to Wigner Friend-type paradoxes.
- Publication:
-
International Journal of Theoretical Physics
- Pub Date:
- April 2024
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2307.01713
- Bibcode:
- 2024IJTP...63...97B
- Keywords:
-
- Wigner's friend paradox;
- FR paradox;
- Quantum observers;
- Modal logic;
- Epistemic logic;
- Quantum Physics;
- Mathematics - Logic;
- 81P10;
- F.4
- E-Print:
- 31 pages. Updated and extended version