dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaLosing Your Marbles in Wavefunction Collapse Theories
| Authors | Rob Clifton, Bradley Monton |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/9905065 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9905065 |
Abstract
Peter Lewis ([1997]) has recently argued that the wavefunction collapse theory of GRW (Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber [1986]) can only solve the problem of wavefunction tails at the expense of predicting that arithmetic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects. More specifically, Lewis argues that the GRW theory must violate the enumeration principle: that `if marble 1 is in the box and marble 2 is in the box and so on through marble $n$, then all $n$ marbles are in the box' ([1997], p. 321). Ghirardi and Bassi ([1999]) have replied that it is meaningless to say that the enumeration principle is violated because the wavefunction Lewis uses to exhibit the violation cannot persist, according to the GRW theory, for more than a split second ([1999], p. 709). On the contrary, we argue that Lewis's argument survives Ghirardi and Bassi's criticism unscathed. We then go on to show that, while the enumeration principle can fail in the GRW theory, the theory itself guarantees that the principle can never be empirically falsified, leaving the applicability of arithmetical reasoning to both micro- and macroscopic objects intact.
{
"annotation_id": "7ffef1f6-5e36-41dd-a202-4a69dc8e5dc7",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:02:47.310000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:02:47.310000Z",
"file_hash": "e63bbb3cf3ffac60a19421f0fb17e320a7bda9062c7b3a8dc871c4139051a2cb",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "Peter Lewis ([1997]) has recently argued that the wavefunction collapse\ntheory of GRW (Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber [1986]) can only solve the problem\nof wavefunction tails at the expense of predicting that arithmetic does not\napply to ordinary macroscopic objects. More specifically, Lewis argues that the\nGRW theory must violate the enumeration principle: that `if marble 1 is in the\nbox and marble 2 is in the box and so on through marble $n$, then all $n$\nmarbles are in the box\u0027 ([1997], p. 321). Ghirardi and Bassi ([1999]) have\nreplied that it is meaningless to say that the enumeration principle is\nviolated because the wavefunction Lewis uses to exhibit the violation cannot\npersist, according to the GRW theory, for more than a split second ([1999], p.\n709). On the contrary, we argue that Lewis\u0027s argument survives Ghirardi and\nBassi\u0027s criticism unscathed. We then go on to show that, while the enumeration\nprinciple can fail in the GRW theory, the theory itself guarantees that the\nprinciple can never be empirically falsified, leaving the applicability of\narithmetical reasoning to both micro- and macroscopic objects intact.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/9905065",
"authors": [
"Rob Clifton",
"Bradley Monton"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"title": "Losing Your Marbles in Wavefunction Collapse Theories",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9905065"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "5bcac84e-80db-4bb1-b8cb-50b2984a9572",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}