Study On The “Relative State” Interpretation Of Quantum Mechanics

Quantum theory has achieved a great success since it was proposed and it is known as the 20 th Century's greatest physics revolution along with the theory of Relativity.In the field of science,it broke the basic framework of classical mechanics,accurately predicted a variety of phenomena,and promotes the development of other disciplines.In the field of practice,it has been widely applied to a variety of technologies which greatly promote the social progress and economic development.However,in the field of philosophy,giving an interpretation is much more difficult than solving equations.On the one hand,the revolution of Quantum Mechanics fundamentally changed our view of causality,determinism and reality,which has caused a great shock in philosophical circles.On the other hand,the intuitive experience in Quantum Mechanics is far away from our common sense and daily experience,so,how to understand and explain the quantum phenomena and the basic laws caused fierce debates and has not yet eased.At present,in the field of quantum philosophy,Orthodox interpretation is still in a dominant position,while at the same time “hidden” variable interpretation,collapse interpretation and Everett interpretation also occupy an important position.Among them,Bohm's “hidden” variable theory and GRW theory hold the view that Quantum theory is not complete and need to add a “hidden” variable or collapse process.While Everett explained that Quantum theory is complete,the state function can give a real description of Quantum Mechanics,and developed his own interpretation based on this assumption.We must clarify the relationship between Relative state interpretation and Many-worlds interpretation.Nowadays,Many-worlds interpretation is commonly used.However,as an interpretation of the Relative state interpretation,Many-worlds interpretation adds metaphysical understanding to the mathematical explanation of the Relative state interpretation.At present,most researches of Everett 's theory are based on the Many-worlds interpretation,but generally neglect the Relative state interpretation.On the one hand,the Relative state interpretation is the foundation of Many-worlds interpretation,which has a more fundamental position.On the other hand,as a complete Quantum Mechanics interpretation,Relative state interpretation is of great value for research.The content of this paper includes the following parts:The first part(chapter 1-3)begins with Everett's Relative state interpretation and analyzes its origins,contents and explanations in detail by referring to a large number of original documents,such as Everett's letters,articles and notes,in order to restore the whole picture of the Relative state interpretation and give a comprehensive review.The second part(chapter 4-6)combines the current researches,discuss the branches in Relative state interpretation in detail.Two of the most important ontological interpretations of understanding branch are Many-worlds interpretation that we know well and Many-minds interpretations that philosophers concerned.These two ontological interpretations do give definite answers to the definition of the branch,but both interpretations have strong metaphysical implications.From the analysis of the ideal experiment of quantum suicide,the problems and contradictions of Many-worlds interpretation has been deeply revealed.Later,many people gave up these two extreme explanations,trying to exclude the metaphysical presuppositions and give interpretation from the physical point of view,but there has not a very complete interpretation.The third part(chapter 7-9)analysis the problem of prefer basis,probability,realism and empirical verification of Relative state interpretation respectively and then gets the following conclusions:First of all,for the prefer basis,the prefer basis is essentially equivalent to the measurement problems in the Orthodox interpretation.In this sense,the relative state does not completely solve the measurement problem.Secondly,for the probability,the probability calculated by the branching concept of the Relative state interpretation is not consistent with Orthodox interpretation and it is not superior to the Orthodox interpretation.Again,for realism,although Everett holds a model realist view,the reality of the wave function is the core of Everett's interpretation.In addition,it is pointed out that the formal system can not generates its own interpretation independently,and all explanations will add some independent assumptions on the basis of the mathematical form,which together with the formal system constitute strong constraints on the further interpretation of the interpretation.During the plight of the situation of the interpretation,some auxiliary weak assumptions will be further introduced to constrain the interpretation.It is very important for us to understand and evaluate the interpretations by analysis their strengths and weaknesses systematically.Finally,empirical verification is not an individual problem of Relative state interpretation.Many of the current scientific theories are confronted with this problem,which is embodied in the debate on String theory and the Parallel universe theory.This paper tries to point out that only empirical verification is not sufficient when we test a theory and its acceptance.We need to examine all the elements of the scientific tests and construct a many dimensional and dynamic testing network to evaluate the scientific theory comprehensively.Especially for the different interpretations developed from Relative state interpretation mentioned in this paper,which all share the same form system,so we must evaluate the interpretations in terms of the explanatory power and consistency.