Abstract
In this paper, we argue that quantum information theory can provide a kind of non-causal explanation (“causal account” here stands quite generally both for dynamical and for mechanistic account of causal explanation) of quantum entanglement. However, such an explanation per se does not rule out the possibility of a dynamical explanation of the quantum correlations, to be given in terms of some interpretations (or alternative formulations) of quantum theory. In order to strengthen the claim that it can provide an explanation of the quantum correlations, quantum information theory should inquire into the possibility that the quantum correlations could be treated as “natural”, that is, as phenomena that are physically fundamental. As such, they would admit only a structural explanation, similarly to what happened in crucial revolutionary episodes in the history of physics.
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Notes
- 1.
Selective measurements operations are here obviously not considered, given that in such operations the statistics in general changes due to a change of the ensemble under study.
- 2.
In the following we follow closely CBH’s and Timpson’s treatments.
- 3.
Part of the results of this section are exposed in more details in (Felline 2016).
- 4.
“We can distinguish various kinds of theories in physics. Most of them are constructive. They attempt to build up a picture of the more complex phenomena out of the materials of a relativity simple formal scheme from which they start out. Along with this most important class of theories there exists a second, which I will call ‘principle-theories.’ These employ the analytic, not synthetic, method. The elements which form their basis and starting-point are not hypothetically constructed but empirically discovered ones, general characteristics of natural processes, principles that give rise to mathematically formulated criteria which the separate processes or the theoretical representations of them have to satisfy” (Einstein 1919, p. 228).
- 5.
The objection that this is really a form of Hempelian derivation will be dealt with below.
- 6.
See note 1.
- 7.
For more details, see Dorato (2014).
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Dorato, M., Felline, L. (2018). On Explaining Non-dynamically the Quantum Correlations Via Quantum Information Theory: What It Takes. In: Hansson, S. (eds) Technology and Mathematics. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93779-3_10
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