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Is de Broglie-Bohm Theory Specially Equipped to Recover Classical Behavior?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Joshua Rosaler
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Abstract

Supporters of the de Broglie-Bohm (dBB) interpretation of quantum theory argue that because the theory, like classical mechanics, concerns the motions of point particles in 3D space, it is specially suited to recover classical behavior. I offer a novel account of classicality in dBB theory, if only to show that such an account falls out almost trivially from results developed in the largely interpretation-neutral context of decoherence theory. I then argue that this undermines any special claim that dBB theory is purported to have on the unification of the quantum and classical realms.

Type
Quantum Physics
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1175 - 1187
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Thanks to David Wallace, Simon Saunders, Harvey Brown, Christopher Timpson, and Jeremy Butterfield for comments on earlier drafts of this work and to Cian Dorr for helpful discussions of de Broglie-Bohm theory. Thanks also to audiences in Oxford, Sussex, Vallico Soto, and Chicago. This work was supported by the University of Oxford Clarendon fund and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Philosophy of Science.

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