80:1 January 1997
Quantum Mechanics and the Real World 

Advisory Editor: Barry Loewer, Rutgers

It has long been recognized that while Quantum Theory is a powerful and accurate instrment for modelling and predicting micro-physical phenomena, it seems to describe a world which is decidedly distant from the world we experience - the "real world". For example, it seems to predict that macroscopic systems (e.g. cats) sometimes evolve into states in which ordinary properties (e.g being alive/dead) are not well-defined and indeed that we (or our bodies) sometimes occupy such states. The task of attempting to square quantum theory with "the real world" is the problem of interpreting the theory. There are a number of recent proposals including many worlds, many minds, hidden variable, and stochastic collapse theories which have attracted philosophical attention. This issue of The Monist is devoted to the philosophical problems which arise from trying to reconcile quantum theory with the real world and especially to these recent proposals.

Table of Contents:

Tim Maudlin

Descrying the World in a Wavefunction

Robert Weingard and Craig Callender

Trouble in Paradise: Problems for Bohm's Theory

Simon Saunders

Naturalizing Metaphysics

Jeffrey Barrett 

On Everett's Formulation of Quantum Mechanics

David Papineau

Uncertain Decisions in the Many Minds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Nick Huggett

Identity, Quantum Mechanics and Common Sense

Peter Forrest

Common Sense and a 'Wagner Dirac' Approach to Quantum Mechanics

Quentin Smith

The Ontological Interpretation of the Wave Function of the Universe