Non-ideal measurements and physical possibility in quantum mechanics

Marco Del Seta

Mauricio Suárez

pp. 183-195

in: Maria L. Dalla Chiara, Roberto Giuntini, Federico Laudisa (eds), Language, quantum, music, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

Albert and Loewer [1,2,3] have posed an important difficulty for the modal interpretations advocated by Kochen [12], Healey [10] and Dieks [20] (KHD interpretations). They have argued that KHD interpretations cannot cope with physically realistic measurement situations. One of us (M.S. in [19]) has contested some of the assumptions underlying Albert and Loewer's argument. In this paper we review this and other criticisms of Albert and Loewer's assumptions, and we argue that a sound argument for Albert and Loewer's conclusion against KHD modal interpretations can be made, without relying on all of Albert and Loewer's assumptions.