Theory-Independent Realism
Abstract
The distinctive features of quantum mechanics, which set it apart from other physical theories, challenge our notions of realism. Recovering realism from purely philosophical grounds, a quantitative and operational criterion was proposed in the past, but solely for the context of quantum mechanics. We use a framework of generalized probabilistic theories to expand the notion of realism for a theory-independent context, providing a criterion uniquely based on the probabilities assigned to measurement outcomes. More so, using robustness and the Kullback-Leibler divergence, we propose quantifiers for the realism of arbitrary physical properties given a particular state of a generic physical theory. These theory-independent quantifiers are then employed in quantum mechanics and we investigate their relation with another well-established irrealism measure.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2402.17123,
title = {Theory-Independent Realism},
author = {D. M. Fucci and R. M. Angelo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.17123},
year = {2024}
}