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Updated: Jul 2, 2025

Quantum State Engineering of Light with Continuous-wave Optical Parametric Oscillators
Published on: May 30, 2014
Quantum ontology without textbooks. Nor overlapping
1Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
In this paper, I critically assess two recent proposals for an interpretation-independent understanding of non-relativistic quantum mechanics: the overlap strategy (Fraser & Vickers, 2022) and the textbook account (Egg, 2021). My argument has three steps. I first argue that they presume a Quinean-Carnapian meta-ontological framework that yields flat, structureless ontologies. Second, such ontologies are unable to solve the problems that quantum ontologists want to solve. Finally, only structured ontologies are capable of solving the problems that quantum ontologists want to solve. But they require some dose of speculation. In the end, I defend the conservative way to do quantum ontology, which is (and must be) speculative and non-neutral.
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