Quantum Mechanics and Perspectivalism

Abstract

Experimental evidene of the last decades has made the status of "collapses of the wave function" even more shaky than it already was on conceptual grounds: interference effects turn out to be detectable even when collapses are typically expected to occur. Non-collapse interpretations should consequently be taken seriously. In this paper we argue that such interpretations suggest a perspectivalism according to which quantum objects are not characterized by monadic properties, but by relations to other systems. Accordingly, physical systems may possess different properties with respect to different "reference systems". We discuss some of the relevant arguments, and argue that perspectivalism both evades recent arguments that single-world interpretations are inconsistent and eliminates the need for a privileged rest frame in the relativistic case.