On Observation and The Completion of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

We start with a discussion of the use of mathematics to model the real world then justify the role of Hilbert space formalism for such modelling in the general context of quantum logic. Following this, the incompleteness of the Schr\"odinger equation is discussed as well as the incompleteness of von Neumann's measurement approach \cite{vN}. Subsequently, it is shown that quantum mechanics is indeed completed by the addition of an observer, however the observer is not described in the Hamiltonian formalism but \emph{necessarily} by the quantum stochastic formalism discovered in \cite{HP}. Consequently, the complete theory of quantum mechanics appears to be the Quantum Filtering Theory \cite{ND,NLF}. Finally, it is shown how Schr\"odinger's cat may be understood as a quantum filter, providing an intuitively realistic model and an insight into how quantum filtering works.