The Frauchiger-Renner argument: A new no-go result?

S. FORTIN; O. LOMBARDI

STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN PHYSICS

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2020 vol. 70 p. 1 - 7

1355-2198

In April 2016, Daniela Frauchiger and Renato Renner published an article online in which they introduce a Gedankenexperiment that led them to conclude that single-world interpretation of quantum theory cannot be selfconsistent. In a new version of the paper, published in September 2018, the authors moderate their original claim by concluding that quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems, at least not in a straightforward manner. In this article our purpose is to offer a careful reconstruction of Frauchiger and Renner?s argument, which in general is not elucidated with sufficient detail in the many debates about its assumptions and scope. Such a reconstruction will allow us to clarify some points about the role of the agents? knowledge and of the hypothesis of collapse in the structure of the argumentation. The final aim of the present paper is to show that the analysis of the F-R argument leads to a dilemma: either it is an original way to reproduce the proof of the contextuality of quantum mechanics, or it is illegitimate because appeals to inferences forbidden by the algebraic structure of quantum propositions.