Chapman University Digital Commons

Bohr, QBism, and Beyond

Argyros Forum 209 A&B

After discussing the reasons for Bohr's alleged obscurity, I present in outline the brilliant fabric of his thought. After a cursory evaluation of the period between the passing of Bohr and the advent of QBism, during which interpreting quantum mechanics became a growth industry, I present QBism as a promising solution to the resulting quagmire. If Kant's theory of science was the first great stride in human understanding and Bohr's insight into the contextuality of phenomena was the second, QBism is the third. It affords a first empirical glimpse into the mysterious relation between the world of science and what QBists refer to as "the world as it is without agents" (Kant's thing in itself), and it does this without positing a correspondence between the two worlds, without interposing an evolving ontological state between observations, and without attempting to explain correlata in terms of their correlations. Finally I attempt to amplify the nature of this relation. Its essential characteristic is an atemporal process of manifestation. By entering into reflexive relations, a transcategoreal Existent (Kant's thing in itself) presents a world to itself. Subatomic particles, atoms, and molecules are neither parts nor constituents of this world but structures instrumental in the progressive transition from the unity of that Existent to the multiplicity of this world.