Eugene P. Wigner and the Measurement Problem: philosophical presuppositions of a Martian in America

During World War II, a Hungarian group of scientists working on the Manhattan project was collectively referred to as “the Martians”. Some American scientists who joined the mentioned project jokingly suggested that the Hungarian scientists had come from Mars (Hargittai, 2006, vii). One of these Hungarians, physicist Eugene P. Wigner never received this bullying from his colleagues amicably.^[1] This presentation will outline and analyze the philosophical presuppositions that influenced his heterodox (sometimes misunderstood) interpretation of the quantum measurement problem. Some physicists handled it as an alien perspective in the foundation of physics (Marin, 2009, p. 808, and Redhead, 1996). So far, despite of any misunderstanding, it is becoming one of most exoteric interpretations in quantum theory. From a broad perspective, Wigner brought the role of the mind to the quantum measurement process, concluding that one is forced to accept it “if one pursues the quantum mechanical theory of observation to its ultimate consequences.” (Wigner, 1964, p. 185). We seek to understand which underlying philosophical claims drove him to propose a singular solution to paradoxes concerning the quantum measurement process. We organized our analysis into three philosophical underpinnings to describe a general picture from Wigner’s point of view in which he unfolded the conceptual structure of the standard, or orthodox, quantum theory. We intend to show that his heterodox interpretation is built upon ordinary approaches in the repertory of epistemological argumentation.

The first underpinning of his perspective is how he deals with physical concepts. The second is a sort of idealism (avoiding a solipsist position – Wigner, 1964, p. 185–198) regarding the natural world built upon the orthodox quantum theory. According to his interpretation, the third one is the problem of objectivism in quantum mechanics. Through this presentation, we intend to shed light on what Wigner meant when he used the term “orthodox theory” and his philosophical viewpoint on this theory. This paper, then, argues how he conceived the complex subject-object relationship while he was concerned with the role of the observer in the quantum measurement process.

Moreover, we present not only the solution proposed by Wigner in the 1960s but also shortly trace how he, in the late 1970s, was moving away from his proposal towards that presented by H. Dieter Zeh. We will also argue that the kind of idealism that Wigner stated is an outgrowth of the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics when someone leads its measurement theory to “limiting cases.” Finally, we will present how Wigner defined the “limiting cases” concept. Our goal is to shed light on the historical and philosophical analysis done by Paty (1995, p. 199), Marin (2009, p. 808), Freire (2007), Esfeld (1999), and Redhead (1996) about Wigner’s interpretation.