Is quantum logic really logic

✍ Scribed by Gardner M.R.

• Year: 1971
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 23
• Series: Phil Sci 38
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Putnam and Finkelstein have proposed the abandonment of distributivity in the logic of quantum theory. This change results from defining the connectives, not truth functionally, but in terms of a certain empirical ordering of propositions. Putnam has argued that the use of this ordering ("implication") to govern proofs resolves certain paradoxes. But his resolutions are faulty; and in any case, the paradoxes may be resolved with no changes in logic. There is therefore no reason to regard the partially ordered set of propositions as a logic-i.e. as embodying a criterion for soundness of proofs. Its role in quantum theory ought to be understood in an entirely different way.