Kriske, Tupman and Quantum Logic: The Quantum Logician's Conundrum

Abstract

Almost thirty years ago, Saul Kripke gave a talk in which he offered an extended critique of quantum logic. Neither that talk nor any commentary on it appear in the published literature. Today, there is much less interest in quantum logic as an interpretive program in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Nonetheless, Kripke’s critique raises interesting issues about what it might mean to contemplate a change in logic. Set against the larger background of the literature at that time, the lecture also provides an interesting springboard for exploring a number of issues about realism and quantum mechanics of the sort that Jeff Bub has wrestled with over his career. This paper will present an extended summary of a related critique by one P. Kriske, and will proceed from there to a discussion of the larger questions that must be addressed in order to provide an adequate reply to Kriske.