Not the Measurement Problem’s Problem: Black Hole Information Loss with Schrödinger’s Cat

Saakshi DulaniJohns Hopkins University

Tuesday, April 16, 2024
1:00pm–2:30pm (East Coast time)

[Registration Form] (Abstract and Video Below)

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1:00–2:00
Talk
Video (YouTube)

2:00–2:05
Break

2:05–2:30
Open Discussion and Q&A

Abstract

Recently, several philosophers and physicists have increasingly noticed the hegemony of unitarity in the black hole information loss discourse and are challenging its legitimacy in the face of the measurement problem. They proclaim that embracing non-unitarity solves two paradoxes for the price of one. Though I share their distaste over the philosophical bias, I disagree with their strategy of still privileging certain interpretations of quantum theory. I argue that information-restoring solutions can be interpretation-neutral because the manifestation of non-unitarity in Hawking’s original derivation is unrelated to whats found in collapse theories or generalized stochastic approaches, thereby decoupling the two puzzles.