Wave Function Realism and the Mathematization of Nature. A Phenomenological Perspective

TL;DR

The chapter investigates whether wave function realism can be grounded in phenomenology rather than as a literal claim about a fictitious high-dimensional reality. It contrasts standard realist options with a phenomenological lens that emphasizes horizons of givenness and the correlational structure between observer and world, culminating in the London–Bauer interpretation where the wave function encodes the openness of possible correlations and objectivity arises through reflective constitution. By reframing realism as transcendental and correlational, the authors argue that quantum mechanics does not depict a world minus observers but encodes the very conditions under which a world can appear to us. This approach has implications for locality, the role of the observer, and ongoing interpretational debates, offering a framework in which quantum theory articulates the structures that make objectivity possible in experience. The key idea is that the wave function $\psi$ represents the horizon of potential correlations that precede determinate outcomes, rather than a concrete ontic entity.

Abstract

This chapter reexamines wave function realism (WFR) through the lens of phenomenology. We begin by situating WFR within the broader debate about the ontology of the quantum state and the temptation to "read off" metaphysics from mathematical formalism. Against this background, we turn to the London-Bauer interpretation (LBI), the most explicit attempt to interpret quantum mechanics through phenomenological categories. On this view, the measurement transition is not a physical discontinuity but a reflective articulation of objectivity, and the wave function formally encodes the horizonal structure of world-givenness. We develop this idea by reconfiguring the notion of realism itself: not as objectivist, but as correlational and transcendental. The resulting picture suggests that quantum mechanics, rather than depicting a world "minus observers," mathematically articulates the very correlation through which a world becomes manifest at all.