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Classical Objectivity without Microscopic Branch Selection: Stable and Shared Records in a Unitary Universe

Zhou, George S.
PhilArchive · Papers
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philosophy
Classical objectivity in quantum mechanics is often tied to a demand that one microscopic branch of the universal state become uniquely actual. This paper defends a different target, aligned with a companion unitary measurement framework. Quantum reality is represented by the global state and its unitary dynamical structure, whereas classical actuality is borne by stable events in an effectively commutative macroscopic record algebra. Fine quantum histories that agree on all persistent records represent one classical record class. A further structural point follows from universal unitarity: local decoherence processes are reduced descriptions of correlations generated within one global quantum state, not fundamentally independent classicalizing dynamics. When persistent macroscopic records produced in different regions can be jointly embedded in one effectively commutative record algebra, restricting the universal state to that algebra defines a single classical probability measure whose local record statistics are compatible marginals. This universal-state restriction consistency is weaker than a claim that all decoherent families are mutually compatible; common-source calibration supplies the operational condition that particular records belong to one supported domain. Persistent records can then be glued into an expanding connected filtration. For a finite operational partition of candidate network-level record classes, the corresponding posterior weights form bounded martingales; when accumulated records separate those classes, the conditioned network measure becomes extremal almost surely, and under positive likelihood separation incompatible candidate extensions lose conditional support exponentially. These are probability statements on the record filtration, not destruction of complementary components of the unconditioned quantum state. The residual ontological commitment can therefore be stated economically: a physically connected stable classical record domain carries one coherent single-valued valuation, and local classical facts are restrictions of that network-level actuality. We develop the implications for observer independence, cognition, coarse-graining, objective chance, Everettian multiplicity, relational approaches, Copenhagen, and consistent histories. The resulting position is realist and non-dualistic: quantum multiplicity may persist globally while classical reality is manifested as one coherent, public, causally effective network of stable records.
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