On January 22 2019, Al Wilson was in Urbino, Italy to speak at a workshop on the metaphysics of entanglement – the 2021 case study for FraMEPhys. The workshop focused on a new paper by Claudio Calosi and Matteo Morganti, arguing that entangled quantum systems are mutually metaphysically dependent in Kit Fine’s sense of essential dependence. In short, they were arguing that part of what it is to be a particular entangled particle is to be entangled with its partner – and vice versa.

Al’s comments focused on the notion of dependence at work – making use of essential dependence brings some apparently problematic consequences, such as no system being able to survive becoming entangled with (or disentangled from) any other system. He also argued that an underlying monist interpretation of the quantum state continues to offer a more elegant overall explanation of entanglement than the coherentist view. See the slides for more details:

Apparently quantum entanglement is a topic of vital local interest, because a TV crew was present to record proceedings. You can watch a short report on the workshop on RAI TV, starting around minute 16.00.

— Alastair Wilson