Related papers: Ontological models and the interpretation of conte…
The presence of contextuality in quantum theory was first highlighted by Bell, Kochen and Specker, who discovered that for quantum systems of three or more dimensions, measurements cannot be viewed as revealing pre-existing properties of…
In this article we discuss the problem of finding an interpretation of quantum mechanics which provides an objective account of physical reality. In the first place we discuss the problem of interpretation and analyze the importance of such…
Formulations of quantum mechanics can be characterized as realistic, operationalist, or a combination of the two. In this paper a realistic theory is defined as describing a closed system entirely by means of entities and concepts…
What is the nature of reality? How should be an answer to this question? At this level, we are so deep that all our concepts are obscure. Quantum theory (QT) is at this level. The quest for interpreting it fails because the clarity of our…
We ask whether the operational quantum description is complete at the level of preparations: can the empirically accessible properties of a finite preparation set be reproduced exactly by a hidden-variable description, or must every such…
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…
It is well known that in quantum mechanics we cannot always define consistently properties that are context independent. Many approaches exist to describe contextual properties, such as Contextuality by Default (CbD), sheaf theory, topos…
We will argue that a phenomenological analysis of consciousness, similar to that of Husserl, shows that the effects of phenomenal qualities shape our perception of the world. It also shows the way the physical and mathematical sciences…
Quantum contextuality describes situations where the statistics observed in different measurement contexts cannot be explained by a measurement independent reality of the system. The most simple case is observed in a three-dimensional…
In this paper we intend to discuss the importance of providing a physical representation of quantum superpositions which goes beyond the mere reference to mathematical structures and measurement outcomes. This proposal goes in the opposite…
The ontological model framework provides a rigorous approach to address the question of whether the quantum state is ontic or epistemic. When considering only conventional projective measurements, auxiliary assumptions are always needed to…
Models of a phenomenon are often developed by examining it under different experimental conditions, or measurement contexts. The resultant probabilistic models assume that the underlying random variables, which define a measurable set of…
The quantum state is a mathematical object used to determine the outcome probabilities of measurements on physical systems. Its fundamental nature has been the subject of discussions since the origin of the theory: is it ontic, that is,…
The question of what ontological message (if any) is encoded in the formalism of contemporary physics is, to say the least, controversial. The reasons for this state of affairs are psychological and neurobiological. The processes by which…
In this paper we discuss the representational realist stance as a pluralist ontic approach to inter-theoretic relationships. Our stance stresses the fact that physical theories require the necessary consideration of a conceptual level of…
In this work we analyse the notion of measurement non-contextuality (MNC) and identify contextual scenarios which involve sequential measurements of only a single measurement device. We show that any non-contextual ontological model fails…
Assuming the validity of the equivalence principle in the quantum regime, we argue that one of the assumptions of the usual definition of quantum mechanics, namely separation between the ``classical'' detector and the ``quantum'' system,…
In these notes, based on lectures given as part of the Les Houches summer school on Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics in August, 2013, I have tried to give a brief survey of some important approaches and modern tendencies in quantum…
Contextuality - the obstruction to describing quantum mechanics in a classical statistical way - has been proposed as a resource that powers quantum computing. The measurement-based model provides a concrete manifestation of contextuality…
By assuming a deterministic evolution of quantum systems and taking realism into account, we carefully build a hidden variable theory for Quantum Mechanics based on the notion of ontological states proposed by 't Hooft. We view these…