Related papers: Humean Supervenience in the Light of Contemporary …
Quantum Theory and Humeanism have long been thought to be incompatible due to the irreducibility of the correlations involved in entangled states. In this paper, we reconstruct the tension between Humeanism and entanglement via the concept…
Classical linear wave superposition produces the appearance of interference. This observation can be interpreted in two equivalent ways: one can assume that interference is an illusion because input components remain unperturbed, or that…
When compared to quantum mechanics, classical mechanics is often depicted in a specific metaphysical flavour: spatio-temporal realism or a Newtonian "background" is presented as an intrinsic fundamental classical presumption. However, the…
At the onset of quantum mechanics, it was argued that the new theory would entail a rejection of classical logic. The main arguments to support this claim come from the non-commutativity of quantum observables, which allegedly would…
Quantum mechanics states that a particle emitted at point (x_1,t_1) and detected at point (x_2,t_2) does not travel along a definite path between the two points. This conclusion arises essentially from the analysis of the two-slit…
Motivated by a generalization of Hempel's dilemma, I introduce a novel notion of empirical structure, as well as theory supervenience as a new reductive relationship between theories. One theory supervenes on another theory if the empirical…
Classical and quantum mechanical descriptions of physical world are seamlessly abridged within the framework of Lagrangian formalism which, besides revealing the essence of nonlocally correlated dynamic evolution, helps understanding abrupt…
It is shown that the standard formulation of quantum mechanics in terms of Hermitian Hamiltonians is overly restrictive. A consistent physical theory of quantum mechanics can be built on a complex Hamiltonian that is not Hermitian but…
Doubts are raised concerning the usual interpretation of the alleged failure, by quantum mechanics, of the distributive law of classical logic. The difficulty raised by incompatible sets of observables is overcome within an epistemic…
Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians provide an alternative perspective on the dynamics of quantum and classical systems coupled non-conservatively to an environment. Once primarily an interest of mathematical physicists, the theory of non-Hermitian…
What ontology does realism about the quantum state suggest? The main extant view in contemporary philosophy of physics is wave-function realism. We elaborate the sense in which wave-function realism does provide an ontological picture; and…
Although the present paper looks upon the formal apparatus of quantum mechanics as a calculus of correlations, it goes beyond a purely operationalist interpretation. Having established the consistency of the correlations with the existence…
Effective classicality of a property of a quantum system can be defined using redundancy of its record in the environment. This allows quantum physics to approximate the situation encountered in the classical world: The information about a…
Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown…
The ontology proposed in this paper is aimed at demonstrating that it is possible to understand the counter-intuitive predictions of quantum mechanics while still retaining much of the framework underlying classical physics, the implication…
The no-supervenience theorem limits the capacity of physicalist theories to provide a comprehensive account of human consciousness. The proof of the theorem is difficult to formalize because it relies on both alethic and epistemic notions…
The transition from quantum to classical behavior is a central question in modern physics. How can we rationalize everyday classical observations from an inherently quantum world? For instance, what makes two people, each absorbing an…
Bohmian mechanics, a hydrodynamic formulation of quantum mechanics, relies on the concept of trajectory, which evolves in time in compliance with dynamical information conveyed by the wave function. Here this appealing idea is considered to…
The purpose of this article is to provide a novel approach and justification of the idea that classical physics and quantum physics can neither function nor even be conceived one without the other - in line with ideas attributed to e.g.…
We discuss the key role that Hamiltonian notions play in physics. Five examples are given that illustrate the versatility and generality of Hamiltonian notions. The given examples concern the interconnection between quantum mechanics,…