Related papers: Atomism versus Holism in Science and Philosophy
In this paper I aim to defend one version at least of Hume's dictum: roughly, the idea that possibility is determined by ontology through something like independent variation. My defence is broadly pragmatic, in the sense that adherence to…
The paper shows how the Bohmian approach to quantum physics can be applied to develop a clear and coherent ontology of non-perturbative quantum gravity. We suggest retaining discrete objects as the primitive ontology also when it comes to a…
Physical laws are strikingly simple, yet there is no a priori reason for them to be so. I propose that nomic realists -- Humeans and non-Humeans -- should recognize simplicity as a fundamental epistemic guide for discovering and evaluating…
Hamiltonian mechanics describes the evolution of a system through its Hamiltonian. The Hamiltonian typically also represents the energy observable, a Noether-conserved quantity associated with the time-invariance of the law of evolution. In…
In our effort to restate a "realistic" approach to quantum mechanics, that would fully acknowledge that local realism is untenable, we add a few more questions and answers to the list presented in quant-ph/0203131. We also suggest to…
We reanalyze from a modern perspective the bold idea of G. Helm, W. Ostwald, P. Duhem and others that energy is the fundamental entity composing the physical world. We start from a broad perspective reminding the search for a fundamental…
The paper points out that the modern formulation of Bohm's quantum theory known as Bohmian mechanics is committed only to particles' positions and a law of motion. We explain how this view can avoid the open questions that the traditional…
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…
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…
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…
The relationship between classical and quantum theory is of central importance to the philosophy of physics, and any interpretation of quantum mechanics has to clarify it. Our discussion of this relationship is partly historical and…
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…
Although the foundations of quantum and classical physics are much different, it is often difficult to pinpoint which features of a particular system are intrinsically "quantum". Perhapse, the most clear-cut distinction between "classical"…
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…
Finetuning and Naturalness are extra-empirical theory assessments that reflect our expectation how scientific theories should provide an intuitive understanding about the foundations underlying the observed phenomena. Recently, the absence…
In glaring contrast to its indisputable century-old experimental success, the ultimate objects and meaning of quantum physics remain a matter of vigorous debate among physicists and philosophers of science. This article attempts to shed new…
The concept of quantum superposition is reconsidered and discussed from the viewpoint of Bohmian mechanics, the hydrodynamic formulation of quantum mechanics, in order to elucidate some physical consequences that go beyond the simple…
This is a companion to another paper. Together they rebut two widespread philosophical doctrines about emergence. The first, and main, doctrine is that emergence is incompatible with reduction. The second is that emergence is supervenience;…
Historically, appearance of the quantum theory led to a prevailing view that Nature is indeterministic. The arguments for the indeterminism and proposals for indeterministic and deterministic approaches are reviewed. These include collapse…
It will be shown in this article that an ontological approach for some problems related to the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics could emerge from a re-evaluation of the main paradox of early Greek thought: the paradox of Being and…