Related papers: Indeterminism and Randomness Through Physics
This paper is a continuation of the papers [gr-qc/9409010, gr-qc/9505034, gr-qc/9603022, gr-qc/9609035] and is devoted to the riddle of the origin of the arrow of time. The problem of time orientation reduces to that of the difference…
Conceptual problems regarding the arrow of time in classical physics, quantum physics, cosmology, and quantum gravity are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the dynamical role of the quantum indeterminism, and to various concepts of…
Baroque questions of set-theoretic foundations are widely assumed to be irrelevant to physics. In this article, I demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect. I show that the fundamental physical question of whether a theory is…
Quantum theory makes the most accurate empirical predictions and yet it lacks simple, comprehensible physical principles from which the theory can be uniquely derived. A broad class of probabilistic theories exist which all share some…
We use the martingale-theoretic approach of game-theoretic probability to incorporate imprecision into the study of randomness. In particular, we define several notions of randomness associated with interval, rather than precise,…
This work starts from definition of randomness, the results of algorithmic randomness are analyzed from the perspective of application. Then, the source and nature of randomness is explored, and the relationship between infinity and…
The intuitive reasoning of physicists in conditions of uncertainty is closer to the Bayesian approach than to the frequentist ideas taught at University and which are considered the reference framework for handling statistical problems. The…
It is often said that quantum and classical randomness are of different nature, the former being ontological and the latter epistemological. However, so far the question of "What is quantum in quantum randomness", i.e. what is the impact of…
As physics searches for invariants in observations, this paper looks for invariants of probabilistic observation without assuming physical structure. Structure emerges from the basic assumption of science that new information shall lead to…
Neutrinos, and primarily neutrino oscillations, have undoubtedly been one of the most exciting topics in the field of high-energy physics over the past few years. The existence of neutrino oscillations would require an extension of the…
The problem of the determinism of Quantum Mechanics has been a main one during the 20th century. At the same time, in the context of Logic and Set Theory, the importance of ancient paradoxes as well as the appearance of many new ones, has…
An actual infinity of colliding balls can be in a configuration in which the laws of mechanics lead to logical inconsistency. It is argued that one should therefore limit the domain of these laws to a finite, or only a potentially infinite…
In quantum gravity there is no notion of absolute time. Like all other quantities in the theory, the notion of time has to be introduced "relationally", by studying the behavior of some physical quantities in terms of others chosen as a…
After discussing two senses in which the notion of undecidability is used, we present a survey of undecidable decision problems arising in various branches of mathematics.
In two articles, the authors claim that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle limits the precision of simultaneous measurements of the position and velocity of a particle and refer to experimental evidence that supports their claim. It is…
It is often stated that quantum mechanics only makes statistical predictions and that a quantum state is described by the various probability distributions associated with it. Can we describe a quantum state completely in terms of…
Although we accept that Physics is, as a last resort, an experimental science, the relationship between theory and experiment is far away from being trivial. Any experiment is always explained within a determinate theoretical context and,…
This paper argues that the traditional opposition between determinism and indeterminism in physics is representational rather than ontological. Deterministic-stochastic dualities are available in principle, and arise in a non-contrived way…
Do scientific theories limit human knowledge? In other words, are there physical variables hidden by essence forever? We argue for negative answers and illustrate our point on chaotic classical dynamical systems. We emphasize parallels with…
Though the ability of human beings to deal with probabilities has been put into question, the assessment of rarity is a crucial competence underlying much of human decision-making and is pervasive in spontaneous narrative behaviour. This…