Related papers: How to spell out the epistemic conception of quant…

The paper discusses objections against non-hidden variable versions of the epistemic conception of quantum states - the view that quantum states do not describe the properties of quantum systems but reflect, in some way to be specified, the…

The interpretation of quantum mechanics has been discussed since this theme first was brought up by Einstein and Bohr. This article describes a proposal for a new foundation of quantum theory, partly drawing upon ideas from statistical…

Essential elements of quantum theory are derived from an epistemic point of view, i.e., the viewpoint that thetheory has to do with what can be said about nature. This gives a relationship to statistical reasoning and to other areas of…

Quantum states are the key mathematical objects in quantum theory. It is therefore surprising that physicists have been unable to agree on what a quantum state truly represents. One possibility is that a pure quantum state corresponds…

The development of quantum information theory has renewed interest in the idea that the state vector does not represent the state of a quantum system, but rather the knowledge or information that we may have on the system. I argue that this…

The status of the quantum state is perhaps the most controversial issue in the foundations of quantum theory. Is it an epistemic state (state of knowledge) or an ontic state (state of reality)? In realist models of quantum theory, the…

Quantum mechanics notoriously faces the measurement problem, the problem that if read thoroughly, it implies the nonexistence of definite outcomes in measurement procedures. A plausible reaction to this and to related problems is to regard…

$\psi$-epistemic interpretations of quantum theory maintain that quantum states only represent incomplete information about the physical states of the world. A major motivation for this view is the promise to provide a reasonable account of…

In this paper, epistemology and ontology of quantum states are discussed based on a completely new way of founding quantum theory. The fundamental notions are conceptual variables in the mind of an observer or in the joint minds of a group…

The quantum state \psi is a mathematical object used to determine the probabilities of different outcomes when measuring a physical system. Its fundamental nature has been the subject of discussions since the inception of quantum theory: is…

A new realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is introduced. Quantum systems are shown to have two kinds of properties: the usual ones described by values of quantum observables, which are called extrinsic, and those that can be…

The possibility of a quantum system to exhibit properties that are akin to both the classically held notions of being a particle and a wave, is one of the most intriguing aspects of the quantum description of nature. These aspects have been…

The idea that the wave function represents information, or knowledge, rather than the state of a microscopic object has been held to solve foundational problems of quantum mechanics. Realist interpretation schemes, like Bohmian…

There is a longstanding debate on the metaphysical relation between quantum states and the systems they describe. A series of relatively recent {\psi}-ontology theorems have been taken to show that, provided one accepts certain assumptions,…

In classical theory, the physical systems are elucidated through the concepts of particles and waves, which aim to describe the reality of the physical system with certainty. In this framework, particles are mathematically represented by…

Entanglement is one of the pillars of quantum mechanics and quantum information processing, and as a result the quantumness of nonentangled states has typically been overlooked and unrecognized. We give a robust definition for the…

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 concept of the physical state of a system is ubiquitous in physics but is usually presented in terms of specific cases. For example, the state of a point particle of mass m is completely characterized by its position and momentum. There…

Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism, is a recent development of the epistemic view of quantum states, according to which the state vector represents knowledge about a quantum system, rather than the true state of the system. QBism explicitly…

We construct a formal framework for investigating epistemic and temporal notions in the context of distributed quantum computation. While we rely on structures developed earlier, we stress that our notion of quantum knowledge makes sense…