Related papers: Quantum Physics and Reality
Difficulties and discomfort with the interpretation of quantum mechanics are due to differences in language between it and classical physics. Analogies to The Special Theory of Relativity, which also required changes in the basic worldview…
Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) claims to be an interpretation of quantum theory [see arXiv:2109.09170, which appears in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Interpretation of Quantum Physics]. However, there are significant departures…
Quantum computation teaches us that quantum mechanics exhibits exponential complexity. We argue that the standard scientific paradigm of "predict and verify" cannot be applied to testing quantum mechanics in this limit of high complexity.…
Relational quantum mechanics (RQM) proposes an ontology of relations between physical systems, where any system can serve as an `observer' and any physical interaction between systems counts as a `measurement'. Quantities take unique values…
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,…
Experimental evidene of the last decades has made the status of "collapses of the wave function" even more shaky than it already was on conceptual grounds: interference effects turn out to be detectable even when collapses are typically…
This article was written in response to a request from an editor of American Vedantist. It is shown that the idea that consciousness is essential to understanding quantum mechanics arises from logical fallacies. This may be welcome news to…
Dualities in physics have challenged traditional forms of scientific realism by undermining the idea that theories describe a unique underlying ontology. In this paper, we develop a new perspective on scientific realism that responds to…
QBism is a recently developed version of Quantum Bayesianism. QBists think that the primitive concept of experience is the central subject of science. QBism refuses the idea that the quantum state of a system is an objective description of…
A common understanding of quantum mechanics (QM) among students and practical users is often plagued by a number of "myths", that is, widely accepted claims on which there is not really a general consensus among experts in foundations of…
QBism is currently one of the most widely discussed 'subjective' interpretations of quantum mechanics. Its key move is to say that quantum probabilities are personalist Bayesian probabilities and that the quantum state represents subjective…
First, this article considers the nature of quantum reality (the reality responsible for quantum phenomena) and the concept of realism (our ability to represent this reality) in quantum theory, in conjunction with the roles of locality,…
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…
Many attempts have been made to characterise and solve the infamous measurement problem of quantum mechanics by advocating, implicitly or explicitly, different realist perspectives. As a result, we are still uncertain where this problem and…
Quantum mechanics is usually presented starting from a series of postulates about the mathematical framework. In this work we show that those same postulates can be derived by assuming that measurements are discrete interactions: that is,…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
In physics, every observation is made with respect to a frame of reference. Although reference frames are usually not considered as degrees of freedom, in all practical situations it is a physical system which constitutes a reference frame.…
Quantum Mechanics, almost 80 years after its arrival, is a well established and experimentally not falsified theory. It has predicted and explained a whole series of natural phenomena of a very delicate nature. But its interpretation has…
Relational quantum mechanics (RQM) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the idea that quantum states describe not an absolute property of a system but rather a relationship between systems. In this article, we observe that…
There is a multitude of interpretations of quantum mechanics, but foundational principles are lacking. Relational quantum mechanics views the observer as a physical system, which allows for an unambiguous interpretation as all axioms are…