Related papers: Speakable in Quantum Mechanics
I provide a critical commentary regarding the attitude of the logician and the philosopher towards the physicist and physics. The commentary is intended to showcase how a general change in attitude towards making scientific inquiries can be…
Quantum logic has been introduced by Birkhoff and von Neumann as an attempt to base the logical primitives, the propositions and the relations and operations among them, on quantum theoretical entities, and thus on the related empirical…
QBism pursues the real by first eliminating the elements of quantum theory too fragile to be ontologies on their own. Thereafter, it seeks an "ontological lesson" from whatever remains. Here, we explore this program by highlighting three…
Analysing Quantum Measurement requires analysing the physics of amplification since amplification of phenomena from one scale to another scale is essential to measurement. There still remains the task of working this into an axiomatic…
The ontological aspect of Bohmian mechanics, as a hidden-variable theory that provides us with an objective description of a quantum world without observers, is widely known. Yet its practicality is getting more and more acceptance and…
The extravagances of quantum mechanics never fail to enrich daily the debate around natural philosophy. Entanglement, non-locality, collapse, many worlds, many minds, and subjectivism have challenged generations of thinkers. Its approach…
In this paper we investigate the history of relationalism and its present use in some interpretations of quantum mechanics. In the first part of this article we will provide a conceptual analysis of the relation between substantivalism,…
Norbert Wiener and J.B.S. Haldane suggested during the early thirties that the profound changes in our conception of matter entailed by quantum theory opens the way for our thoughts, and other experiential or mind-like qualities, to play a…
It has been shown at other occasions that recent results of modern physics can be used to shed some more light onto the foundations of the world, provided the actual task of philosophy is being re-interpreted in terms of a theory which is…
A discussion of the quantum mechanical use of superposition or entangled states shows that descriptions containing only statements about state vectors and experiments outputs are the most suitable for Quantum Mechanics. In particular, it is…
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory is investigated from a philosophical point of view. It is justified the opinion that the philosophical attitude the Copenhagen interpretation is based on is in principle inevitable for a real…
Contrary to the widespread belief, the problem of the emergence of classical mechanics from quantum mechanics is still open. In spite of many results on the $\h \to 0$ asymptotics, it is not yet clear how to explain within standard quantum…
In June 1925 Heisenberg arrived at Helgoland/Heligoland island to escape a fit of hay fever. He returned with a sketch of a strange theory of the micro-world, which we now call quantum mechanics. This essay attempts to present a look at…
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…
Since its inception, many physicists have seen in quantum mechanics the possibility, if not the necessity, of bringing cognitive aspects into the play, which were instead absent, or unnoticed, in the previous classical theories. In this…
In recent works, \v{C}aslav Brukner and Jacques Pienaar have raised interesting objections to the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics. We answer these objections in detail and show that, far from questioning the viability of the…
The Copenhagen interpretation is critically considered. A number of ambiguities, inconsistencies and confusions are discussed. It is argued that it is possible to purge the interpretation so as to obtain a consistent and reasonable way to…
According to one possible diagnosis of the quantum measurement problem, it is a consequence of quantum fundamentalism claiming that ontology and epistemology of the world are exclusively quantum, and classical physics is only an…
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…
Classical physics has enabled the acquisition of significant knowledge of the physical properties of nature on a standard macroscopic scale. These achievements were driven by use of the causal ontological approach (proposed originally by…