Related papers: Where the "it from bit" come from?
A repeated claim in linguistics is that the majority of linguistic utterances are unique. For example, Pinker (1994: 10), summarizing an argument by Noam Chomsky, states that "virtually every sentence that a person utters or understands is…
The quantum formalism is a ``measurement'' formalism--a phenomenological formalism describing certain macroscopic regularities. We argue that it can be regarded, and best be understood, as arising from Bohmian mechanics, which is what…
Quantum mechanics has transformed our understanding of reality, yet deep philosophical puzzles remain unresolved. Is there a consistent way to describe quantum measurement, the emergence of space and time, and the role of observers within…
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…
Our concept of mass has evolved considerably over the centuries, most notably from Newton to Einstein, and then even more vigorously with the establishment of the standard model and the subsequent discovery of the Higgs boson. Mass is now…
It has for ages been a rather constant feature of thinking in science to take it for granted that the respective thinking happens in realms which are totally outside and independent of all the other phenomena that constitute the objects of…
We review our approach to quantum mechanics adding also some new interesting results. We start by giving proof of two important theorems on the existence of the and Clifford algebras. This last algebra gives proof of the von Neumann basic…
Does information play a significant role in the foundations of physics? Information is the abstraction that allows us to refer to the states of systems when we choose to ignore the systems themselves. This is only possible in very…
The traditional formulation of the ultimate goal of physics (in the narrower sense of axiomatic theory) involves the derivation of physical laws from first principles. Though, such option doesn't make things easier since the task of the…
Kantian philosophy of space, time and gravity is significantly affected in three ways by particle physics. First, particle physics deflects Schlick's General Relativity-based critique of synthetic a priori knowledge. Schlick argued that…
After a summary of Bohr's views and their relation to Kant's theory of science, two fruitless lines of attack on the measurement problem are discussed: the way of the psi-ontologist and the way of the QBist. In the remainder of the paper…
After more than a century since its birth, Quantum Theory still eludes our understanding. If asked to describe it, we have to resort to abstract and ad hoc principles about complex Hilbert spaces. How is it possible that a fundamental…
This article introduces Universal Quantum Relativity which is a simple Theory of Everything. It relies on an ultimate doctrine that is the absence of absolute existence. This generalizes relativity principles up to a mother quantum theory.…
The application of quantum theory to cosmology raises a number of conceptual questions, such as the role of the quantum-mechanical notion of "observer" or the absence of a time variable in the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. I point out that a…
In 1972, at a symposium celebrating the 70th birthday of Paul Dirac, John Wheeler proclaimed that "the framework falls down for everything that one has ever called a law of physics". Responsible for this "breakage [...] among the laws of…
The job of a physicist is to describe Nature. General features, hypotheses and theories help to describe physics phenomena at a more abstract, fundamental level, and are sometimes tacitly assigned some sort of real existence; doing so…
We argue that Anton Zeilinger's "foundational conceptual principle" for quantum mechanics according to which an elementary system carries one bit of information is an idealistic principle, which should be replaced by a realistic principle…
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 inception of a universal gravity-related irreversibility took place originally in quantum cosmology. The ultimate reason of universal irreversibility is thought to come from black holes close to the Planck scale. Completely different…
In Bohmian mechanics elementary particles exist objectively, as point particles moving according to a law determined by a wavefunction. In this context, questions as to whether the particles of a certain species are real--questions such as,…