Related papers: Where the "it from bit" come from?
Despite the success of modern physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of experiments, we have made remarkably little progress towards answering the most fundamental question of: why is there a universe at…
This paper proposes an approach to framing and answering fundamental questions about consciousness. It argues that many of the more theoretical debates about consciousness, such as debates about "when does it begin?", are misplaced and…
I begin by examining the question of the quantum limits of knowledge by briefly presenting the constraints of the theory that derive from its mathematical structure (in particular the no-go theorems formulated by von Neumann and Kochen and…
'Locality' is a fraught word, even within the restricted context of Bell's theorem. As one of us has argued elsewhere, that is partly because Bell himself used the word with different meanings at different stages in his career. The…
Intelligence is a fundamental part of all living things, as well as the foundation for Artificial Intelligence. In this primer we explore the ideas associated with intelligence and, by doing so, understand the implications and constraints…
Does the quantum state represent reality or our knowledge of reality? In making this distinction precise, we are led to a novel classification of hidden variable models of quantum theory. Indeed, representatives of each class can be found…
I will propose that the reality to which the quantum formalism implicitly refers is a kind of generalized history, the word history having here the same meaning as in the phrase sum-over-histories. This proposal confers a certain…
A number of philosophers and scientists have discussed the possibility of inseparability between the subject (i.e., the observer) and the object (i.e., the observed universe). In particular, it has recently been proposed that this…
Niels Bohr introduced the concept of complementarity in order to give a general account of quantum mechanics, however he stressed that the idea of complementarity is related to the general difficulty in the formation of human ideas,…
In this paper we discuss the relevance of the algebraic approach to quantum phenomena first introduced by von Neumann before he confessed to Birkoff that he no longer believed in Hilbert space. This approach is more general and allows us to…
What exists "out there"? What does "doing physics" mean? What are the axiomatic ideas for microphysics? What is a particle? What is an apparatus made of? We show that Quantum Mechanics textbooks cannot truly answer this kind of question…
A contemporary physicist would be hard put to agree entirely with the author of a 1959 textbook on quantum mechanics, who wrote: "A second simple, one-dimensional system, somewhat divorced from reality but illustrative of the principles of…
Niels Bohr introduced the concept of complementarity in order to give a general account of quantum mechanics, however he stressed that the idea of complementarity is related to the general difficulty in the formation of human ideas,…
For the past two decades, Einstein's Hole Argument (which deals with the apparent indeterminateness of general relativity due to the general covariance of the field equations) and its resolution in terms of Leibniz equivalence (the…
Schroedinger's wave function shows many aspects of a state of incomplete knowledge or information ("bit"): (1) it is usually defined on a space of classical configurations, (2) its generic entanglement is, therefore, analogous to…
We discuss views about whether the universe can be rationally comprehended, starting with Plato, then Leibniz, and then the views of some distinguished scientists of the previous century. Based on this, we defend the thesis that…
The power-point presentation \cite{ppt} provided herein shows exactly why Einstein's field equations of his general relativity are based on an illogical approach to representing the observable world. Einstein had, in fact, discarded these…
Einstein's theory of general relativity describes gravity as the interaction of particles with space-time geometry, as opposed to interacting with a physical fluid, as in the old gravitational aether theories. Moreover, any theoretical…
The classic "Bell's Theorem" of Clauser, Holt, Shimony and Horne tells us that we must give up at least one of: (1) objective reality (aka "hidden variables"); (2) locality; or (3) time-forwards macroscopic statistics (aka "causality"). The…
The suggestion that particles of the same kind may be indistinguishable in a fundamental sense, even so that challenges to traditional notions of individuality and identity may arise, has first come up in the context of classical…