Related papers: Is the quantum state real? An extended review of $…
$\psi$-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…
At a fundamental level, the classical picture of the world is dead, and has been dead now for almost a century. Pinning down exactly which quantum phenomena are responsible for this has proved to be a tricky and controversial question, but…
The ontic breakthrough in quantum foundations, consisting of three theo- rems, that of Pusey, Barrett, and Rudolph (PBR), the Colbeck-Renner one, and Hardy's one, is shortly presented, together with various reactions. Some of the ideas…
The Pusey-Barrett-Rudolph (PBR) theorem deals with the realism of the quantum states. It establishes that every pure quantum state is real, in the context of quantum ontological models. Specifically, by guaranteeing the property of…
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…
We analyze the recent no go theorem by Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph (PBR) concerning ontic and epistemic hidden variables. We define two fundamental requirements for the validity of the result. We finally compare the models satisfying the…
Status of quantum wavefunction is one of the most debated issues in quantum foundations -- whether it corresponds directly to the reality or just represents knowledge or information about some aspect of reality. In this letter we propose a…
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…
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…
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,…
What is the nature of reality? How should be an answer to this question? At this level, we are so deep that all our concepts are obscure. Quantum theory (QT) is at this level. The quest for interpreting it fails because the clarity of our…
It is given a preliminary discussion on the ontic nature of quantum states to be intended as potentialities and on the central role of spin to be considered as the basic essence of quantum mechanical reality. The possible fundamental role…
In this paper, we explore realist models of quantum theory that does not fit into the standard definitions of ontological models. The models here go beyond standard definition of ontological models in the sense that quantum states do not…
The scientific methodology based on two descriptive levels, ontic (reality as it is ) and epistemic (observational), is briefly presented. Following Schr\"odinger, we point to the possible gap between these two descriptions. Our main aim is…
Following the argument of Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph (Nature Phys. 8:476, 2012), new interest has been raised on whether one can interpret state-vectors (pure states) in a statistical way ($\psi$-epistemic theories), or if each of them…
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…
According to scientific realism, science gives us an approximately true description of what the world is like. But what does it mean? In this chapter, we focus on the ontological and metaphysical aspects of this discussion. That is, we are…
We introduce a weakening of the Preparation Independence Postulate of Pusey, Barrett, and Rudolph that does not presuppose that the space of ontic states resulting from a product state preparation can be represented by the Cartesian product…
The physical states of matter and fields are represented in the quantum theory with complex valued wavefunctions, or more generally by quantum states in an abstract linear vector space. Determining the physical nature of wavefunctions…
In this paper we show that $\psi$-ontic models, as defined by Harrigan and Spekkens (HS), cannot reproduce quantum theory. Instead of focusing on probability, we use information theoretic considerations to show that all pure states of…