Related papers: Defining the Observed World in Quantum Mechanics
Founding our analysis on the Geneva-Brussels approach to the foundations of physics, we provide a clarification and classification of the key concept of observation. An entity can be observed with or without a scope. In the second case, the…
This essay provides a short introduction to the ideas and potential implications of quantum physics for scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Quantum-inspired ideas pepper current discourse in all of these fields, in ways…
Physics is a model of nature able to both describe and predict the results of measurements made with respect to reference systems. These reference systems, in turn, are themselves physical and thus subject to the laws of physics. The…
We introduce a new mathematical framework for the probabilistic description of an experiment on a system of any type in terms of information representing this system initially. Based on the notions of an information state and a generalized…
The measurement problem is the issue of explaining how the objective classical world emerges from a quantum one. Here we take a different approach. We assume that there is an objective classical system, and then ask that the standard rules…
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…
Quantum mechanics traditionally places the observer outside of the system being studied and employs the Born interpretation. In this and related papers the observer is placed inside the system. To accomplish this, special rules are required…
This note presents a canonical construction of global observables -- sometimes referred to in the literature as macroscopic observables or observables at infinity -- in statistical mechanics, providing a unified treatment of both…
The spectacular successes of quantum physics have made it a commonplace to assert that we live in a quantum world. This idea seems to imply a kind of "quantum fundamentalism" according to which everything in the universe (if not the…
To understand the foundations of quantum mechanics, we have to think carefully about how theoretical concepts are rooted in -- and limited by -- the nature of experience, as Bohr attempted to show. Geometrical pictures of physical phenomena…
Quantum mechanics traditionally places the observer outside of the system being studied and employs the Born interpretation. In this and related papers the observer is placed inside the system. To accomplish this, special rules are required…
We look into the ontology of quantum theory as distinct from that of the classical theory in the sciences, following a broadly Kantian tradition and distinguishing between the noumenal and phenomenal realities where the former is…
Quantum measurement and quantum operation theory is developed here by taking the relational properties among quantum systems, instead of the independent properties of a quantum system, as the most fundamental elements. By studying how the…
Evidence is growing for the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that action and perception co-determine each other, forming an action-perception loop. This suggests that we humans somehow participate in what we perceive. So, how can…
I show how quantum mechanics, like the theory of relativity, can be understood as a 'principle theory' in Einstein's sense, and I use this notion to explore the approach to the problem of interpretation developed in my book Interpreting the…
A discussion of the meaning of a physical concept cannot be separated from discussion of the conditions for its ideal measurement. We assert that quantization is no more than the invocation of the quantum of action in the explanation of…
Since the beginning, quantum mechanics has raised major foundational and interpretative problems. Foundational research has been an important factor in the development of quantum cryptography, quantum information theory and, perhaps one…
From its earliest days nearly a century ago, quantum mechanics has proven itself to be a tremendously accurate yet intellectually unsatisfying theory to many. Not the least of its problems is that it is a theory about the results of…
A quantum theory of the universe consists of a theory of its quantum dynamics and a theory of its quantum state The theory predicts quantum multiverses in the form of decoherent sets of alternative histories describing the evolution of the…
The geometrical description of Quantum Mechanics is reviewed and proposed as an alternative picture to the standard ones. The basic notions of observables, states, evolution and composition of systems are analised from this perspective, the…