Related papers: The Ambiguity of Simplicity
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…
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…
A scenario is outlined for quantum measurement, assuming that self-sustaining classicality is the consequence of an attractive gravitational self-interaction acting on massive bodies, and randomness arises already in the classical domain. A…
Whether winning blackjack or navigating busy streets, achieving desired outcomes requires agents to execute adaptive strategies, strategies where actions depend contextually on past events. In complexity science, this motivates memory as an…
How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is…
In spite of its popularity, it has not been possible to vindicate the conventional wisdom that classical mechanics is a limiting case of quantum mechanics. The purpose of the present paper is to offer an alternative point of view in which…
We take the view that physical quantities are values generated by processes in measurement, not pre-existent objective quantities, and that a measurement result is strictly a product of the apparatus and the subject of the measurement. We…
Consciousness and quantum mechanics are among the most puzzling phenomena studied in the sciences. Some scholars suggest they are related, though others think this claim commits a "minimization of mystery" fallacy. The aim of this…
Quantum mechanics is nonlocal. Classical mechanics is local. Consequently classical mechanics can not explain all quantum phenomena. Conversely, it is cumbersome to use quantum mechanics to describe classical phenomena. Not only are the…
A consistent description of interactions between classical and quantum systems is relevant to quantum measurement theory, and to calculations in quantum chemistry and quantum gravity. A solution is offered here to this longstanding problem,…
In modern physics only relative quantities are considered to have physical significance. For example, position assigned to a system depends on the choice of coordinates, and only relative distances between different systems have physical…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
Unlike classical information, quantum knowledge is restricted to the outcome of measurements of maximal observables corresponding to single contexts.
The usual formulation of quantum theory is rather abstract. In recent work I have shown that we can, nevertheless, obtain quantum theory from five reasonable axioms. Four of these axioms are obviously consistent with both classical…
The question of what is genuinely quantum about weak values is only ever going to elicit strongly subjective opinions---it is not a scientific question. Good questions, when comparing theories, are operational---they deal with the…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
Quantum typicality refers to the phenomenon that the expectation values of any given observable are nearly identical for the overwhelming majority of all normalized vectors in a sufficiently high-dimensional Hilbert (sub-)space. As a…
Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and…
What if gravity is classical? If true, a consistent co-existence of classical gravity and quantum matter requires that gravity exhibit irreducible fluctuations. These fluctuations can mediate classical correlations, but not quantum…
Quantum particles and classical particles are described in a common setting of classical statistical physics. The property of a particle being "classical" or "quantum" ceases to be a basic conceptual difference. The dynamics differs,…