Related papers: Chance in the Everett interpretation
This paper relates both to the metaphysics of probability and to the physics of time asymmetry. Using the formalism of decoherent histories, it investigates whether intuitions about intrinsic time directedness that are often associated with…
The interpretation of quantum mechanics is an area of increasing interest to many working physicists. In particular, interest has come from those involved in quantum computing and information theory, as there has always been a strong…
A "geometric" intepretation of probability is proposed, modelled on the treatment of tense in 4-dimensional spacetime. It is applied to Everett's approach to quantum mechanics, as formulated in terms of consistent histories. Standard…
This paper considers the notion of possible events which are insignificant in probabilistic analysis (i.e. events that have zero probability). The paper discusses the method of modal logic based on "possible worlds" and discusses a…
This article examines the subtle relationship between chaos and randomness, two concepts that, although they refer to seemingly unpredictable phenomenon, are based on fundamentally different principles. Chaos manifests in deterministic…
How should we model an observer within quantum mechanics or quantum field theory? How can classical physics emerge from a quantum model, and why should classical probability be useful? How can we model a selective measurement entirely…
An approach is presented treating decision theory as a probabilistic theory based on quantum techniques. Accurate definitions are given and thorough analysis is accomplished for the quantum probabilities describing the choice between…
Frequentist inference typically is described in terms of hypothetical repeated sampling but there are advantages to an interpretation that uses a single random sample. Contemporary examples are given that indicate probabilities for random…
A mechanism is proposed that allows to interpret the temporal evolution of a physical system as a result of the inability of an observer to record its whole state and a simple example is given. It is based on a review of the concepts of…
It is often stated that quantum mechanics only makes statistical predictions and that a quantum state is described by the various probability distributions associated with it. Can we describe a quantum state completely in terms of…
Strict frequentism defines probability as the limiting relative frequency in an infinite sequence. What if the limit does not exist? We present a broader theory, which is applicable also to random phenomena that exhibit diverging relative…
We propose a new interpretation of objective deterministic chances in statistical physics based on physical computational complexity. This notion applies to a single physical system (be it an experimental set--up in the lab, or a subsystem…
The concept of typicality refers to properties holding for the "overwhelming majority" of cases and is a fundamental idea of the qualitative approach to dynamical problems. We argue that measure-theoretical typicality would be the adequate…
Criticisms of so called `subjective probability' come on the one hand from those who maintain that probability in physics has only a frequentistic interpretation, and, on the other, from those who tend to `objectivise' Bayesian theory,…
The concept of {\em complexity} (as a quantity) has been plagued by numerous contradictory and confusing definitions. By explicitly recognising a role for the observer of a system, an observer that attaches meaning to data about the system,…
Education in statistics, the application of statistics in scientific research, and statistics itself as a scientific discipline are in crisis. Within science, the main cause of the crisis is the insufficiently clarified concept of…
Consequences of the basic and most evident consistency requirement-that measured events cannot happen and not happen at the same time-are shortly reviewed. Particular emphasis is given to event forecast and event control. As a consequence,…
The present paper shows how one might model Everettian quantum mechanics using hyperfinitely many worlds. A hyperfinite model allows one to consider idealized measurements of observables with continuous-valued spectra where different…
Results of measurements give legitimacy to a physical theory. What if acquiring these results in the first place necessitates what the same theory considers to be an interaction? In this note, we assume that theories account for…
In probability theory, there is a tendency to treat one random variable with a given distribution as being just as good as any other. By and large this is fine because probability is (mostly) concerned with distributional properties of…