Related papers: Striving for Realism, not for Determinism: Histori…
Heisenberg's uncertainty relation is commonly regarded as defining a level of unpredictability that is fundamentally incompatible with the deterministic laws embodied in classical field theories such as Einstein's general relativity. We…
QBism pursues the real by first eliminating the elements of quantum theory too fragile to be ontologies on their own. Thereafter, it seeks an "ontological lesson" from whatever remains. Here, we explore this program by highlighting three…
In the past both instrumentalism and empiricism have inspired certain pragmatic elements into the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The relation of such pragmatisms with the correspondence principle is discussed. It is argued…
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…
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…
Precise rules are developed in order to formalize the reasoning processes involved in standard non-relativistic quantum mechanics, with the help of analogies from classical physics. A classical or quantum description of a mechanical system…
Since quantum mechanics (QM) was formulated, many voices have claimed this to be the basis of free will in the human beings. Basically, they argue that free will is possible because there is an ontological indeterminism in the natural laws,…
A solution to the second measurement problem, determining what prior microscopic properties can be inferred from measurement outcomes ("pointer positions"), is worked out for projective and generalized (POVM) measurements, using consistent…
The formalism of quantum mechanics produces spectacular results, but its rules, its parameters are empirical, either deduced from classical physics, or from experimental results rather than from the postulates. Thus, quantum mechanics is…
It is commonly claimed that quantum mechanics makes reference to a microscopic realm constituted by elementary particles. However, as first famously noticed by Erwin Schr\"odinger, it is not at all clear what these quantum particles really…
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…
This pseudo-paper consists of excerpts drawn from two of my quantum-email samizdats. Section 1 draws a picture of a physical world whose essence is ``Darwinism all the way down.'' Section 2 outlines how quantum theory should be viewed in…
We recount the successful long career of classical physics, from Newton to Einstein, which was based on the philosophy of scientific realism. Special emphasis is given to the changing status and number of ontological entitities and…
Paul Busch has emphasized on various occasions the importance for physics of going beyond a merely instrumentalist view of quantum mechanics. Even if we cannot be sure that any particular realist interpretation describes the world as it…
The support of Copenhagen quantum mechanics in the discussion concerning EPR experiments has been based fundamentally on two mistakes. First, quantum mechanics as well as hidden-variable theory give the same predictions; the statement of…
Determinism is (roughly) the thesis that the past determines the future. But efforts to define it precisely have exposed deep methodological disagreements. Standard possible-worlds formulations of determinism presuppose an "agreement"…
I argue that we have good reason for being realist about quantum states. Though a research programme of attempting to construct a plausible theory that accounts for quantum phenomena without ontic quantum states is well-motivated, that…
A relativistic version of the (consistent or decoherent) histories approach to quantum theory is developed on the basis of earlier work by Hartle, and used to discuss relativistic forms of the paradoxes of spherical wave packet collapse,…
Many physicists limit oneself to an instrumentalist description of quantum phenomena and ignore the problems of foundation and interpretation of quantum mechanics. This instrumentalist approach results to "specialization barbarism" and mass…
The problematic relationship between science and philosophy has, since the beginning of modernity, divided the world into two separate domains: nature and human. Some of today's schools of philosophy and epistemological inquiry have…