Related papers: Why determinism in physics has no implications for…
Many have proposed that free will would use quantum indeterminism. Strict adherence to the Born rule, which follows from the no-signal condition, seems to block this possibility. I propose here that if state collapse really does occur then…
This article focuses on the connection between the possibility of quantum computers, the predictability of complex quantum systems in nature, and the issue of free will.
It is shown, under mild assumptions, that classical degrees of freedom dynamically coupled to quantum ones do not inherit their quantum fluctuations. It is further shown that, if the assumptions are strengthen by imposing the existence of a…
The stipulation that no measurable quantity could have an infinite value is indispensable in physics. At the same time, in mathematics, the possibility of considering an infinite procedure as a whole is usually taken for granted. However,…
Quantum theory is indeterministic, but not completely so. When a system is in a pure state there are properties it possesses with certainty, known as actual properties. The actual properties of a quantum system (in a pure state) fully…
Before Alan Turing made his crucial contributions to the theory of computation, he studied the question of whether quantum mechanics could throw light on the nature of free will. This article investigates the roles of quantum mechanics and…
The positivistic assumptions of determinism and objectivism in the realm of Newtonian mechanics are questioned in this paper. While objectivism is only challenged through proposing the mildest form of subjectivism, determinism is…
The uncertainty principle limits quantum states such that when one observable takes predictable values there must be some other mutually unbiased observables which take uniformly random values. We show that this restrictive condition plays…
For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving…
Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in…
Entropic Dynamics is a framework in which dynamical laws such as those that arise in physics are derived as an application of entropic methods of inference. No underlying action principle is postulated. Instead, the dynamics is driven by…
In this article we present a possible way to make usual quantum mechanics fully compatible with physical realism, defined as the statement that the goal of physics is to study entities of the natural world, existing independently from any…
The traditional metaphysical debate between static and dynamic views in the philosophy of time is examined in light of considerations concerning the nature of time in physical theory. Adapting the formalism of Rovelli (1995, 2004), I set…
We consider how to define a natural probability distribution over worlds within a simple class of deterministic many-worlds theories. This can help us understand the typical properties of worlds within such states, and hence explain the…
A new interpretation of quantum mechanics is proposed according to which precedence, freedom and novelty play central roles. This is based on a modification of the postulates for quantum theory given by Masanes and Muller. We argue that…
In contrast to the intuitively plausible assumption of local realism, entangled particles, even when isolated, are not allowed to possess definite properties in their own right, as quantitatively expressed by violations of Bell's…
According to quantum theory, pure physical states correspond to equivalence classes of state vectors, where any two members of one class differ by a complex factor. The point is that such a factor does not change the probability for the…
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or…
Unlike mathematics, in which the notion of truth might be abstract, in physics, the emphasis must be placed on algorithmic procedures for obtaining numerical results subject to the experimental verifiability. For, a physical science is…
The gap between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics has an important interpretive implication: the Universe must have an irreducible fundamental level, which determines the properties of matter at higher levels of organization. We…