Related papers: Two arguments for more fundamental building blocks
Contemporary research programs in fundamental physics appear to suggest that there could be two (physical) times---or none at all. This essay articulates these possibilities in the context of quantum gravity, and in particular of…
In physics, Feynman diagrams are used to reason about quantum processes. In the 1980s, it became clear that underlying these diagrams is a powerful analogy between quantum physics and topology: namely, a linear operator behaves very much…
From the very beginning, Quantum Mechanics has been accompanied by crucial foundational questions: the possibility of visualizing physical processes, the limits of measurement epitomized by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the…
Modern physics, via the standard model with Higgs mechanism and string theory for example, has supplied ether-like models and emergent general relativity scenarios that substantially weaken the usual defense of orthodox relativity and…
The foundational ideas of quantum mechanics continue to give rise to counterintuitive theories and physical effects that are in conflict with a classical description of Nature. Experiments with light at the single photon level have…
To each quantum system, described by a von Neumann algebra of physical quantities, we associate a complete bi-Heyting algebra. The elements of this algebra represent contextualised propositions about the values of the physical quantities of…
In a recent preprint [1] Jeffrey Bub presents a discussion of neo-Bohrian interpretations of quantum mechanics, and also of von Neumann's work on infinite tensor products [2]. He rightfully writes that this work provides a theoretical…
If there exists a classical, i.e. deterministic theory underlying quantum mechanics, an explanation must be found of the fact that the Hamiltonian, which is defined to be the operator that generates evolution in time, is bounded from below.…
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…
The information paradox can be resolved if we recognize that the wavefunctional in gravity $\Psi[g]$ should be considered on the {\it whole} of superspace, the space of possible $g$. The largeness of the Bekenstein entropy implies a vast…
In a recent paper [arXiv:1206.4916] by T. Padmanabhan, it was argued that our universe provides an ideal setup to stress the issue that cosmic space is emergent as cosmic time progresses and that the expansion of the universe is due to the…
The canonical formalism of general relativity affords a particularly interesting characterisation of the infamous hole argument. It also provides a natural formalism in which to relate the hole argument to the problem of time in classical…
This essay offers an epistemological reinterpretation of the foundational divide between matrix mechanics and wave mechanics. Though formally equivalent, the two theories embody distinct modes of knowing: procedural construction and…
The large-scale structure of the Universe is well approximated by the Friedmann equations, parametrized by several energy densities which can be observationally inferred. A natural question to ask is: How different would the Universe be if…
It is argued that quantum theory is best understood as requiring an ontological duality of res extensa and res potentia, where the latter is understood per Heisenberg's original proposal, and the former is roughly equivalent to Descartes'…
I argue that background freedom in quantum gravity automatically leads to a dissociation of the quantum state into states having a classical space. That is, interference is not completely well-defined for states with different space…
$[n+1]$-dimensional ($n\geq 3$) smooth Einsteinian spaces of Euclidean and Lorentzian signature are considered. The base manifold $M$ is supposed to be smoothly foliated by a two-parameter family of codimension-two-surfaces which are…
In a previous article [1] we presented an argument to obtain (or rather infer) Born's rule, based on a simple set of axioms named "Contexts, Systems and Modalities" (CSM). In this approach there is no "emergence", but the structure of…
In 1971 Feynman, Kislinger and Ravndal [1] proposed Lorentz-invariant differential equation capable to describe relativistic particle with mass and internal space-time structure. By making use of new variables that differentiate between…
What happens to the entropy increase principle as the Universe evolve to form the big-crunch singularity? What happens to the uncertainity relations along the process of gravitational collapses? What is the quantum mechanical description of…