Related papers: The post-determined block universe
Two thought experiments are analyzed, revealing that the quantum state of the universe does not contain definitive evidence of the wavefunction collapse. The first thought experiment shows that unitary quantum evolution alone can account…
I propose a new class of interpretations, {\it real world interpretations}, of the quantum theory of closed systems. These interpretations postulate a preferred factorization of Hilbert space and preferred projective measurements on one…
We propose an operator constraint equation for the wavefunction of the Universe that admits genuine evolution. While the corresponding classical theory is equivalent to the canonical decomposition of General Relativity, the quantum theory…
I make the case that the Universe according to unitary (no-collapse) quantum theory has a branching structure, and so can literally be regarded as a "many-worlds" theory. These worlds are not part of the fundamental ontology of quantum…
Quantum mechanical unitarity in our universe is challenged both by the notion of the big bang, in which nothing transforms into something, and the expansion of space, in which something transforms into more something. This motivates the…
Historically, appearance of the quantum theory led to a prevailing view that Nature is indeterministic. The arguments for the indeterminism and proposals for indeterministic and deterministic approaches are reviewed. These include collapse…
In this brief note I argue that putting conscious observers at the center of the considerations clarifies and strengthens the many-worlds interpretation. The basic assumption, which seems extremely plausible based on our current…
Current theoretical physics suggests the flow of time is an illusion: the entire universe just is, with no special meaning attached to the present time. This paper points out that this view, in essence represented by usual space-time…
The widely considered assertion is that the unitarity of quantum mechanical evolution assures the preservation of information. It is even promoted in popular literature as an established fact. (Susskind, 2008) Yet, a simple chain of…
The development of quantum walks in the context of quantum computation, as generalisations of random walk techniques, led rapidly to several new quantum algorithms. These all follow unitary quantum evolution, apart from the final…
The problem of how to interpret quantum mechanics has persisted for a century. The disconnect between the wavefunction state vector and what is observed in experimental apparati has had no shortage of explanations. But all explanations so…
In quantum mechanics, outcomes of measurements on a state have a probabilistic interpretation while the evolution of the state is treated deterministically. Here we show that one can also treat the evolution as being probabilistic in nature…
We argue that a clear view on quantum mechanics is obtained by considering that the unicity of the macroscopic world is a fundamental postulate of physics, rather than an issue that must be mathematically justified or demonstrated. This…
Spacetime must be foliable by spacelike surfaces for the quantum mechanics of matter fields to be formulated in terms of a unitarily evolving state vector defined on spacelike surfaces. When a spacetime cannot be foliated by spacelike…
In resisting attempts to explain the unity of a whole in terms of a multiplicity of interacting parts, quantum mechanics calls for an explanatory concept that proceeds in the opposite direction: from unity to multiplicity. It concerns the…
Quantum timeless approaches solve the problem of time by recovering the usual unitary evolution of quantum theory relative to a clock in a stationary quantum Universe. For some Hamiltonians of the Universe, such as those including an…
We combine the ideas of Dirac's orthonormal representation, Everett's relative state, and 't Hooft's ontological basis to define the notion of a world for quantum mechanics. Mathematically, for a quantum system $\mathcal{Q}$ with an…
The measurement problem is the issue of explaining how the objective classical world emerges from a quantum one. Here we take a different approach. We assume that there is an objective classical system, and then ask that the standard rules…
This is an attempt to create a consistent and non-trivial extension of quantum theory, describing in detail the quantum measurement process. A tentative but concrete model is presented, based on the concept of multiple…
Marchildon's (favorable) assessment (quant-ph/0303170, to appear in Found. Phys.) of the Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics raises several issues, which are addressed. Proceeding from the assumption that quantum mechanics is…