Related papers: 'Two Dogmas' Redux
This chapter acknowledges a gap between the ``non-individuals'' interpretation of quantum mechanics and our world of experience, and begins to bridge it. Section 1 states the problem with Abner Shimony's ``Phenomenological principle'';…
The program of a physical concept of information is outlined in the framework of quantum theory. A proposal is made for how to avoid the introduction of axiomatic observables. The conventional (collapse) and the Everett interpretations of…
The principle of relativity is extended to accommodate finite-mass observers with quantum properties by introducing two operational requirements: (i) equivalence of observers at the level of transition amplitudes, and (ii) the impossibility…
Any successful interpretation of quantum mechanics must explain how our empirical evidence allows us to come to know about quantum mechanics. In this article, we argue that this vital criterion is not met by the class of 'orthodox…
I compare the role of the information in the classical and quantum dynamics by examining the relation between information flows in measurements and the ability of observers to reverse evolutions. I show that in the Newtonian dynamics…
Wigner's friend paradoxes highlight contradictions between measurements made by Friends inside a laboratory and superobservers outside a laboratory, who have access to an entangled state of the measurement apparatus. The contradictions lead…
Quantum mechanics notoriously faces the measurement problem, the problem that if read thoroughly, it implies the nonexistence of definite outcomes in measurement procedures. A plausible reaction to this and to related problems is to regard…
It has been realized that the measurement problem of quantum mechanics is essentially the determinate-experience problem, and in order to solve the problem, the physical state representing the measurement result is required to be also the…
In this work we attempt to confront the orthodox widespread claim present in the foundational literature of Quantum Mechanics (QM) according to which 'superpositions are never actually observed in the lab'. In order to do so, we begin by…
Wigner-friend scenarios -- in which external agents describe a closed laboratory containing a friend making a measurement -- highlight the difficulties inherent to quantum theory when accounting for measurements. In non-relativistic…
The paradox of Wigner's friend challenges the objectivity of description in quantum theory. A pragmatist interpretation can meet this challenge by judicious appeal to decoherence. On this interpretation, quantum theory provides situated…
During many years since the birth of quantum mechanics, instrumentalist interpretations prevailed: the meaning of the theory was expressed in terms of measurements results. But in the last decades, several attempts to interpret it from a…
We propose partial measurements as a conceptual tool to understand how to operate with counterfactual claims in quantum physics. Indeed, unlike standard von Neumann measurements, partial measurements can be reversed probabilistically. We…
In this paper we give a new way to quantify the folklore notion that quantum measurements bring a disturbance to the system being measured. We consider two observers who initially assign identical mixed-state density operators to a…
I argue that the rules of unitary quantum mechanics imply that observers who will themselves be subject to measurements in a linear combination of macroscopic states (``cat" measurements) cannot make reliable predictions on the results of…
By imposing system-observer symmetry on the von Neumann description of measurement, it is shown that the quantum measurement problem is structurally equivalent to a familiar reverse-engineering problem: that of describing the behavior of an…
We propose a set of simple quantum optics experiments that test for an entirely new domain of physical laws that govern how an individual's conscious experience traverses the multiverse within Everett's many worlds interpretation of quantum…
Some of the problems connected with the interpretation of quantum mechanics are enumerated, in particular those related to some well known paradoxes and, above all, to the measurement process. We then show how the so called "Physics…
Unsolved controversies about uncertainty relations and quantum measurements still persists nowadays. They originate around the shortcomings regarding the conventional interpretation of uncertainty relations. Here we show that the respective…
The measurement postulate of quantum theory stands in conflict with the laws of thermodynamics and has evoked debate regarding what actually constitutes a measurement. With the help of modern quantum statistical mechanics, we take the first…