Related papers: Frauchiger-Renner argument and quantum histories
In the consistent histories formalism one specifies a family of histories as an exhaustive set of pairwise exclusive descriptions of the dynamics of a quantum system. We define branching families of histories, which strike a middle ground…
In the consistent histories formulation of quantum theory, the probabilistic predictions and retrodictions made from observed data depend on the choice of a consistent set. We show that this freedom allows the formalism to retrodict…
Motivated by the advances of quantum Darwinism and recognizing the role played by redundancy in identifying the small subset of quantum states with resilience characteristic of objective classical reality, we explore the implications of…
A distinction is made between two kinds of consistent histories: (1) robust histories consistent by virtue of decoherence, and (2) verifiable histories consistent through the existence of accessible records. It is events in verifiable…
In 2018, Daniela Frauchiger and Renato Renner published an article in Nature Communications entitled `Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself.' I clarify the significance of the result and point out a common and…
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…
An analysis using classical stochastic processes is used to construct a consistent system of quantum counterfactual reasoning. When applied to a counterfactual version of Hardy's paradox, it shows that the probabilistic character of quantum…
There are good motivations for considering some type of quantum histories formalism. Several possible formalisms are known, defined by different definitions of event and by different selection criteria for sets of histories. These…
A central principle of consistent histories quantum theory, the requirement that quantum descriptions be based upon a single framework (or family), is employed to show that there is no conflict between consistent histories and a…
We test the principles of classical modal logic in fully quantum settings. Modal logic models our reasoning in multi-agent problems, and allows us to solve puzzles like the muddy children paradox. The Frauchiger-Renner thought experiment…
Developing a quantum analog of the modern classical theory of causation, as formulated by Pearl and others using directed acyclic graphs, requires a theory of random or stochastic time development at the microscopic level, where the…
We discuss the no-go theorem of Frauchiger and Renner based on an "extended Wigner's friend" thought experiment which is supposed to show that any single-world interpretation of quantum mechanics leads to inconsistent predictions if it is…
In a recent result, Frauchiger and Renner argue that if quantum theory accurately describes complex systems like observers who perform measurements, then "we are forced to give up the view that there is one single reality." Following a…
The foundations of quantum mechanics have been plagued by controversy throughout the 85 year history of the field. It is argued that lack of clarity in the formulation of basic philosophical questions leads to unnecessary obscurity and…
The relationship between quantum logic, standard propositional logic, and the (consistent) histories rules for quantum reasoning is discussed. It is shown that Maudlin's claim [Am. J. Phys. 79 (2011) 954] that the histories approach is…
It was pointed out recently [A. Kent, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78 (1997) 2874] that the consistent histories approach allows contrary inferences to be made from the same data. These inferences correspond to projections $P$ and $Q$, belonging to…
A recent no-go theorem (Frauchiger and Renner, 2018) establishes a contradiction from a specific application of quantum theory to a multi-agent setting. The proof of this theorem relies heavily on notions such as 'knows' or `is certain…
The consistent histories formulation of the quantum theory of a closed system with pure initial state defines an infinite number of incompatible consistent sets, each of which gives a possible description of the physics. We investigate the…
The Frauchiger-Renner Paradox is an extension of paradoxes based on the 'Problem of Measurement,' such as Schrodinger's Cat and Wigner's Friend. All of these paradoxes stem from assuming that quantum theory has only unitary (linear)…
The decoherent (consistent) histories formalism has been proposed as a means of eliminating measurements as a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. In this formalism, probabilities can be assigned to any description which satisfies a…