Related papers: Strong emergence in condensed matter physics
This work formulates and gives grounds for general principles and theorems that question the energy function doctrine and its quantum version as a genuine law of nature without borders of adequacy. The emphasis is on the domain where the…
A succinct statement and justification of all the principles necessary to understand and evaluate interpretations of quantum mechanics is given. These principles provide strong constraints on interpretations. They imply the particle-like…
This chapter is a collection of techniques, warnings, facts and ideas that are sometimes regarded as theoretical curiosities in high-energy physics but have important consequences in condensed matter physics. In particular, we describe…
The standard model of particle physics is marvelously successful. However, it is obviously not a complete or final theory. I shall argue here that the structure of the standard model gives some quite concrete, compelling hints regarding…
We are emerging from a period of consolidation in particle physics. Its great, historic achievement was to establish the Theory of Matter. This Theory will serve as our description of ordinary matter under ordinary conditions -- allowing…
Driven suspensions, where energy is input at a particle scale, are a framework for understanding general principles of out-of-equilibrium organization. A large number of simple interacting units can give rise to non-trivial structure and…
The concepts of complementarity and entanglement are considered with respect to their significance in and beyond physics. A formally generalized, weak version of quantum theory, more general than ordinary quantum theory of material systems,…
Quantum physics is a linear theory, so it is somewhat puzzling that it can underlie very complex systems such as digital computers and life. This paper investigates how this is possible. Physically, such complex systems are necessarily…
The formulation of a complete theory of classical electromagnetism by Maxwell is one of the milestones of science. The capacity of many-body systems to provide emergent mini-universes with vacua quite distinct from the one we inhabit was…
Many complex systems are representable as macroscopic set of elements which interact by simple rules. The complex macroscopically relevant phenomena are then the result of the generic emergence of a space-time multi-scale dynamics. Critical…
One of the basic assumptions implicit in the way physics is usually done is that all causation flows in a bottom up fashion, from micro to macro scales. However this is wrong in many cases in biology, and in particular in the way the brain…
In physics we encounter particles in one of two ways. Either as fundamental constituents of the theory or as emergent excitations. These two ways differ by how the particle relates to the background. It either sits on the background, or it…
The modern Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics describes an emergent multiverse. The goal of this paper is to provide a perspicuous characterisation of how the multiverse emerges making use of a recent account of (weak) ontological…
Quantum theory and Lorentz structure are the twin pillars of fundamental physics today. With quantum theory kept and Lorentz structure replaced by Euclidean Jordan algebra --- a more fundamental structure, one naturally arrives at the…
The rather unintuitive nature of quantum theory has led numerous people to develop sets of (physically motivated) principles that can be used to derive quantum mechanics from the ground up, in order to better understand where the structure…
The rising complexity of our terrestrial surrounding is an empirical fact. Details of this process evaded description in terms of physics for long time attracting attention and creating myriad of ideas including non-scientific ones. In this…
A set of cosmological models that takes into account the variation of the particle number is presented. In this context both dark matter and dark energy can be explained using a single component, without assuming any exotic equation of…
The study of environmentally induced superselection and of the process of decoherence was originally motivated by the search for the emergence of classical behavior out of the quantum substrate, in the macroscopic limit. This limit, and…
In this paper we argue against the orthodox definition of quantum entanglement which has been explicitly grounded on several "common sense" (metaphysical) presuppositions and presents today serious formal and conceptual drawbacks. This…
According to quantum theory, randomness is a fundamental property of the universe yet classical physics is mostly deterministic. In this article I show that it is possible for deterministic systems to arise from random ones and discuss the…