Related papers: Embodied observations from an intrinsic perspectiv…
New status in quantum mechanics is connected with recent achievements in the inverse problem. With its help instead of about ten exactly solvable models which serve as a basis of the contemporary education there are infinite (!) number,…
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…
Founding our analysis on the Geneva-Brussels approach to the foundations of physics, we provide a clarification and classification of the key concept of observation. An entity can be observed with or without a scope. In the second case, the…
Experimental evidene of the last decades has made the status of "collapses of the wave function" even more shaky than it already was on conceptual grounds: interference effects turn out to be detectable even when collapses are typically…
We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account for so…
Quantum theory's irreducible empirical core is a probability calculus. While it presupposes the events to which (and on the basis of which) it serves to assign probabilities, and therefore cannot account for their occurrence, it has to be…
I contrast two possible attitudes towards a given branch of physics: as inferential (i.e., as concerned with an agent's ability to make predictions given finite information), and as dynamical (i.e., as concerned with the dynamical equations…
It is hypothesised, following Conrad et al. (1988) (http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/urbino.html) that quantum physics is not the ultimate theory of nature, but merely a theoretical account of the phenomena manifested in nature…
One of the objectives of the undergraduate physics curriculum is for students to become aware of the connections between the fundamental principles of classical physics and their personal experience. Nonetheless, numerous studies have shown…
Quantum physics and biology have long been regarded as unrelated disciplines, describing nature at the inanimate microlevel on the one hand and living species on the other hand. Over the last decades the life sciences have succeeded in…
Both empirical and theoretical objective science can only access relations, revealing nothing about the intrinsic nature of the entities "in relation". We typically refer to these entities as "matter", assuming their nature is irrelevant…
Quantum mechanics led to spectacular technological developments, discovery of new constituents of matter and new materials. However there is still no consensus on its interpretation and limitations. Some scientists and scientific writers…
Observational entropy provides a general notion of quantum entropy that appropriately interpolates between Boltzmann's and Gibbs' entropies, and has recently been argued to provide a useful measure of out-of-equilibrium thermodynamic…
We consider the problem of quantum behavior in the finite background. Introduction of continuum or other infinities into physics leads only to technical complications without any need for them in description of empirical observations. The…
The extravagances of quantum mechanics never fail to enrich daily the debate around natural philosophy. Entanglement, non-locality, collapse, many worlds, many minds, and subjectivism have challenged generations of thinkers. Its approach…
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…
Consciousness and quantum mechanics are among the most puzzling phenomena studied in the sciences. Some scholars suggest they are related, though others think this claim commits a "minimization of mystery" fallacy. The aim of this…
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…
Contemporary perspectivism is viewed as a framework of scientific inquiry concerning the origin, generation and systematization of scientific knowledge of nature by focusing on the conditions under which such knowledge may arise in…
A holistic view of the cosmological appearance and development of space is obtained by studying space as a spherically closed surface of a 4-sphere in a zero energy balance between motion and gravitation. Such an approach re-establishes…