Related papers: Quantum Epistemology from Mimicry and Ambiguity
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago, there ensued a quest to understand the often counterintuitive predictions of the theory. These endeavors invariably begin with the assumption of the "truth"…
It is argued that the problem of interpreting quantum mechanics, and the philosophical problem of consciousness, both have their roots in the same set of misguided Cartesian assumptions. The confusions underlying those assumptions are…
The aim of the paper is to derive essential elements of quantum mechanics from a parametric structure extending that of traditional mathematical statistics. The main extensions, which also can be motivated from an applied statistics point…
The quantum formalism is a ``measurement'' formalism--a phenomenological formalism describing certain macroscopic regularities. We argue that it can be regarded, and best be understood, as arising from Bohmian mechanics, which is what…
In spite of all of its successes, quantum mechanics leaves us with a central problem: How does Nature create a "foot-bridge" from fragile quanta to the objective world of everyday experience? Here we identify within quantum mechanics a…
We put forward a new take on the logic of quantum mechanics, following Schroedinger's point of view that it is composition which makes quantum theory what it is, rather than its particular propositional structure due to the existence of…
Any canonical quantum theory can be understood to arise from the compatibility of the statistical geometry of distinguishable observations with the canonical Poisson structure of Hamiltonian dynamics. This geometric perspective offers a…
Quantum mechanics is a fundamentally probabilistic theory (at least so far as the empirical predictions are concerned). It follows that, if one wants to properly understand quantum mechanics, it is essential to clearly understand the…
The general view is that all fundamental physical laws should be formulated within the framework given by quantum mechanics (QM). In a sense, QM therefore has the character of a metaphysical theory. Consequently, if it is possible to derive…
Quantum mechanics is an extremely successful theory of nature and yet it lacks an intuitive axiomatization. In contrast, the special theory of relativity is well understood and is rooted into natural or experimentally justified postulates.…
Motivated by Quantum Bayesianism I give background for a general epistemic approach to quantum mechanics, where complementarity and symmetry are the only essential features. A general definition of a symmetric epistemic setting is…
While philosophy of science is the study of problems of knowledge concerning science in general, there also exists - or should exist - a '' philosophy in science'' directed at finding out in what ways our actual scientific knowledge may…
We give a condensed and accessible summary of a recent derivation of quantum theory from information-theoretic principles, and use it to study the consequences of this and other reconstructions for our conceptual understanding of the…
We explore the different meanings of "quantum uncertainty" contained in Heisenberg's seminal paper from 1927, and also some of the precise definitions that were explored later. We recount the controversy about "Anschaulichkeit",…
The quantum state is a mathematical object used to determine the outcome probabilities of measurements on physical systems. Its fundamental nature has been the subject of discussions since the origin of the theory: is it ontic, that is,…
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…
We explore a particular way of reformulating quantum theory in classical terms, starting with phase space rather than Hilbert space, and with actual probability distributions rather than quasiprobabilities. The classical picture we start…
In 1686 in his Discours de Metaphysique, Leibniz points out that if an arbitrarily complex theory is permitted then the notion of "theory" becomes vacuous because there is always a theory. This idea is developed in the modern theory of…
Why is it interesting to try to understand the origin of the universe? Everything we observe today, including our existence, arose from that event. Although we still do not have a theory that allows us to describe the origin itself, the…
The suggestion that particles of the same kind may be indistinguishable in a fundamental sense, even so that challenges to traditional notions of individuality and identity may arise, has first come up in the context of classical…