Related papers: QBism Is Not So Simply Dismissed
One of quantum theory's salient features is its apparent indeterminism, i.e. measurement outcomes are typically probabilistic. We formally define and address whether this uncertainty is unavoidable or whether post-quantum theories can offer…
The degree-of-presence (of the quantum system) concept, accompanying that of the wavefunction-reality postulate, is introduced and studied in two ways. To begin with, an incomplete exposition of the present author's views is given.…
Ultimately, any explanation of quantum measurement must be extendable to relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM), since many precisely confirmed experimental results follow from quantum field theory (QFT), which is based on RQM. Certainly, the…
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.…
Every quantum state can be represented as a probability distribution over the outcomes of an informationally complete measurement. But not all probability distributions correspond to quantum states. Quantum state space may thus be thought…
Quantum "states" are objective probability measures. Because their dependence on a time is not the time dependence of an evolving state, they are neither states of Nature nor "states of knowledge." There is no such thing as an evolving…
Logical inference leads to one of the major interpretations of probability theory called logical interpretation, in which the probability is seen as a measure of the plausibility of a logical statement under incomplete information. In this…
The subjective Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics (QBism) and Rovelli's relational interpretation of quantum mechanics (RQM) are both notable for embracing the radical idea that measurement outcomes correspond to events whose…
Quantum mechanics traditionally places the observer outside of the system being studied and employs the Born interpretation. In this and related papers the observer is placed inside the system. To accomplish this, special rules are required…
A century on from the development of quantum theory, the interpretation of a quantum state is still discussed. If a physicist claims to have produced a system with a particular wave function, does this represent directly a physical wave of…
Bohmian mechanics represents the universe as a set of paths with a probability measure defined on it. The way in which a mathematical model of this kind can explain the observed phenomena of the universe is examined in general. It is shown…
Emergence of the classical world from the quantum substrate of our Universe is a long-standing conundrum. I describe three insights into the transition from quantum to classical that are based on the recognition of the role of the…
In the present article we use the quantum formalism to describe the process of choice under rational ignorance. We consider as a basic task a question or an issue where the only answers are 0 and 1. We show that under rational ignorance the…
Quantum mechanics can emerge from classical statistics. A typical quantum system describes an isolated subsystem of a classical statistical ensemble with infinitely many classical states. The state of this subsystem can be characterized by…
The main claim of the paper is that one can be 'realist' (in some sense) about quantum mechanics without requiring any form of realism about the wave function. We begin by discussing various forms of realism about the wave function, namely…
Assuming the validity of the equivalence principle in the quantum regime, we argue that one of the assumptions of the usual definition of quantum mechanics, namely separation between the ``classical'' detector and the ``quantum'' system,…
Fuchs and Peres (2000) claimed that standard Quantum Mechanics needs no interpretation. In this essay, I show the flaws of the arguments presented in support to this thesis. Specifically, it will be claimed that the authors conflate QM with…
The quantum formalism can be completed by assuming that a density operator can also represent a pure state. An 'extended Bloch representation' (EBR) then results, in which not only states, but also the measurement-interactions can be…
One of the reasons for the heated debates around the interpretations of quantum theory is a simple confusion between the notions of formalism versus interpretation. In this note, we make a clear distinction between them and show that there…
A source of much difficulty and confusion in the interpretation of quantum mechanics is a ``naive realism about operators.'' By this we refer to various ways of taking too seriously the notion of operator-as-observable, and in particular to…