Related papers: Floating free from physics: the metaphysics of qua…
Ever since its beginnings, standard quantum mechanics has been associated with a metaphysical view according to which the theory deals with non-individual objects, i.e., objects deprived of individuality in some sense of the term. We shall…
Traditionally, to be a realist about something means believing in the independent existence of that something. In this line of thought, a scientific realist is someone who believes in the objective existence of the entities postulated by…
Philosophers of science commonly connect ontology and science, stating that these disciplines maintain a two-way relationship: on the one hand, we can extract ontology from scientific theories; on the other hand, ontology provides the…
This chapter argues that the general philosophy of science should learn metaphilosophical lessons from the case of metaphysical underdetermination, as it occurs in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Section 2 presents the traditional…
According to scientific realism, science gives us an approximately true description of what the world is like. But what does it mean? In this chapter, we focus on the ontological and metaphysical aspects of this discussion. That is, we are…
The human mind is endowed with innate primordial perceptions such as space, distance, motion, change, flow of time, matter. The field of cognitive science argues that the abstract concepts of mathematics are not Platonic, but are built in…
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…
Metaphysics is traditionally conceived as aiming at the truth -- indeed, the most fundamental truths about the most general features of reality. Philosophical naturalists, urging that philosophical claims be grounded on science, have often…
From the philosopher's perspective, the interest in quantum computation stems primarily from the way that it combines fundamental concepts from two distinct sciences: physics (especially quantum mechanics) and computer science, each long a…
Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its…
How should we interpret physical theories, and especially quantum theory, if we drop the assumption that we should treat it as an exact description of the whole Universe? I expound and develop the claim that physics is about the study of…
This article was written in response to a request from an editor of American Vedantist. It is shown that the idea that consciousness is essential to understanding quantum mechanics arises from logical fallacies. This may be welcome news to…
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…
Nonreflexive quantum mechanics is a formulation of quantum theory based on a non-classical logic termed \ita{nonreflexive logic} (a.k.a. `non-reflexive'). In these logics, the standard notion of identity, as encapsulated in classical logic…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
The epistemological interpretation of quantum mechanics is still in an unacceptable status. This becomes obvious if looking on the variety of interpretations currently under discussion. However, the physical community together with…
We show that the modern quantum mechanics, and particularly the theory of decoherence, allows for formulating a sort of a physical metatheory of consciousness. Particularly, the analysis of the necessary conditions for the occurrence of…
Relativistic quantum mechanics can be considered to have begun with a search for wave equations corresponding to each intrinsic spin. However, relativistic quantum physics differs fundamentally from the non-relativistic wave mechanics. It…
We show that the modern quantum mechanics, and particularly the theory of decoherence, allows formulating a sort of a physical metatheory of consciousness. Particularly, the analysis of the necessary conditions for the occurrence of…
How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is…