Related papers: Background Independence and Quantum Causal Structu…
It is known that the classical framework of causal models is not general enough to allow for causal reasoning about quantum systems. While the framework has been generalized in a variety of different ways to the quantum case, much of this…
It is often argued that bottom-up causation under a physicalist, reductionist worldview precludes free will in the libertarian sense. On the one hand, the paradigm of classical mechanics makes determinism inescapable, while on the other,…
The issue of non-perturbative background independent quantization of matrix models is addressed. The analysis is carried out by considering a simple matrix model which is a matrix extension of ordinary mechanics reduced to 0 dimension. It…
Quantum mechanics in its presently known formulation requires an external classical time for its description. A classical spacetime manifold and a classical spacetime metric are produced by classical matter fields. In the absence of such…
In this paper and a companion paper, we attempt to systematically investigate the possibility that the concept of information may enable a derivation of the quantum formalism from a set of physically comprehensible postulates. To do so, we…
We describe a scheme of quantum mechanics in which the Hilbert space and linear operators are only secondary structures of the theory. As primary structures we consider observables, elements of noncommutative algebra, and the physical…
I describe a constructive foundation for Quantum Mechanics, based on the discreteness of the degrees of freedom of quantum objects and on the Principle of Relativity. Taking Einstein's historical construction of Special Relativity as a…
One of the biggest challenges to theoretical physics of our time is to find a background-independent quantum theory of gravity. Today one encounters a profusion of different attempts at quantization, but no fully accepted - or acceptable,…
The distinctive features of quantum mechanics, which set it apart from other physical theories, challenge our notions of realism. Recovering realism from purely philosophical grounds, a quantitative and operational criterion was proposed in…
Spacetime must be foliable by spacelike surfaces for the quantum mechanics of matter fields to be formulated in terms of a unitarily evolving state vector defined on spacelike surfaces. When a spacetime cannot be foliated by spacelike…
Quantum contextuality is one of the most perplexing and peculiar features of quantum mechanics. Concisely, it refers to the observation that the result of a single measurement in quantum mechanics depends on the set of joint measurements…
We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of…
A new formulation of quantum mechanics is developed which does not require the concept of the wave-particle duality. Rather than assigning probabilities to outcomes, probabilities are instead assigned to entire fine-grained histories. The…
We argue about a conceptual approach to quantum formalism. Starting from philosophical conjectures (Platonism, Idealism and Realism) as basic ontic elements (namely: math world, data world, and state of matter), we will analyze the quantum…
Not only in physical string theories, but also in some highly simplified situations, background independence has been difficult to understand. It is argued that the ``holomorphic anomaly'' of Bershadsky, Cecotti, Ooguri, and Vafa gives a…
The geometric form of standard quantum mechanics is compatible with the two postulates: 1) The laws of physics are invariant under the choice of experimental setup and 2) Every quantum observation or event is intrinsically statistical.…
A problem with an instructive description of measurement process for sufficiently separated entangled quantum systems is well known. More precise and crafty experiments together with new technological challenges raise questions about…
It is shown that quantum mechanics on noncommutative spaces (NQM) can be obtained by the canonical quantization of some underlying second class constrained system formulated in extended configuration space. It leads, in particular, to an…
This paper concerns what Background Independence itself is (as opposed to some particular physical theory that is background independent). The notions presented mostly arose from a layer-by-layer analysis of the facets of the Problem of…
An extension of the Born rule, the {\it quantum typicality rule}, has recently been proposed [B. Galvan: Found. Phys. 37, 1540-1562 (2007)]. Roughly speaking, this rule states that if the wave function of a particle is split into…