Related papers: The relational ontology of contemporary physics
General relativity describes the gravitational field geometrically and in a self-interacting way because it couples to all forms of energy, including its own. Both features make finding a quantum theory difficult, yet it is important in the…
Analogies between quantum mechanics and sociology lead to the hypothesis that quantum objects are complex products of evolution. Like biological objects they are able to receive, to work on, and to spread semantic information. In general…
We suggest a contextual realist interpretation of relational quantum mechanics. The principal point is a correct understanding of the concept of reality and taking into account the categorical distinction between the ideal and the real.…
A physical theory consists of the mathematical formalism and an interpretation, which contains the definition of symbols, measurement assignments, concepts and principles, and an ontology. We present a scheme to classify these different…
The relationship between classical and quantum theory is of central importance to the philosophy of physics, and any interpretation of quantum mechanics has to clarify it. Our discussion of this relationship is partly historical and…
A sharper formulation is presented for an interpretation of quantum mechanics advocated by author. As an essential element we put forward conservation laws concerning the ontological nature of a variable, and the uncertainties concerning…
We highlight the general notion of a relative quantum field theory, which occurs in several contexts. One is in gauge theory based on a compact Lie algebra, rather than a compact Lie group. This is relevant to the maximal superconformal…
The quantum theory of General Relativity at low energy exists and is of the form called "effective field theory". In this talk I describe the ideas of effective field theory and its application to General Relativity.
We review some aspects of quantum gravity in the context of cosmology. In particular, we focus on models with a phenomenology accessible to current and near-future observations, as the early Universe might be our only chance to peep through…
After reviewing various interpretations of structural realism, I adopt here a definition that allows both relations between things that are already individuated (which I call ``relations between things'') and relations that individuate…
Interpretational problems with quantum mechanics can be phrased precisely by only talking about empirically accessible information. This prompts a mathematical reformulation of quantum mechanics in terms of classical mechanics. We survey…
We generalize the quantum "pigeonhole paradox" to quantum paradoxes involving arbitrary types of particle relations, including orderings, functions and graphs.
I briefly review the current status of quantum gravity. After giving some general motivations for the need of such a theory, I discuss the main approaches in quantizing general relativity: Covariant approaches (perturbation theory,…
The concepts of complementarity and entanglement are considered with respect to their significance in and beyond physics. A formally generalized, weak version of quantum theory, more general than ordinary quantum theory of material systems,…
A new direction to understand gravity has recently been explored by considering classical gravity to be a derived interaction from an underlying theory. This underlying theory would involve new degrees of freedom at a deeper level and it…
In this paper, epistemology and ontology of quantum states are discussed based on a completely new way of founding quantum theory. The fundamental notions are conceptual variables in the mind of an observer or in the joint minds of a group…
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…
An ontology of Leibnizian relationalism, consisting in distance relations among sparse matter points and their change only, is well recognized as a serious option in the context of classical mechanics. In this paper, we investigate how this…
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.…
In the first part of the paper I argue that an ontology of events is precise, flexible and general enough so as to cover the three main alternative formulations of quantum mechanics as well as theories advocating an antirealistic view of…