Related papers: The open past in an indeterministic physics
The uncertainty principle, originally formulated by Heisenberg, dramatically illustrates the difference between classical and quantum mechanics. The principle bounds the uncertainties about the outcomes of two incompatible measurements,…
In the conventional formulation of quantum mechanics, the initial description is given only for the physical system under study. It factors out the state for the experimenter. We argue that such description is incomplete and can lead to…
Decision problems in physics have been an active field of research for quite a few decades resulting in some interesting findings in recent years. However, such research investigations are based on a priori knowledge of theoretical computer…
Observations on the past provide some hints about what will happen in the future, and this can be quantified using information theory. The ``predictive information'' defined in this way has connections to measures of complexity that have…
If Nature allowed nonlocal correlations other than those predicted by quantum mechanics, would that contradict some physical principle? Various approaches have been put forward in the past two decades in an attempt to single out quantum…
Since quantum mechanics (QM) was formulated, many voices have claimed this to be the basis of free will in the human beings. Basically, they argue that free will is possible because there is an ontological indeterminism in the natural laws,…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
I introduce a framework to distinguish two domains of physics - the manifest (i.e. the directly observable empirical records in terms of manifest configurations) and the non-manifest domain of physics (i.e. the things that the manifest…
One of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics is what gives rise to the arrow of time. Since the fundamental dynamical laws of physics are (essentially) symmetric in time, the explanation for time's arrow must come from…
Physical theories must stem from observation. The possibility that perceived events are simulated, not real, raises a crucial dilemma about the credibility of known physics, known as the simulation hypothesis. To analyze this hypothesis in…
Although the suspicion that quantum mechanics is emergent has been lingering for a long time, only now we begin to understand how a bridge between classical and quantum mechanics might be squared with Bell's inequalities and other…
Quantum Mechanics is generally considered to be the ultimate theory capable of explaining the emergence of randomness by virtue of the quantum measurement process. Therefore, Quantum Mechanics can be thought of as God's wonderfully…
This paper is a continuation of the paper [V.S.Mashkevich, gr-qc/9409010]. Indeterministic quantum gravity is a theory that unifies general relativity and quantum theory involving indeterministic conception, i.e., quantum jumps. By the same…
Infinity, in various guises, has been invoked recently in order to `explain' a number of important questions regarding observable phenomena in science, and in particular in cosmology. Such explanations are by their nature speculative. Here…
According to quantum theory, measurements generate random outcomes, in stark contrast with classical mechanics. This raises the question of whether there could exist an extension of the theory which removes this indeterminism, as suspected…
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…
Because closed timelike curves are consistent with general relativity, many have asserted that time travel into the past is physically possible if not technologically infeasible. However, the possibility of time travel into the past rests…
According to the widely accepted opinion, classical (statistical) physics does not support objective indeterminism, since the statistical laws of classical physics allow a deterministic hidden background, while --- as Arthur Fine writes…
Every physical measuring needs a finite, different from zero measurement time and provides information in form of the choice of a measurement result from all possible measurement results. If infinitely many (different) measurement results…
At any time, there are areas of science where we are standing at the frontier of knowledge, and can wonder whether we have reached a fundamental limit to human understanding. What is ultimately possible in physics? I will argue here that it…