Related papers: Whence deep realism for Everettian quantum mechani…
The descriptions of the quantum realm and the macroscopic classical world differ significantly not only in their mathematical formulations but also in their foundational concepts and philosophical consequences. When and how physical systems…
It has been experimentally demonstrated that quantum coherence can persist in macroscopic phenomena [J.R. Friedman et al.,Nature, 406 (2000) 43]. To face the challenge of this new fact, in this article QM in its standard form is assumed to…
We use a simple example to illustrate why it is not possible to consider that a measurement reveals an underlying objective reality of a property of a quantum system, that continues the same after the measurement is performed. This kind of…
Classical physics and quantum physics suggest two meta-physical types of reality: the classical notion of a objectively definite reality with properties "all the way down," and the quantum notion of an objectively indefinite type of…
The traditional analysis of the basic version of the double-slit experiment leads to the conclusion that wave-particle duality is a fundamental fact of nature. However, such a conclusion means to imply that we are not only required to have…
Is reality three-dimensional and becoming real (Presentism), or is reality four-dimensional and becoming illusory (Eternalism)? Both options raise difficulties. I argue that we do not need to be trapped by this dilemma. There is a third…
Quantum theory (QT) has been confirmed by numerous experiments, yet we still cannot fully grasp the meaning of the theory. As a consequence, the quantum world appears to us paradoxical. Here we shed new light on QT by having it follow from…
The modern Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics describes an emergent multiverse. The goal of this paper is to provide a perspicuous characterisation of how the multiverse emerges making use of a recent account of (weak) ontological…
The question of what ontological message (if any) is encoded in the formalism of contemporary physics is, to say the least, controversial. The reasons for this state of affairs are psychological and neurobiological. The processes by which…
The theories of pre-quantum physics are standardly seen as representing physical systems and their properties. Quantum mechanics in its standard form is a more problematic case: here, interpretational problems have led to doubts about the…
Since the 1970s, the Everett-Wheeler many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of Quantum Mechanics (1955) has been much in the news. One wonders about the worlds in question, their branches, their splittings, their number. It is most often ignored…
According to \textit{effective realism}, scientific theories give us knowledge about the unobservable world, but not at the fundamental level. This view is justified by the well-received \textit{effective-field-theory} (EFT) approach to…
We discuss the epistemological features of the Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber proposal to modify quantum mechanics in order to overcome the objectification problem, that means the transition between the quantum and the classical level of…
It is argued that any possible definition of a realistic physics theory -- i.e., a mathematical model representing the real world -- cannot be considered comprehensive unless it is supplemented with requirement of being computationally…
The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics is studied from an unprecedented ontological perspective based on the reality of (semi-) deterministic parallel worlds in the interpretation. It is demonstrated that with thanks to…
The old Bohr-Einstein debate about the completeness of quantum mechanics (QM) was held on an ontological ground. The completeness problem becomes more tractable, however, if it is preliminarily discussed from a semantic viewpoint. Indeed…
The spectacular successes of quantum physics have made it a commonplace to assert that we live in a quantum world. This idea seems to imply a kind of "quantum fundamentalism" according to which everything in the universe (if not the…
A century ago, "past" and "future", previously strictly apart, mixed up and merged. Temporal terminology improved. Today, not actualized quantum states, that is merely "possible" alternatives, objectively "exist" (are real) when they…
Quantum theory is extremely successful in explaining most physical phenomena, and is not contradicted by any experiment. Yet, the theory has many puzzling features : the occurrence of probabilities, the unclear distinction between the…
A century after the discovery of quantum mechanics, the meaning of quantum mechanics still remains elusive. This is largely due to the puzzling nature of the wave function, the central object in quantum mechanics. If we are realists about…