Related papers: The philosophical problems of implementing superse…
In this article, we propose to use the formalism of quantum mechanics to describe and explain the so-called "abnormal" behaviour of agents in certain decision or choice contexts. The basic idea is to postulate that the preferences of these…
We emphasize that a specific aspect of quantum gravity is the absence of a super-selection rule that prevents a linear superposition of different gravitational charges. As an immediate consequence, we obtain a tiny, but observable,…
We consider a thought experiment where the preparation of a macroscopically massive or charged particle in a quantum superposition and the associated dynamics of a distant test particle apparently allow for superluminal communication. We…
I study the relationship between diversity preferences and the choice rules implemented by institutions, with a particular focus on the affirmative action policies. I characterize the choice rules that can be rationalized by diversity…
It is argued that the traditional "realist" methodology of physics, according to which human concepts, laws and theories can grasp the essence of reality, is incompatible with the most fruitful interpretation of quantum formalism. The proof…
Wheeler's delayed choice experiment, a well known manifestation of the complementarity principle, has proved somewhat difficult to physically interpret. We show that, restated in quantum field theoretic language, the experiment submits to a…
Experiments in cognitive science and decision theory show that the ways in which people combine concepts and make decisions cannot be described by classical logic and probability theory. This has serious implications for applied disciplines…
For systems which contain both superselection structure and constraints, we study compatibility between constraining and superselection. Specifically, we start with a generalisation of Doplicher-Roberts superselection theory to the case of…
The dynamics of physical theories is usually described by differential equations. Difference equations then appear mainly as an approximation which can be used for a numerical analysis. As such, they have to fulfill certain conditions to…
The best developed formulation of closed system quantum theory that handles multiple-time statements, is the consistent (or decoherent) histories approach. The most important weaknesses of the approach is that it gives rise to many…
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…
Logically constrained term rewriting is a relatively new formalism where rules are equipped with constraints over some arbitrary theory. Although there are many recent advances with respect to rewriting induction, completion, complexity…
The role of superselection rules for the derivation of classical probability within quantum mechanics is investigated and examples of superselection rules induced by the environment are discussed.
Quantum theory is a tremendously successful physical theory, but nevertheless suffers from two serious problems: the measurement problem and the problem of interpretational underdetermination. The latter, however, is largely overlooked as a…
In a context where a decision has to be taken collectively by several agents, the social choice problem consists in deciding whether there exists a socially acceptable rule that aggregates the individual preferences of the agents into a…
Although many investigators affirm a desire to build reasoning systems that behave consistently with the axiomatic basis defined by probability theory and utility theory, limited resources for engineering and computation can make a complete…
Decoherence may not solve all of the measurement problems of quantum mechanics. It is proposed that a solution to these problems may be to allow that superpositions describe physically real systems in the following sense. Each quantum…
In a recent paper (Phys. Rev. A 105, 042220 (2022)), Daley et al claim that some superdeterministic models are disfavoured against standard quantum mechanics, because such models overfit the statistics of a Bell-type experiment which the…
There are good motivations for considering some type of quantum histories formalism. Several possible formalisms are known, defined by different definitions of event and by different selection criteria for sets of histories. These…
When one takes into account gravitation, the measurement of space and time cannot be carried out with infinite accuracy. When quantum mechanics is reformulated taking into account this lack of accuracy, the resolution of the measurement…