Related papers: Nomic realism, simplicity, and the simplicity bubb…
We study the probabilistic consequences of the choice of the basic number field in quantum formalism. We demonstrate that by choosing a number field for a linear space representation of quantum model it is possible to describe various…
Simplicity is held by many to be the key to general intelligence. Simpler models tend to "generalise", identifying the cause or generator of data with greater sample efficiency. The implications of the correlation between simplicity and…
Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be…
Contextuality is a feature of quantum correlations. It is crucial from a foundational perspective as a nonclassical phenomenon, and from an applied perspective as a resource for quantum advantage. It is commonly defined in terms of hidden…
The only evidence we have for a discrete reality comes from quantum measurements; without invoking these measurements, quantum theory describes continuous entities. This seeming contradiction can be resolved via analysis that treats…
This paper is a concise summary of the main ideas presented in the companion paper `Quantum causal models via Quantum Bayesianism'[arXiv:1806.00895]. I present the proposed definition of a quantum causal model with minimal background and…
Philosophers increasingly treat semantics as decisive for realism about dark matter. In this paper, I consider a recent proposal from Vaynberg (2024) anchored in the causal-descriptive theory of reference from Psillos (1999, 2012). I argue…
Core quantum postulates including the superposition principle and the unitarity of evolutions are natural and strikingly simple. I show that -- when supplemented with a limited version of predictability (captured in the textbook accounts by…
Nominal logic is a variant of first-order logic that provides support for reasoning about bound names in abstract syntax. A key feature of nominal logic is the new-quantifier, which quantifies over fresh names (names not appearing in any…
We study nominal anti-unification, which is concerned with computing least general generalizations for given terms-in-context. In general, the problem does not have a least general solution, but if the set of atoms permitted in…
If quantum mechanics is taken for granted the randomness derived from it may be vacuous or even delusional, yet sufficient for many practical purposes. "Random" quantum events are intimately related to the emergence of both space-time as…
The claim that the observation of a violation of a Bell inequality leads to an alleged alternative between nonlocality and non-realism is annoying because of the vagueness of the second term.
The discussion of the foundations of quantum mechanics is complicated by the fact that a number of different issues are closely entangled. Three of these issues are i) the interpretation of probability, ii) the choice between realist and…
The term 'locality' is used in different contexts with different meanings. There have been claims that relational quantum mechanics is local, but it is not clear then how it accounts for the effects that go under the usual name of quantum…
In the present article we use the quantum formalism to describe the process of choice under rational ignorance. We consider as a basic task a question or an issue where the only answers are 0 and 1. We show that under rational ignorance the…
Traditional Bell's argument shows that freedom of choice is inconsistent with quantum realism if lack of signaling and sufficiently fast choices and readouts are assumed. While no-signaling alone is a consequence of special relativity, this…
The no-supervenience theorem limits the capacity of physicalist theories to provide a comprehensive account of human consciousness. The proof of the theorem is difficult to formalize because it relies on both alethic and epistemic notions…
Elementary particles in quantum mechanics (QM) are indistinguishable when sharing the same intrinsic properties and the same quantum state. So, we can consider quantum particles as non-individuals, although non-individuality is usually…
In contrast to the intuitively plausible assumption of local realism, entangled particles, even when isolated, are not allowed to possess definite properties in their own right, as quantitatively expressed by violations of Bell's…
Some physical consequences of the negation of the continuum hypothesis are considered. It is shown that quantum and classical mechanics are component parts of the multicomponent description of the set of variable infinite cardinality.…