Related papers: Relative Reality
Non-relativistic quantum mechanics is shown to emerge from classical mechanics through the requirement of a relativity principle based on special transformations acting on position and momentum uncertainties. These transformations keep the…
Quantum theory describes our universe incredibly successfully. To our classically-inclined brains, however, it is a bizarre description that requires a re-imagining of what fundamental reality, or "ontology", could look like. This thesis…
Ever since its foundations were laid nearly a century ago, quantum theory has provoked questions about the very nature of reality. We address these questions by considering the universe, and the multiverse, fundamentally as complex…
The mind-body problem is reviewed in the context of a non-technical account of quantum information theory. The importance of clearly defining: `what is physical?' is highlighted, since only then can we give meaning to the concept…
We take our world to be an objective reality, but is it? The assumption that the physical world exists in and of itself has struggled to assimilate the findings of modern physics for some time now. For example, an objective space and time…
The brain is composed of electrically excitable neuronal networks regulated by the activity of voltage-gated ion channels. Further portraying the molecular composition of the brain, however, will not reveal anything remotely reminiscent of…
This paper proposes an approach to framing and answering fundamental questions about consciousness. It argues that many of the more theoretical debates about consciousness, such as debates about "when does it begin?", are misplaced and…
Since the advent of quantum mechanics we have mainly been concerned with its predictions from the perspective of an external observer. This is in strong contrast to the theory of general relativity, where the physics is governed by the…
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…
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…
The mind-brain problem is to bridge relations between in higher-level mental events and in lower-level neural events. To address this, some mathematical models have been proposed to explain how the brain can represent the discriminative…
A long-standing tradition, largely present in both the physical and the philosophical literature, regards the advent of (special) relativity -- with its block-universe picture -- as the failure of any indeterministic program in physics. On…
Physics is a model of nature able to both describe and predict the results of measurements made with respect to reference systems. These reference systems, in turn, are themselves physical and thus subject to the laws of physics. The…
This report explores the speculative question: what if current or future AI systems have qualia, such as pain or pleasure? It does so by assuming that AI systems might someday possess qualia -- and that the quality of these subjective…
We address the relation between two apparently distinct problems: The quest for a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness and the search for time and space as emergent structures in the quantum mechanical world. We also advance…
Some unique source -- the world, W -- must underlie all the information realized in the universe throughout time. Perceived reality, R, is a progressively emerging representation of W in the form of the geometrical universe. Time…
When a mountaineer is ascending one of the great peaks of the Himalayas she knows that an entirely new vista awaits her at the top, whose ramifications will be known only after she gets there. Her immediate goal though, is to tackle the…
This paper is a review of our recent work on three notorious problems of non-relativistic quantum mechanics: realist interpretation, quantum theory of classical properties and the problem of quantum measurement. A considerable progress has…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
Quantum gravity is understood as a theory that, in some sense, unifies general relativity (GR) and quantum theory, and is supposed to replace GR at extremely small distances (high-energies). It may be that quantum gravity represents the…