Related papers: Relational Observables, Quiddities, and Structural…
After reviewing various interpretations of structural realism, I adopt here a definition that allows both relations between things that are already individuated (which I call ``relations between things'') and relations that individuate…
Local observation is an important problem both for the foundations of a quantum theory of gravity and for applications to quantum-cosmological problems such as eternal inflation. While gauge invariant local observables can't be defined, it…
Because of the non-locality of quantum entanglement, realist approaches to completing quantum mechanics have implications for our conception of space. Quantum gravity also is expected to predict phenomena in which the locality of classical…
The principles of the physical description of non-inertial frames of reference are analyzed. The systems of physical reality description (PhRD) are introduced on base of generalization of the relativistic principle in special and general…
In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that…
In this article we present a possible way to make usual quantum mechanics fully compatible with physical realism, defined as the statement that the goal of physics is to study entities of the natural world, existing independently from any…
Our notions of what is physically 'real' have long been based on the idea that the real is what is immediately apprehended, that is the local or observable, the physically tangible, though there has always been an alternative philosophical…
We describe a completely general and fully non-perturbative framework for constructing dynamical reference frames in generally covariant theories, and for understanding the gauge-invariant observables that they yield. Our approach makes use…
We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain)…
In a recent article, Dieks has proposed a way to implement the modal interpretation of (nonrelativistic) quantum theory in relativistic quantum field theory. We show that his proposal fails to yield a well-defined prescription for which…
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…
Quantum theory is applicable, in principle, to both the microscopic and macroscopic realms. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to evolve a quantum-compatible view of the properties and states of macroscopic…
A discursive, non-technical, analysis is made of some of the basic issues that arise in almost any approach to quantum gravity, and of how these issues stand in relation to recent developments in the field. Specific topics include the…
The implications of the physical theory of quantum mechanics on the question of realism is much a subject of sustaining interest, while the background questions among physicists on how to think about all the theoretical notion and…
We study the process of observation (measurement), within the framework of a `perspectival' (`relational', `relative state') version of the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics. We show that if we assume certain features of…
In this paper we investigate the history of relationalism and its present use in some interpretations of quantum mechanics. In the first part of this article we will provide a conceptual analysis of the relation between substantivalism,…
We discuss the construction of relational observables in time-reparametrization invariant quantum mechanics and we argue that their physical interpretation can be understood in terms of conditional probabilities, which are defined from the…
A universal framework for the joint measurement of multiple localized observables in quantum field theory satisfying spacetime locality and compositionality is still lacking. We present an approach to the problem that is based on the one…
Studying the extent to which realism is compatible with quantum mechanics teaches us something about the quantum mechanical universe, regardless of the validity of such realistic assumptions. It has also recently been appreciated that these…
What ontology does realism about the quantum state suggest? The main extant view in contemporary philosophy of physics is wave-function realism. We elaborate the sense in which wave-function realism does provide an ontological picture; and…