Related papers: Realism And Empirical Evidence
Quantum theory makes the most accurate empirical predictions and yet it lacks simple, comprehensible physical principles from which the theory can be uniquely derived. A broad class of probabilistic theories exist which all share some…
Results of measurements give legitimacy to a physical theory. What if acquiring these results in the first place necessitates what the same theory considers to be an interaction? In this note, we assume that theories account for…
It is argued that the recent definition of a realistic physics theory by N. Gisin cannot be considered comprehensive unless it is supplemented with requirement that any realistic theory must be computationally realistic as well.
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…
What is a physical theory? Although this intriguing question has been addressed from many different perspectives, some physicists and philosophers of physics have implicitly or explicitly embraced a philosophically-neutral definition of a…
We ask whether the operational quantum description is complete at the level of preparations: can the empirically accessible properties of a finite preparation set be reproduced exactly by a hidden-variable description, or must every such…
In this thesis we explore the questions of what should be considered a "classical" theory, and which aspects of quantum theory cannot be captured by any theory that respects our intuition of classicality. This exploration is divided in two…
Halvorson and Clifton have given a mathematical reconstruction of Bohr's reply to Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR), and argued that this reply is dictated by the two requirements of classicality and objectivity for the description of…
A new definition of "Realism" is proposed: it is that a gedanken "spectrograph" of hidden variables behaves as an actual (say, wavelength) spectrograph. The question is: does this definition allow, by itself, the derivation of Bell's…
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…
Here we propose a model of particles and fields based on the mathematical framework of quantum physics. Our model is an interpretation of quantum physics that treats particles and fields as physically real. We analyze four experiments on…
Taking into account the results that we have been obtained during the last decade in the foundations of quantum mechanic we put forward a view on reality that we call the 'creation discovery view'. In this view it is made explicit that a…
This pseudo-paper consists of excerpts drawn from two of my quantum-email samizdats. Section 1 draws a picture of a physical world whose essence is ``Darwinism all the way down.'' Section 2 outlines how quantum theory should be viewed in…
Scientific realism is, currently, one of the most well-entrenched background assumptions of some relevant versions of anti-exceptionalism about logic. We argue that this is a sort of sociological contingency rather than a metaphilosophical…
In this paper we analyze the definition of quantum superpositions within orthodox Quantum Mechanics (QM) and their relation to physical reality. We will begin by discussing how the metaphysical presuppositions imposed by Bohr on the…
Recent authors have proposed analyzing conditional reasoning through a notion of intervention on a simulation program, and have found a sound and complete axiomatization of the logic of conditionals in this setting. Here we extend this…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…
Mathematics and its relation to the physical universe have been the topic of speculation since the days of Pythagoras. Several different views of the nature of mathematics have been considered: Realism - mathematics exists and is…
Not only are the foundation theories mutually compatible, they are also compatible with local realism once this concept is properly formulated (without presuming atomism in addition to locality). Relativity Theory is reconstructed in the…
If the quantum mechanical description of reality is not complete and a hidden variable theory is possible, what arises is the problem to explain where the rates of the outcomes of statistical experiments come from, as already noticed by…