Related papers: Physical Realities from Simple Philosophical Conje…

We consider the implications of some simple assumptions about the nature of the quantum theory of gravity which are plausible for a class of possible theories I have been attempting to construct. The simple assumptions turn out to have…

One of the basic observations of the classical world is that physical entities are real and can be distinguished from each other. However, within quantum theory, the idea of physical realism is not well established. A framework to analyse…

In this letter, we point to three widely accepted challenges that the quantum theory, quantum information, and quantum foundations communities are currently facing: indeterminism, the semantics of conditional probabilities, and the spooky…

A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our studies suggest this…

Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as…

Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and…

From the very beginning, Quantum Mechanics has been accompanied by crucial foundational questions: the possibility of visualizing physical processes, the limits of measurement epitomized by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the…

In this paper, epistemology and ontology of quantum states are discussed based on a completely new way of founding quantum theory. The fundamental notions are conceptual variables in the mind of an observer or in the joint minds of a group…

In this paper we consider theories in which reality is described by some underlying variables. Each value these variables can take represents an ontic state (a particular state of reality). The preparation of a quantum state corresponds to…

I will propose that the reality to which the quantum formalism implicitly refers is a kind of generalized history, the word history having here the same meaning as in the phrase sum-over-histories. This proposal confers a certain…

While quantum reality can be probed through measurements, the Two-State-Vector formalism (TSVF) reveals a subtler reality prevailing between measurements. Under special pre- and post-selections, odd physical values emerge. This unusual…

A characteristical property of a classical physical theory is that the observables are real functions taking an exact outcome on every (pure) state; in a quantum theory, at the contrary, a given observable on a given state can take several…

Amplitudes are the major logical object in Quantum Theory. Despite this fact they presents no physical reality and in consequence only observables can be experimetally checked. We discuss the possibility of a theory of Quantum Probabilities…

The paper sets out a primitive ontology of the natural world in terms of primitive stuff, that is, stuff that has as such no physical properties at all, but that is not a bare substratum either, being individuated by metrical relations. We…

Is quantum mechanics about 'states'? Or is it basically another kind of probability theory? It is argued that the elementary formalism of quantum mechanics operates as a well-justified alternative to 'classical' instantiations of a…

Physical theories must stem from observation. The possibility that perceived events are simulated, not real, raises a crucial dilemma about the credibility of known physics, known as the simulation hypothesis. To analyze this hypothesis in…

Quantum mechanics is usually presented starting from a series of postulates about the mathematical framework. In this work we show that those same postulates can be derived by assuming that measurements are discrete interactions: that is,…

In classical theory, the physical systems are elucidated through the concepts of particles and waves, which aim to describe the reality of the physical system with certainty. In this framework, particles are mathematically represented by…

I shall discuss some "conditions of possibility" of a quantum theory of gravity, stressing the need for solutions to some of fundamental problems confronting any attempt to apply some method of quantization to the field equations of general…

Quantum mechanics is an outstandingly successful description of nature, underpinning fields from biology through chemistry to physics. At its heart is the quantum wavefunction, the central tool for describing quantum systems. Yet it is…