Related papers: Emergent Probabilities in Quantum Mechanics
In physics, one is often misled in thinking that the mathematical model of a system is part of or is that system itself. Think of expressions commonly used in physics like "point" particle, motion "on the line", "smooth" observables, wave…
This paper proposes an interpretation of quantum mechanics, relying on the time-symmetric stochastic dynamics of quantum particles and on non-classical probability theory. Our main purpose is to demonstrate that the wave function and its…
If the block universe view is correct, the future and the past have similar status and one would expect physical theories to involve final as well as initial boundary conditions. A plausible consistency condition between the initial and…
The nature of a physical law is examined, and it is suggested that there may not be any fundamental dynamical laws. This explains the intrinsic indeterminism of quantum theory. The probabilities for transition from a given initial state to…
Measurements transfer information about a system to the apparatus, and then further on -- to observers and (often inadvertently) to the environment. I show that even imperfect copying essential in such situations restricts possible…
A long sequence of tosses of a classical coin produces an apparently random bit string, but classical randomness is an illusion: the algorithmic information content of a classically-generated bit string lies almost entirely in the…
A quantum probability model is introduced and used to explain human probability judgment errors including the conjunction, disjunction, inverse, and conditional fallacies, as well as unpacking effects and partitioning effects. Quantum…
According to Born's rule quantum probabilities are given by the overlap between the system state and measurement states in a quite symmetrical way. This means that both contribute to any observed nonclassical effect that is usually…
Recent developments in the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics have brought the theory closer to that of classical probability and statistics. On the other hand, the unique character of quantum physics sets many of the questions…
In order to make the quantum mechanics a closed theory one has to derive the Born rule from the first principles, like the Schroedinger equation, rather than postulate it. The Born rule was in certain sense derived in several articles, e.g.…
I introduce environment - assisted invariance -- a symmetry related to causality that is exhibited by correlated quantum states -- and describe how it can be used to understand the nature of ignorance and, hence, the origin of probabilities…
Uncertainty relations (URs) like the Heisenberg-Robertson or the time-energy UR are often considered to be hallmarks of quantum theory. Here, a simple derivation of these URs is presented based on a single classical inequality from…
The role of superselection rules for the derivation of classical probability within quantum mechanics is investigated and examples of superselection rules induced by the environment are discussed.
From behavioral sciences to biology to quantum mechanics, one encounters situations where (i) a system outputs several random variables in response to several inputs, (ii) for each of these responses only some of the inputs may "directly"…
It is often said that quantum and classical randomness are of different nature, the former being ontological and the latter epistemological. However, so far the question of "What is quantum in quantum randomness", i.e. what is the impact of…
Despite the tremendous empirical success of quantum theory there is still widespread disagreement about what it can tell us about the nature of the world. A central question is whether the theory is about our knowledge of reality, or a…
We propose that the Schrodinger equation results from applying the classical wave equation to describe the physical system in which subatomic particles play random motion, thereby leading to quantum mechanics. The physical reality described…
In the Entropic Dynamics (ED) approach to quantum theory the particles have well-defined positions but since they follow non differentiable Brownian trajectories they cannot be assigned an instantaneous momentum. Nevertheless, four…
The possibility to recover the which-way information, for example in the two slit experiment, is based on a natural but implicit assumption about the position of a particle {\it before} a position measurement is performed on it. This…
A pedagogical introduction is given to the quantum mechanics of closed systems, most generally the universe as a whole. Quantum mechanics aims at predicting the probabilities of alternative coarse-grained time histories of a closed system.…