Related papers: Questions and Physical Reality -Simple Philosophic…
The quantum world is fascinating. It presents a description of nature that defies our most rooted concepts about what reality is. For example, quantum objects possess \lq\lq spooky\rq\rq\ properties that allow them to be in multiple places…
For a century, quantum theorists have been reading the mathematical entrails of quantum mechanics (QM) to divine the nature of quantum reality. But to little avail. In this paper a different approach is taken, namely to identify and explain…
I offer an account of how the quantum theory we have helps us explain so much. The account depends on a pragmatist interpretation of the theory: This takes a quantum state to serve solely as a source of sound advice to physically situated…
A discussion of the quantum mechanical use of superposition or entangled states shows that descriptions containing only statements about state vectors and experiments outputs are the most suitable for Quantum Mechanics. In particular, it is…
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…
Being mathematics a natural language to Mankind and to physics, it must be constantly adapted to our necessities and our natural perception. Then, mathematical concepts are not absolute to reality. Although mathematical theories are…
According to scientific realism, science gives us an approximately true description of what the world is like. But what does it mean? In this chapter, we focus on the ontological and metaphysical aspects of this discussion. That is, we are…
In this essay the ontological structure of reality is explored. The question of reducibility of biology to physics is considered in the context of their ultimate principles. It is shown that biology is an ontologically autonomous science…
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…
Some skeptical arguments on the physical reality of quantum states are given. First, I argue that the algebraic formalism of quantum field theory in curved spacetime (algebraic QFTCS, AQFTCS) leads to such a skepticism. Of course we have…
I explore whether it is possible to make sense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality by taking the proper subject of physics to be correlation and only correlation, and by separating the problem of understanding the…
Any complete theory of physical reality must allow for the ubiquitous phenomenon of subjective experience at some level, or risk being conceptually incoherent. However, as long as the ontological status of subjectivity itself remains…
In this paper, we argue that there are foundational dilemmas in theoretical physics related to the concept of reality and the nature of mathematics in physics. Physical theory is treated as a conceptual organism which develops under the…
This paper is based on four assumptions: 1. Physical reality is made of linearly behaving components combined in non-linear ways. 2. Higher level behaviour emerges from this lower level structure. 3. The way the lower level elements behaves…
We reconsider briefly the relation between "physical quantity" and "physical reality in the light of recent interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. We argue, that these interpretations are conditioned from the epistemological relation between…
We further investigate postulates for realist versions of relativistic quantum theory and quantum field theory in Minkowski space and other background space-times. According to these postulates, quantum theory is supplemented by local…
The hypothesis of quantum self-interference is not directly observable, but has at least three necessary implications. First, a quantum entity must have no less than two open paths. Second, the size of the interval between any two…
It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of…
The subjective nature of the quantum states is brought out and it is argued that the objective state assignment is subsequent to the subjective state of the observer regarding his state of knowledge about the system. The collapse postulate…
Generically the probabilities of observational results depend upon both the quantum state and the rules for extracting the probabilities from it. It is often argued that inflation may make our observations independent of the quantum state.…