Related papers: Quantum Thought Experiments Can Define Nature
Richard Feynman famously declared, "I think that I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics." Sean Carroll lamented the persistence of this sentiment in a recent opinion piece entitled, "Even Physicists Don't…
I suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as a fundamental description of nature (the "measurement problem") could derive from the use of an incorrect notion, as the unease with the Lorentz transformations before…
The cognitive state of mind concerning a range of choices to be made can effectively be modelled in terms of an element of a high-dimensional Hilbert space. The dynamics of the state of mind resulting form information acquisition is…
The best mathematical arguments against a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics - that gives definite but partially unknown values to all observables - are analysed and shown to be based on reasoning that is not compelling. This…
Does information play a significant role in the foundations of physics? Information is the abstraction that allows us to refer to the states of systems when we choose to ignore the systems themselves. This is only possible in very…
The predictions that quantum theory makes about the outcomes of measurements are generally probabilistic. This has raised the question whether quantum theory can be considered complete, or whether there could exist alternative theories that…
Two theorems with applications to the quantum theory of measurements are stated and proven. The first one clarifies and amends von Neumann's Measurement Postulate used in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The second one…
Physics is so successful today in understanding the nature of matter. What can it say about mind ? Is it possible to have a unified theory of matter and mind within the framework of modern science ? Is Consciousness an accident or is it a…
Einstein initially objected to the probabilistic aspect of quantum mechanics - the idea that God is playing at dice. Later he changed his ground, and focussed instead on the point that the Copenhagen Interpretation leads to what Einstein…
Here it is shown that the simplest description of Bell's experiment according to the canon of von Neumann's theory of measurement explicitly assumes the (Quantum Mechanics-language equivalent of the classical) condition of Locality. This…
Irreversibility is often considered to characterize measurements in quantum mechanics. Fundamental problems with this characterization are addressed. First, whether a measurement is made in quantum mechanics is an arbitrary decision on the…
The rather unintuitive nature of quantum theory has led numerous people to develop sets of (physically motivated) principles that can be used to derive quantum mechanics from the ground up, in order to better understand where the structure…
We show that the quantum description of measurement based on decoherence fixes the bug in quantum theory discussed in [D. Frauchiger and R. Renner, {\em Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself}, Nat. Comm. {\bf 9},…
Analogies between quantum mechanics and sociology lead to the hypothesis that quantum objects are complex products of evolution. Like biological objects they are able to receive, to work on, and to spread semantic information. In general…
In a recent paper [1], it has been claimed that the outcomes of a quantum coin toss which is idealized as an infinite binary sequence is 1-random. We also defend the correctness of this claim and assert that the outcomes of quantum…
We analyze the notion that physical theories are quantitative and testable by observations in experiments. This leads us to propose a new, Bayesian, interpretation of probabilities in physics that unifies their current use in classical…
The possibility of a quantum system to exhibit properties that are akin to both the classically held notions of being a particle and a wave, is one of the most intriguing aspects of the quantum description of nature. These aspects have been…
An interpretation and re-formulation of modern physics which removes the presumption of the space-time continuum, and bases physical theory on a small number of rational and empirical principles. After briefly describing the philosophical…
A resolution of the quantum measurement problem(s) using the consistent histories interpretation yields in a rather natural way a restriction on what an observer can know about a quantum system, one that is also consistent with some results…
Two thought experiments are analyzed, revealing that the quantum state of the universe does not contain definitive evidence of the wavefunction collapse. The first thought experiment shows that unitary quantum evolution alone can account…