Related papers: The Plight of `I Am'

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…

After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…

We aim to bring a new perspective about some aspects of the current research in Cosmology. We start with a brief introduction about the main developments of the field in the last century; then we introduce an analogy that shall elucidate…

This essay provides a short introduction to the ideas and potential implications of quantum physics for scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Quantum-inspired ideas pepper current discourse in all of these fields, in ways…

"All men by nature desire to know," states Aristotle in the famous first sentence of his Metaphysics. Knowledge about fundamental particles and interactions, that is, knowledge about the deepest aspects of matter, is certainly high if not…

This is a philosophical paper in favor of the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum theory. The concept of the ``measure of existence of a world'' is introduced and some difficulties with the issue of probability in the framework of…

Since its inception, quantum theory has been the subject of fierce interpretive controversy, which persists to this day. Disputed topics include the basic ontology and dynamics of the theory, the role (if any) of measurement, the meaning of…

The epistemological interpretation of quantum mechanics is still in an unacceptable status. This becomes obvious if looking on the variety of interpretations currently under discussion. However, the physical community together with…

The most discussed of ``live'' metaphors in physical sciences is that of the Schr\"odinger cat. Introduced in the early, but mature days of the new quantum theory, in 1935, the parable of the cat has provoked and enlivened debates on the…

After stating the measurement problem, physicists usually assume the problem to be coming from the measurement part. Since classical probabilities also collapse when updating information, there is nothing special about quantum state…

This paper collects some problems that I have encountered during the years, have puzzled me and which, to the best of my knowledge, are still open. Most of them are well-known and have been first stated by other authors. In this sad season…

This essay presents an accessible introduction to the basic motivations to seek a quantum theory of gravity. It focuses on one approach- loop quantum gravity - as an example of the rich philosophical issues that arise when we try to combine…

According to one possible diagnosis of the quantum measurement problem, it is a consequence of quantum fundamentalism claiming that ontology and epistemology of the world are exclusively quantum, and classical physics is only an…

Here we continue with the ideas expressed in "On the strangeness of quantum mechanics" aiming to demonstrate more concretely how this philosophical outlook might be used as a key for resolving the measurement problem. We will address in…

What is physics? What are the limits of what physics can say about the world? In seeking ever-broader theoretical `umbrellas' for physical phenomena, we are seeking unifying principles. Emergent phenomena have turned out to be some of the…

In this work we analyze the deep link between the 20th Century positivist re-foundation of physics and the famous measurement problem of quantum mechanics. We attempt to show why this is not an "obvious" nor "self evident" problem for the…

Wallace (2022) has recently argued that a number of popular approaches to the measurement problem can't be fully extended to relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory; Wallace thus contends that as things currently stand, only…

Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…

This is an informal introduction to the ideas of decoherence and emergent classicality, including a simple account of the decoherent histories approach to quantum theory. It is aimed at undergraduates with a basic appreciation of quantum…

This book examines a number of problems of quantum mechanics, most of which are not usually discussed. What is the origin of probabilities in the mechanics of the microworld? What is the nature of Planck's constant h? What is the nature of…