Related papers: Quantum Theory : A Pointer To An Independent Reali…
Quantum cosmology has traditionally been studied at the level of symmetry-reduced minisuperspace models, analyzing the behavior of wave functions. However, in the absence of a complete full setting of quantum gravity and detailed knowledge…
A controversy that has arisen many times over in disparate contexts is whether quantum coherences between eigenstates of certain quantities are fact or fiction. We present a pedagogical introduction to the debate in the form of a…
I review some recent advances in foundational research at Pavia QUIT group. The general idea is that there is only Quantum Theory without quantization rules, and the whole Physics---including space-time and relativity--is emergent from the…
At present, quantum theory leaves unsettled which quantities ontologically, physically exist in a quantum system. Do observables such as energy and position have meaningful values only at the precise moment of measurement, as in the…
I argue that scientific determinism is not supported by facts, but results from the elegance of the mathematical language physicists use, in particular from the so-called real numbers and their infinite series of digits. Classical physics…
The paradox of Wigner's friend challenges the objectivity of description in quantum theory. A pragmatist interpretation can meet this challenge by judicious appeal to decoherence. On this interpretation, quantum theory provides situated…
One of the most important problems in Physics is how to reconcile Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity. Some authors have suggested that this may be realized at the expense of having to drop the quantum formalism in favor of a more…
The aim of "A glance beyond the quantum model" [arXiv:0907.0372] to modernize the Correspondence Principle is compromised by an assumption that a classical model must start with the idea of particles, whereas in empirical terms particles…
We offer a view of mathematics as an experimental science where axioms play the role of foundational theories like general relativity and quantum mechanics in physics. Under this view, axioms are provisional and inferred from experience…
We give a review of concepts related to connection of classical and quantum theories, from the phase space perspective. Quantum theory is described by non-commutative operators of coordinates and momenta, results in values having a certain…
Recently people started to understand that applications of the mathematical formalism of quantum theory are not reduced to physics. Nowadays, this formalism is widely used outside of quantum physics, in particular, in cognition, psychology,…
The problematic relationship between science and philosophy has, since the beginning of modernity, divided the world into two separate domains: nature and human. Some of today's schools of philosophy and epistemological inquiry have…
Process Philosophy endeavours to replace the classical ontology of substances by a process ontology centered on notions of changes and transitions. We argue, that the substantial and processual approach are mutually complementary. Here,…
Realism -- the idea that the concepts in physical theories refer to 'things' existing in the real world -- is introduced as a tool to analyze the status of the wave-function. Although the physical entities are recognized by the existence of…
Quantum theory provides a significant example of two intermingling hallmarks of science: the ability to consistently combine physical systems and study them compositely, and the power to extract predictions in the form of correlations. A…
We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain)…
Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…
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…
In the past century many fundamental results on unpredictability, undecidability and uncertainty have compelled scientists to grapple with the idea that some questions may never be resolved within our current theories. While this…
At the primary level of reality as described by quantum field theory, a fundamental particle like an electron represents a stable, discrete, propagating excited state of its underlying quantum field. QFT also tells us that the lowest vacuum…