Quantum Mechanics and Fundamentality

ISBN-13: 9783030996444 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023

Opis

This edited collection provides new perspectives on some metaphysical questions arising in quantum mechanics. These questions have been long-standing and are of continued interest to researchers and graduate students working in physics, philosophy of physics, and metaphysics. It features contributions from a diverse set of researchers, ranging from senior scholars to junior academics, working in varied fields, from physics to philosophy of physics and metaphysics. The contributors reflect on issues about fundamentality (is quantum theory fundamental? If so, what is its fundamental ontology?), ontological dependence (how do ordinary objects exist even if they are not fundamental?), realism (what kind of realism is compatible with quantum theory?), indeterminacy (can the world itself exhibit ontological indeterminacy?). The book contains contributions from both physicists (including Nobel Prize winner Gerard 't Hooft), science communicators and philosophers. 

Spis treści

Introduction

Part I: Realism 

1. The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Decoherence

Davide Romano

2. Quantum Fundamentalism vs. Scientific Realism

Matthias Egg

3. On the Principles that Serve as Guides to the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics

Vera Matarese

4. The Quantum World as a Resource. A Case for the Cohabitation of Two Paradigms

Laura Felline

5. Quantum Ontology: Out of this World?

Travis Norsen

6. Why Might an Instrumentalist Endorse Bohmian Mechanics?

Darrell P. Rowbottom

Part II: Ontology

7. Beables, Primitive Ontology and Beyond: How Theories Meet the World

Andrea Oldofredi

8. All Flash, No Substance? (Towards a Fundamental Ontology for GRW)

Elizabeth Miller

 

9. Does the Primitive Ontology rest on Shaky Ground?

Cristian Mariani

10. Towards a Structuralist Elimination of Quantum Properties

Valia Allori

11. Quantum Ontology without the Wave Function

Carlo Rovelli

12. The Relational Ontology of Contemporary Physics

Francesca Vidotto

13. Explicit Construction of Local Hidden Variables for Any Quantum Theory up to Any Desired Accuracy

Gerard t’Hooft

Part III: The Wave Function

14. Wave Function Realism and Three Dimensions

Lev Vaidman

15. Reality as a Vector in Hilbert Space

Sean Carroll

16. Cat alive and cat dead are not Cats! Ontology and Statistics in ‘Realist’ Versions of Quantum Mechanics

Jean Bricmont

17. Ontic Random Variables, Incommensurable Probability Distributions, and the Platonic Interpretation of Quantum Theory

Jacob Barandes

18. Cosmic Hylomorphism vs Bohmian Dispositionalism. Implications of the "No-successor Problem"

William Simpson and John Pemberton

19. The Governing Conception of the Wavefunction

Nina Emery

20. Representation and the Quantum State

Richard Healey

Part IV: Indeterminacy

21. Quantum Mechanics Without Indeterminacy

David Glick

22. Derivative Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Quantum Physics

Alessandro Torza

23. Explication Quantum Indeterminacy

Peter Lewis

24. Defending the Situations-based Approach to Deep Worldly Indeterminacy

George Darby and Martin Pickup

25. Metaphysical Indeterminacy in the Multiverse

Claudio Calosi and Jessica Wilson

26. Fundamentality and Levels in Everettian Quantum Mechanics

Al Wilson

O autorze

Valia Allori has studied physics and philosophy first in Italy, her home country, and then in the United States. She has worked in the foundations of quantum mechanics, with the aim of understanding how we can use our best physical theory to answer general metaphysical questions about the nature of reality. She has been a 2017-18 National Humanities Center Fellow and she is a Fellow of the John Bell Institute for the Foundation of Physics. She is currently Professor in the Philosophy Department of Northern Illinois University.

Blurb

This edited collection provides new perspectives on some metaphysical questions arising in quantum mechanics. These questions have been long-standing and are of continued interest to researchers and graduate students working in physics, philosophy of physics and metaphysics. It features contributions from a diverse set of researchers, ranging from senior scholars to junior academics, working in varied fields, from physics to philosophy of physics and metaphysics. The contributors reflect on issues about fundamentality (is quantum theory fundamental? If so, what is its fundamental ontology?), ontological dependence (how do ordinary objects exist even if they are not fundamental?), realism (what kind of realism is compatible with quantum theory?), indeterminacy (can the world itself exhibit ontological indeterminacy?). 

With contributions from both physicists (including Nobel Prize winner Gerard 't Hooft), science communicators and philosophers.