Quantum Theory Needs No'interpretation'but'theoretical
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Here’S No Speed of Light, So What the Heck Did Michelson Measure?” “What the Humean Should Say About Quantities: a Reply to Bricker”
Hellems Building, Office 282 [email protected] CU Boulder, Dept of Philosophy (215)-262-3126 Boulder, CO 80309 www.zrperry.com Zee R. Perry curriculum vitae Employment 2018–present Center Visiting Scholar Center for the Study of Origins, University of Colorado, Boulder 2018–present Visiting Instructor Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder 2016–2018 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Associate Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick Education 2009–2016 Ph.D. in Philosophy, New York University. Dissertation: Physical Quantities: Mereology and Dynamics Committee: Tim Maudlin (chair), Cian Dorr, Hartry Field, Shamik Dasgupta (ex- ternal, Princeton) 2007–2009 B.A. in Philosophy, Rutgers University Summa Cum Laude. 2005–2007 Moravian College Areas of Specialization Metaphysics, Philosophy of Physics Areas of Competence Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Art, Logic Fellowships and Awards Summer Early Career Researcher Visiting Fellowship, ANU School of Philosophy and Centre 2019 for the Philosophy of the Sciences 2018–present Visiting Scholarship Award (Project: Origins of Measurement), Center for the Study of Origins, CU Boulder 2015–2016 Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, NYU 2015 Student Senator’s Council Conference Funding Travel Award, NYU 2015 Outstanding Teaching Award, NYU 2014 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Student Travel Grant, NYU 2009–2014 MacCracken Fellowship, NYU 1 Publications 2017 “How to be a Substantivalist Without Getting Shifty About It”. Philosophical Issues: Metaphysics. 27, (1). (2017). http://philpapers.org/rec/PERHTB 2017 “What the Humean Should Say about Entanglement” (with Harjit Bhogal). Noûs. 51, (1). (2017). http://philpapers.org/rec/BHOWTH 2015 “Properly Extensive Quantities”. Philosophy of Science. University of Chicago Press. -
Paradox Regained? a Brief Comment on Maudlin on Black Hole Information Loss
(Information) Paradox Regained? A Brief Comment on Maudlin on Black Hole Information Loss JB Manchak, James Owen Weatherall Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science University of California, Irvine Abstract We discuss some recent work by Tim Maudlin concerning Black Hole Information Loss. We argue, contra Maudlin, that there is a paradox, in the straightforward sense that there are propositions that appear true, but which are incompatible with one another. We discuss the significance of the paradox and Maudlin's response to it. Keywords: Black holes; Information loss paradox; Kodama-Wald theorem; evaporation event; Global hyperbolicity The black hole information loss paradox (Hawking, 1976) is a widely discussed (putative) puzzle that arises when one attempts to make sense of physicists' expectation that global quantum dynamics will be unitary in light of the postulated phenomenon of black hole evaporation (Hawking, 1974, 1975; Unruh, 1976), which is apparently a consequence of Hawking radiation.1 In a provocative recent manuscript, Tim Maudlin (2017) forcefully argues that \There is no `information loss' paradox." The \solution" to the \paradox", he claims, requires no new physics and indeed, was already available, though not appreciated, in 1975. The appearance of paradox arises only because of persistent errors, both mathematical and conceptual in character, by prominent members of the physics community. There is much to admire in Maudlin's treatment of the subject. We agree, for instance, with his discussion of the (non-)role of \information" in the putative paradox. What is really at issue is predictability, or even better, retrodictability, and not information (at least in the sense of information theory): as we will describe in more detail below, the puzzle concerns whether any specification of data on a particular surface is sufficient to retrodict the physical process by which that data came about. -
Everettian Probabilities, the Deutsch-Wallace Theorem and the Principal Principle
Everettian probabilities, the Deutsch-Wallace theorem and the Principal Principle Harvey R. Brown and Gal Ben Porath Chance, when strictly examined, is a mere negative word, and means not any real power which has anywhere a being in nature. David Hume (Hume, 2008) [The Deutsch-Wallace theorem] permits what philosophy would hitherto have regarded as a formal impossibility, akin to deriving an ought from an is, namely deriving a probability statement from a factual statement. This could be called deriving a tends to from a does. David Deutsch (Deutsch, 1999) [The Deutsch-Wallace theorem] is a landmark in decision theory. Nothing comparable has been achieved in any chance theory. [It] is little short of a philosophical sensation . it shows why credences should conform to [quantum chances]. Simon Saunders (Saunders, 'The Everett interpretation: probability' [unpublished manuscript]) Abstract This paper is concerned with the nature of probability in physics, and in quantum mechanics in particular. It starts with a brief discussion of the evolution of Itamar Pitowsky's thinking about probability in quantum theory from 1994 to 2008, and the role of Gleason's 1957 theorem in his derivation of the Born Rule. Pitowsky's defence of probability therein as a logic of partial belief leads us into a broader discussion of probability in physics, in which the existence of objective \chances" is questioned, and the status of David Lewis influential Principal Principle is critically examined. This is followed by a sketch of the work by David Deutsch and David Wallace which resulted in the Deutsch-Wallace (DW) theorem in Everettian quantum mechanics. -
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World Pdf, Epub, Ebook
THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY: EXPLANATIONS THAT TRANSFORM THE WORLD PDF, EPUB, EBOOK David Deutsch | 487 pages | 29 May 2012 | Penguin Putnam Inc | 9780143121350 | English | New York, NY, United States The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World PDF Book Every argument includes premises in support of a conclusion, but the premises themselves are left unargued. Nov 12, Gary rated it it was amazing Shelves: science. In other words we must have some form of evidence, and it must be coherent with our other beliefs. Nov 12, Gary rated it it was amazing Shelves: science. I can't say why exactly. It seems more to the point to think of it as something emotive — as the expression of a mood. This will lead to the development of explanatory theories variation , which can then be criticized and tested selection. Accuracy and precision are important standards in our evaluation of explanations; standards that are absent in bad explanations. Every argument includes premises in support of a conclusion, but the premises themselves are left unargued. Deutsch starts with explanations being the basis for knowledge, and builds up basic, hard-to-argue-with principles into convincing monoliths that smash some conventional interpretations of knowledge, science and philosophy to tiny pieces. His reliance on Popper is problematic. I will be re-reading them again until it really sinks in. Evolution, in contrast, represents a good explanation because it not only fits the evidence but the details are hard to vary. Barefoot Season Susan Mallery. But the "Occam's Razor" described by the author is not the one practiced in reality. -
Creativity and Untidiness
Search Creativity and Untidiness Submitted by Sarah Fitz-Claridge on 13 September, 2003 - 22:59 A Taking Children Seriously interview from TCS 21 by Sarah Fitz-Claridge (http://www.fitz-claridge.com/) Many TCS readers will know David Deutsch for his contributions to Taking Children Seriously and to the TCS List on the Internet, and perhaps as co-author of Home Education and the Law. Some will also know that he is a theoretical physicist who has, among other things, pioneered the new field of quantum computation. There is a major article about his work in the October 1995 Discover magazine (the issue was devoted to “Seven Ideas that could Change the World”). He is often quoted in the media and regularly makes appearances on television and radio programmes. You may have seen his programme on the physics of time travel in BBC 2's Antenna series. Recently, David was featured in the Channel 4 science documentary series, Reality on the Rocks, in which the actor, Ken Campbell, asked leading scientists about the nature of reality. Those who saw Reality on the Rocks may have caught a glimpse of David's extraordinarily untidy study, at his home in Oxford. Ken Campbell was so struck by its untidiness that he talks about it in his one-man show, Mystery Bruises. He relates the story of the Japanese film crew who, upon asking to tidy up David's home before filming there, were told that they could do so, on condition that they returned everything – every piece of paper, every book, every computer disk – to the exact position where it had been on the floor or wherever, and how they did just that! I put it to David that some might be surprised that someone so untidy could be so successful. -
II Physical Geometry and Fundamental Metaphysics
! 1 II Physical Geometry and Fundamental Metaphysics CIAN DORR Final version: Thursday, 16 September 2010 I. Tim Maudlin’s project sets a new standard for fruitful engagement between philosophy, mathematics and physics. I am glad to have a chance to be part of the conversation. I think we can usefully distinguish two different strands within the project: one more conceptual, the other more straightforwardly metaphysical. The conceptual strand is an attempt to clarify certain concepts, such as continuity, connectedness, and boundary, which are standardly analysed in terms of the topological concept of an open set. The metaphysical strand is a defence of a hypothesis about the geometric aspects of the fun- damental structure of reality—the facts in virtue of which the facts of physical geometry are what they are. What I have to say mostly concerns the metaphysical side of things. But I will begin by saying just a little bit about the conceptual strand. II. In topology textbooks, expressions like ‘continuous function’, ‘connected set of points’, and ‘boundary of a set of points’ are generally given stipulative definitions, on a par with the definitions of made-up words like ‘Hausdorff’ (the adjective) and ‘paracompact’. But as Maudlin emphasises, the former expressions can be used to express concepts of which we have enough of an independent grip to make it reasonable to wonder whether the topological definitions are even extensionally adequate. And he argues quite persuasively that we have no reason to believe that they are. The most important and general argu- ment concerns the live epistemic possibility that physical space is discrete, for example by ! 2 containing only finitely many points. -
A Scientific Metaphysical Naturalisation of Information
1 A Scientific Metaphysical Naturalisation of Information With a indication-based semantic theory of information and an informationist statement of physicalism. Bruce Long A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney February 2018 2 Abstract The objective of this thesis is to present a naturalised metaphysics of information, or to naturalise information, by way of deploying a scientific metaphysics according to which contingency is privileged and a-priori conceptual analysis is excluded (or at least greatly diminished) in favour of contingent and defeasible metaphysics. The ontology of information is established according to the premises and mandate of the scientific metaphysics by inference to the best explanation, and in accordance with the idea that the primacy of physics constraint accommodates defeasibility of theorising in physics. This metaphysical approach is used to establish a field ontology as a basis for an informational structural realism. This is in turn, in combination with information theory and specifically mathematical and algorithmic theories of information, becomes the foundation of what will be called a source ontology, according to which the world is the totality of information sources. Information sources are to be understood as causally induced configurations of structure that are, or else reduce to and/or supervene upon, bounded (including distributed and non-contiguous) regions of the heterogeneous quantum field (all quantum fields combined) and fluctuating vacuum, all in accordance with the above-mentioned quantum field-ontic informational structural realism (FOSIR.) Arguments are presented for realism, physicalism, and reductionism about information on the basis of the stated contingent scientific metaphysics. -
Credence—And Chance—Without Numbers (And with the Euclidean Property)
Credence—and Chance—Without Numbers (and with the Euclidean Property) Tim Maudlin NYU and John Bell Institute Abstract Accounts of both rational credence and of objective chance have always confronted difficulties associated with events that are assigned “probability zero” by the usual Kolmogorov probability function used to model the situation. One sort of solution recommends extending the number field used to represent credences and chance to the surreals or hyperreals. But the correct solution—the solution that always respects the Euclidean property—is to eliminate numbers from the fundamental representation of credence and chance altogether in favor of a system of relations. This solution also sheds light on other paradoxes, such as the Banach-Tarski paradox and the St. Petersburg paradox. The Problem (?) Suppose that an infinitely sharp dart is thrown at a circular dartboard in such a way that each individual point might be hit: nothing would prevent the dart from landing there. In other words, suppose that a point is randomly chosen from a disk in such a way that every point might be chosen. Let two of these points be labeled p and q. Here are some propositions about credence and chance that every rational person should accept. First, the proposition that either p or q will be chosen is strictly more credible—more rationally believable—than the proposition that p will be hit. If someone did not believe the former more firmly or to a higher degree than the latter then we would have no idea how to make sense of their state of belief. We can illustrate our bewilderment by appeal to practical rationality. -
Demolishing Prejudices to Get to the Foundations: a Criterion of Demarcation for Fundamentality
Demolishing prejudices to get to the foundations: a criterion of demarcation for fundamentality Flavio Del Santo1;2;3 and Chiara Cardelli1;2 1Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, Vienna A-1090, Austria 2Vienna Doctorate School of Physics (VDS) 3Basic Research Community for Physics (BRCP) Abstract In this paper, we reject commonly accepted views on fundamentality in science, either based on bottom-up construction or top-down reduction to isolate the alleged fundamental entities. We do not introduce any new scientific methodology, but rather describe the current scientific methodology and show how it entails an inherent search for foundations of science. This is achieved by phrasing (minimal sets of) metaphysical assumptions into falsifiable statements and define as fundamental those that survive empirical tests. The ones that are falsified are rejected, and the corresponding philosophical concept is demolished as a prejudice. Furthermore, we show the application of this criterion in concrete examples of the search for fundamentality in quantum physics and biophysics. 1 Introduction Scientific communities seem to agree, to some extent, on the fact that certain theories are more funda- mental than others, along with the physical entities that the theories entail (such as elementary particles, strings, etc.). But what do scientists mean by fundamental? This paper aims at clarifying this question in the face of a by now common scientific practice. We propose a criterion of demarcation for fundamen- tality based on (i) the formulation of metaphysical assumptions in terms of falsifiable statements, (ii) the empirical implementation of crucial experiments to test these statements, and (iii) the rejection of such assumptions in the case they are falsified. -
1 Fundamentality and Time's Arrow Christian Loew (University
Fundamentality and Time’s Arrow Christian Loew (University of Luxembourg, University of Cologne) ABSTRACT. The distribution of matter in our universe is strikingly time asymmetric. Most famously, the Second Law of Thermodynamics says that entropy tends to increase toward the future but not toward the past. But what explains this time-asymmetric distribution of matter? In this paper, I explore the idea that time itself has a direction by drawing from recent work on grounding and metaphysical fundamentality. I will argue that positing such a direction of time, in addition to time-asymmetric boundary conditions (such as the so-called “past hypothesis”), enables a better explanation of the thermodynamic asymmetry than is available otherwise. Contact Information. Université du Luxembourg, Maison des Sciences Humaines; 11, Porte des Sciences; L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette. Email: [email protected] Acknowledgments. I am grateful to Eddy Keming Chen, Florian Fischer, Roman Frigg, Richard Healey, Andreas Hüttemann, David Glick, Marc Lange, Tim Maudlin, Carlo Rovelli, and two anonymous referees for this journal for their helpful comments and suggestions. Special thanks to Siegfried Jaag for helpful discussion and for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 1 §1 Introduction The distribution of matter in our universe is strikingly time asymmetric. Most famously, the Second Law of Thermodynamic says that entropy tends to increase toward the future but not toward the past. But what explains this time-asymmetric distribution of matter? The received understanding in the philosophy of physics is that the thermodynamic asymmetry is fully explicable from time-asymmetric boundary conditions, including the low entropy of the early universe (see, e.g., Albert 2015 and Loewer 2012). -
The Logic of Consistent Histories: a Reply to Maudlin
The Logic of Consistent Histories: A Reply to Maudlin Robert B. Griffiths∗ Department of Physics, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA Version of 26 September 2011 Abstract The relationship between quantum logic, standard propositional logic, and the (consistent) histories rules for quantum reasoning is discussed. It is shown that Maudlin’s claim [1], that the histories ap- proach is inconsistent, is incorrect. The histories approach is both internally consistent and adequate for discussing the physical situations considered by Maudlin. Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Logic and Quantum Mechanics 2 2.1 Propositional logic . ....... 2 2.2 QuantumLogic...................................... ...... 2 2.3 Histories Logic and Its Consistency . ........... 2 2.4 RoleofLogicinQuantumTheory . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ....... 3 3 Spins Prepared in Boxes 3 4 GHZ Paradox 4 5 Conclusion 5 1 Introduction The argument for the locality of quantum mechanics in [2] based on the (“consistent” or “decoherent”) histories interpretation has been criticized by Maudlin [1] who claims that the histories approach is inconsis- arXiv:1110.0974v1 [quant-ph] 5 Oct 2011 tent. It will be shown here that Maudlin’s arguments are incorrect: the histories approach is both internally consistent as a form of quantum logic, and also an appropriate tool for consistently analyzing the two specific physical situations mentioned in [1]. Naturally, a system of reasoning that is internally consistent may not be appropriate or adequate when applied to a particular problem, and it could be that Maudlin’s complaint about inconsistency is really about, or perhaps includes, something which might better be called inadequacy. In what follows some attempt will be made to address adequacy along with consistency in the narrower sense, though the emphasis will be on the latter. -
208 Tim Maudlin. Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time. Princeton
Philosophy in Review XXXV (August 2015), no. 4 Tim Maudlin. Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time. Princeton University Press 2012. 200 pp. $45.00 USD (Hardcover ISBN 9780691143095); $19.95 USD (Paperback ISBN 9780691165714). Tim Maudlin’s Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time is the first of a two-volume survey of key foundational issues in the philosophy of physics. The two volumes concern the two historically dis- tinct subject matters of physics: space and time; and their material contents. The present volume is an accessible and highly engaging introduction to the major issues in the physics of space and time that guides the reader through the philosophical foundations of physical geometry, the special and general theories of relativity, and the topology of time, and is suitable both for the philosopher with minimal physics background and for the physicist interested in the main historical philosophical issues concerning spacetime theories. The central theme of Maudlin’s presentation of the history of spacetime is a focus on geometrical rather than arithmetical methods. The absence of equations from the presentation of the Newtonian laws of motion is due not to a fear of putting off the lay reader, but rather to the conviction that the arithmetization of physics is unnecessary and misleading. Aside from the fact that Newton himself used geometry rather than arithmetic to present his theory, Maudlin emphasizes that ‘[t]o put it bluntly, the physical world is not composed of numbers or of entities for which the standard arith- metic operations are defined’. Rather, ‘[t]he physical world contains physical magnitudes that have a geometrical structure’ and hence ‘[g]eometry is more directly connected to the physical world than is arithmetic’ (25, emphases in original).