This book provides an interdisciplinary approach to one of the most fascinating and important open questions in science: What is quantum mechanics really talking about? In the last decades quantum mechanics has given rise to a new quantum technological era, a revolution taking place today especially within the field of quantum information processing; which goes from quantum teleportation and cryptography to quantum computation. Quantum theory is probably our best confirmed physical theory. However, in spite of its great empirical effectiveness it stands today still without a universally accepted physical representation that allows us to understand its relation to the world and reality.The novelty of the book comes from the multiple perspectives put forward by top researchers in quantum mechanics, from Europe as well as North and South America, discussing the meaning and structure of the theory of quanta. The book comprises in a balanced manner physical, philosophical, logical and mathematical approaches to quantum mechanics and quantum information. Going from quantum superpositions and entanglement to dynamics and the problem of identity; from quantum logic, computation and quasi-set theory to the category approach and teleportation; from realism and empiricism to operationalism and instrumentalism; the book considers from different angles some of the most intriguing questions in the field.From Buenos Aires to Brussels and Cagliari, from Florence to Florianópolis, the interaction between different groups is reflected in the many different articles. This book is interesting not only to the specialists but also to the general public attempting to get a grasp on some of the most fundamental questions of present quantum physics.

"This book provides an interdisciplinary approach to one of the most fascinating and important open questions in science: What is quantum mechanics really talking about? In the last decades quantum mechanics has given rise to a new quantum technological era, a revolution taking place today especially within the field of quantum information processing; which goes from quantum teleportation and cryptography to quantum computation. Quantum theory is probably our best confirmed physical theory. However, in spite of its great empirical effectiveness it stands today still without a universally accepted physical representation that allows us to understand its relation to the world and reality. The novelty of the book comes from the multiple perspectives put forward by top researchers in quantum mechanics, from Europe as well as North and South America, discussing the meaning and structure of the theory of quanta. The book comprises in a balanced manner physical, philosophical, logical and mathematical approaches to quantum mechanics and quantum information. Going from quantum superpositions and entanglement to dynamics and the problem of identity; from quantum logic, computation and quasi-set theory to the category approach and teleportation; from realism and empiricism to operationalism and instrumentalism; the book considers from different angles some of the most intriguing questions in the field. From Buenos Aires to Brussels and Cagliari, from Florence to Florianaopolis, the interaction between different groups is reflected in the many different articles. This book is interesting not only to the specialists but also to the general public attempting to get a grasp on some of the most fundamental questions of present quantum physics"--

This book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on one of the most fascinating and important open questions in science: What is quantum mechanics talking about? Quantum theory is perhaps our best confirmed physical theory. However, despite its great empirical effectiveness and the subsequent technological developments that it gave rise to in the 20th century, from the interpretation of the periodic table of elements to CD players, holograms and quantum state teleportation, it stands even today without a universally accepted interpretation. The novelty of the book comes from the multiple viewpoints and subjects investigated by a group of researchers from Europe and North and South America.

This is a book presenting to a wide audience of readers, ranging from fans of science to professional researchers, some of the authors' recent discoveries in three distinct, but intimately related domains: probability theory (Bertrand's paradox), observation in physics (the measurement problem) and the modeling of experiments in psychology (quantum cognition). In all three of these domains of investigation, and the associated problems, the authors explain how to advantageously use the key notion of universal measurement, which constitutes the fil rouge of the whole text.

Providing a comprehensive exposition of the transactional interpretation (TI) of quantum mechanics, this book sheds new light on long-standing problems in quantum theory such as the physical meaning of the 'Born Rule' for the probabilities of measurement results, and demonstrates the ability of TI to solve the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. It provides robust refutations of various objections and challenges to TI, such as Maudlin's inconsistency challenge, and explicitly extends TI into the relativistic domain, providing new insight into the basic compatibility of TI with relativity and the meaning of 'virtual particles.' It breaks new ground in approaches to interpreting quantum theory and presents a compelling new ontological picture of quantum reality. This substantially revised and updated second edition is ideal for researchers and graduate students interested in the philosophy of physics and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

This title is a self-contained follow-up to Understanding Our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles (2015). Intended for the general reader but including more advanced material and an appendix of technical references for physics students and researchers, it reviews the basics of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics in its newer incarnation as a fully relativistic, realist interpretation of quantum theory, while embarking on further explorations of the implications of quantum theory. This interpretation is applied to new experiments and alleged 'paradoxes' that are found to be fully explicable once various misconceptions are identified.There is currently much disagreement about the meaning of quantum theory, as well as confusion about the implications of various experiments such as 'weak measurements,' 'quantum eraser,' and delayed choice. This book provides a clear way forward, presenting new developments and elaborating a promising interpretational approach that has completely nullified earlier objections (such as the Maudlin objection). It also explains why some prominent competing interpretations, such as 'decoherence' in an Everettian ('Many Worlds') approach, do not work as advertised.Adventures in Quantumland: Exploring Our Unseen Reality offers a fully relativistic interpretation of quantum mechanics with no discontinuity between non-relativistic and relativistic domains and shows how quantum theory allows for free will and for reconciliation of science and spiritual traditions.Related Link(s)

This book discusses the philosophical work of Décio Krause. Non-individuality, as a new metaphysical category, was thought to be strongly supported by quantum mechanics. No one did more to promote this idea than the Brazilian philosopher Décio Krause, whose works on the metaphysics and logic of non-individuality are now widely regarded as part of the consolidated literature on the subject. This volume brings together chapters elaborating on the ideas put forward and defended by Krause, developing them in many different directions, commenting on aspects not completely developed so far, and, more importantly, critically addressing their current formulations and defenses by Krause himself. Given that Krause’s ideas do connect directly and indirectly with a wide array of subjects, such as the philosophy of quantum mechanics, more broadly understood, the philosophy of logic and logical philosophy, non-classical logics, metaphysics, and ontology, this volume contains important material for the research on logic and foundations of science, broadly understood. All the invited contributors have already worked with the ideas developed by Décio (some of them still work with them), being also distinct authors and extremely relevant in their areas of expertise. The volume is aimed at philosophers, including those of physics and quantum mechanics.

This book provides a new original perspective on one of the most fascinating and important open questions in science: What is quantum mechanics talking about? Quantum theory is perhaps our best confirmed physical theory. However, in spite of its great empirical effectiveness and the subsequent technological developments that it gave rise to in the 20th century, from the interpretation of the periodic table of elements to CD players, holograms and quantum state teleportation, it stands even today without a universally accepted interpretation. The novelty of the book comes from the multiple viewpoints and the original angles taken by a group of young researchers from Europe and South America who gathered for several years under the auspices of the Center Leo Apostel.Each member of the group presented ideas concerning the interpretation of quantum mechanics. We had discussions ranging from the philosophical underpinnings of local realism and holism, information and decision theoretic approaches to quantum theory all the way to the many worlds interpretation. Strikingly, in much the same way as different — and indeed incompatible observations are needed to fully describe the physical state of affairs in quantum mechanics — the various interpretations of the theory also seem to shed viable, but not necessarily compatible, perspectives on different aspects of the same grand framework. The discussions that followed were both technical and lively, but perhaps their most remarkable quality was the absence of rigid points of view that unfortunately seems to paralyze so much of the discussion in this area. This book is an expression which can be interesting not only to the specialists but also for the general public attempting to get a grasp on one of the still most fundamental questions of present physics.

Steven French suggests a radical new approach to the understanding of quantum physics, derived from Husserl's phenomenological philosophy. In 1939 two physicists, Fritz London and Edmund Bauer, published an account of measurement in quantum mechanics. Widely cited, their 'little book' featured centrally in an important debate over the role of consciousness in that process. However, it has been fundamentally misunderstood, both in that debate and beyond. Steven French argues that London, in particular, approached the measurement process from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology, which he had studied as a student and which he retained an interest in throughout his career. This casts his work with Bauer in an entirely novel light and suggests a radical alternative understanding of quantum mechanics in which consciousness still plays a role but one that is fundamentally different than previously conceived. Most interpretations of the theory approach it on the basis of the so-called 'analytic' tradition in philosophy. However, there has recently been a surge of interest in 'continental' approaches and this book offers a significant new contribution to such developments. Intertwining history and philosophy, it presents London's background in physics and phenomenology, together with an outline of the latter as developed by Husserl, Gurwitsch, Merleau-Ponty and others, as well as a detailed analysis of the work on measurement with Bauer. The book concludes by comparing the London and Bauer understanding with that afforded by Fuch's QBism, Everett's 'Many Worlds' interpretation and Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics. It is hoped that this exploratory work will open up new avenues of thought with regard to one of our most fundamental physical theories.

This volume presents essays by pioneering thinkers including Tyler Burge, Gregory Chaitin, Daniel Dennett, Barry Mazur, Nicholas Humphrey, John Searle and Ian Stewart. Together they illuminate the Map/Territory Distinction that underlies at the foundation of the scientific method, thought and the very reality itself. It is imperative to distinguish Map from the Territory while analyzing any subject but we often mistake map for the territory. Meaning for the Reference. Computational tool for what it computes. Representations are handy and tempting that we often end up committing the category error of over-marrying the representation with what is represented, so much so that the distinction between the former and the latter is lost. This error that has its roots in the pedagogy often generates a plethora of paradoxes/confusions which hinder the proper understanding of the subject. What are wave functions? Fields? Forces? Numbers? Sets? Classes? Operators? Functions? Alphabets and Sentences? Are they a part of our map (theory/representation)? Or do they actually belong to the territory (Reality)? Researcher, like a cartographer, clothes (or creates?) the reality by stitching multitudes of maps that simultaneously co-exist. A simple apple, for example, can be analyzed from several viewpoints beginning with evolution and biology, all the way down its microscopic quantum mechanical components. Is there a reality (or a real apple) out there apart from these maps? How do these various maps interact/intermingle with each other to produce a coherent reality that we interact with? Or do they not? Does our brain uses its own internal maps to facilitate “physicist/mathematician” in us to construct the maps about the external territories in turn? If so, what is the nature of these internal maps? Are there meta-maps? Evolution definitely fences our perception and thereby our ability to construct maps, revealing to us only those aspects beneficial for our survival. But the question is, to what extent? Is there a way out of the metaphorical Platonic cave erected around us by the nature? While “Map is not the territory” as Alfred Korzybski remarked, join us in this journey to know more, while we inquire on the nature and the reality of the maps which try to map the reality out there. The book also includes a foreword by Sir Roger Penrose and an afterword by Dagfinn Follesdal.