scholarly journals Beyond Causal Explanation: Einstein’s Principle Not Reichenbach’s

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Michael Silberstein ◽  
William Mark Stuckey ◽  
Timothy McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Minkowski Spacetime ◽  
Physical Principle ◽  
Causal Principle ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
Epr Correlations ◽  
Tsirelson Bound

Our account provides a local, realist and fully non-causal principle explanation for EPR correlations, contextuality, no-signalling, and the Tsirelson bound. Indeed, the account herein is fully consistent with the causal structure of Minkowski spacetime. We argue that retrocausal accounts of quantum mechanics are problematic precisely because they do not fully transcend the assumption that causal or constructive explanation must always be fundamental. Unlike retrocausal accounts, our principle explanation is a complete rejection of Reichenbach’s Principle. Furthermore, we will argue that the basis for our principle account of quantum mechanics is the physical principle sought by quantum information theorists for their reconstructions of quantum mechanics. Finally, we explain why our account is both fully realist and psi-epistemic.

scholarly journals The Inflation Technique Completely Solves the Causal Compatibility Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Navascués ◽  
Elie Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Linear Programming ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Categorical Variables ◽  
False Negatives ◽  
The Given ◽  
Causal Structures ◽  
Compatibility Question ◽  
Structure Graph

AbstractThe causal compatibility question asks whether a given causal structure graph — possibly involving latent variables — constitutes a genuinely plausible causal explanation for a given probability distribution over the graph’s observed categorical variables. Algorithms predicated on merely necessary constraints for causal compatibility typically suffer from false negatives, i.e. they admit incompatible distributions as apparently compatible with the given graph. In 10.1515/jci-2017-0020, one of us introduced the inflation technique for formulating useful relaxations of the causal compatibility problem in terms of linear programming. In this work, we develop a formal hierarchy of such causal compatibility relaxations. We prove that inflation is asymptotically tight, i.e., that the hierarchy converges to a zero-error test for causal compatibility. In this sense, the inflation technique fulfills a longstanding desideratum in the field of causal inference. We quantify the rate of convergence by showing that any distribution which passes the nth-order inflation test must be $\begin{array}{} \displaystyle {O}{\left(n^{{{-}{1}}/{2}}\right)} \end{array}$-close in Euclidean norm to some distribution genuinely compatible with the given causal structure. Furthermore, we show that for many causal structures, the (unrelaxed) causal compatibility problem is faithfully formulated already by either the first or second order inflation test.

scholarly journals Free Will in Human Behavior and Physics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Dinev Penchev
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Quantum Bit ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The One

If the concept of “free will” is reduced to that of “choice” all physical world share the latter quality. Anyway the “free will” can be distinguished from the “choice”: The “free will” involves implicitly a certain goal, and the choice is only the mean, by which the aim can be achieved or not by the one who determines the target. Thus, for example, an electron has always a choice but not free will unlike a human possessing both. Consequently, and paradoxically, the determinism of classical physics is more subjective and more anthropomorphic than the indeterminism of quantum mechanics for the former presupposes certain deterministic goal implicitly following the model of human freewill behavior. Quantum mechanics introduces the choice in the fundament of physical world involving a generalized case of choice, which can be called “subjectless”: There is certain choice, which originates from the transition of the future into the past. Thus that kind of choice is shared of all existing and does not need any subject: It can be considered as a low of nature. There are a few theorems in quantum mechanics directly relevant to the topic: two of them are called “free will theorems” by their authors (Conway and Kochen 2006; 2009). Any quantum system either a human or an electron or whatever else has always a choice: Its behavior is not predetermined by its past. This is a physical law. It implies that a form of information, the quantum information underlies all existing for the unit of the quantity of information is an elementary choice: either a bit or a quantum bit (qubit).

scholarly journals Cosmic Inflation, Quantum Information and the Pioneering Role of John S Bell in Cosmology

Universe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Martin
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Gravitational Instability ◽  
Cosmic Inflation ◽  
Large Scale Structures ◽  
Scale Structures ◽  
Accuracy Data ◽  
Made In

According to the theory of cosmic inflation, the large scale structures observed in our Universe (galaxies, clusters of galaxies, Cosmic Background Microwave—CMB—anisotropy...) are of quantum mechanical origin. They are nothing but vacuum fluctuations, stretched to cosmological scales by the cosmic expansion and amplified by gravitational instability. At the end of inflation, these perturbations are placed in a two-mode squeezed state with the strongest squeezing ever produced in Nature (much larger than anything that can be made in the laboratory on Earth). This article studies whether astrophysical observations could unambiguously reveal this quantum origin by borrowing ideas from quantum information theory. It is argued that some of the tools needed to carry out this task have been discussed long ago by J. Bell in a, so far, largely unrecognized contribution. A detailled study of his paper and of the criticisms that have been put forward against his work is presented. Although J. Bell could not have realized it when he wrote his letter since the quantum state of cosmological perturbations was not yet fully characterized at that time, it is also shown that Cosmology and cosmic inflation represent the most interesting frameworks to apply the concepts he investigated. This confirms that cosmic inflation is not only a successful paradigm to understand the early Universe. It is also the only situation in Physics where one crucially needs General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to derive the predictions of a theory and, where, at the same time, we have high-accuracy data to test these predictions, making inflation a playground of utmost importance to discuss foundational issues in Quantum Mechanics.

The Imposition of Empirical Acceptability Conditions on Sequences of Single Measurements

1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Benioff
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Classical Mechanics ◽  
Physical Principle ◽  
Small Time ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Single Measurement ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Regression Problem ◽  
Expectation Value ◽  
Almost All

AbstractHere, some difficulties resulting from the application of any empirical acceptability conditions on sequences of single measurements are investigated. In particular, the often used acceptability requirement that each single measurement be made under the "same conditions" is discussed. In quantum mechanics, this means that each single measurement is made of the same physical quantity on a system in a ensemble of identically prepared systems. One of the resultant difficulties is that such an application leads to an infinite regression of sequences of single measurements. That is, it does not account for the fact that an observer must start the process of measurement or knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, it is seen that there are some basic sequences of single measurements for which an observer can not possibly know at the outset that the "same condition" requirements are satisfied. These include those measurements by which the homogeneity of space-time is tested. The possible relevance of these difficulties to physics is shown by first considering two possi­bilities of avoiding these difficulties. One is that the "same condition" requirements can be given the weaker interpretation that there be no physical principle forbidding an observer from knowing in terms of limit empirical means, that they are satisfied at the outset of any sequence. This gets rid of the infinite regression problem as it does not mean that an observer must know in fact that these requirements are satisfied. The other possibility is that if physics does not forbid one in principle from measuring an expectation value in an arbitrarily small time interval then both the basic sequence as well as those by which one knows the "same" requirements are satisfied can be relegated to arbitrarily small time intervals. As far as physics is concerned, then the epistemological difficulties while existing in these small intervals, do not exist for other times, or almost all time. It is then shown that quantum mechanics, as distinct from classical mechanics, and the special relativity require that an infinite time interval is necessary to measure, as a limit mean, any expectation value. Thus physics denies both the above possibilities as it forbids an observer from knowing even in principle, by any finite time that the "same" requirements are satisfied. Also, physics forbids the relegation of the epistemological problems to arbitrarily small time intervals.

scholarly journals Reality, Indeterminacy, Probability, and Information in Quantum Theory

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 747
Author(s):  
Arkady Plotnitsky
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Quantum Correlations ◽  
Quantum Information Theory ◽  
Quantum Phenomena

Following the view of several leading quantum-information theorists, this paper argues that quantum phenomena, including those exhibiting quantum correlations (one of their most enigmatic features), and quantum mechanics may be best understood in quantum-informational terms. It also argues that this understanding is implicit already in the work of some among the founding figures of quantum mechanics, in particular W. Heisenberg and N. Bohr, half a century before quantum information theory emerged and confirmed, and gave a deeper meaning to, to their insights. These insights, I further argue, still help this understanding, which is the main reason for considering them here. My argument is grounded in a particular interpretation of quantum phenomena and quantum mechanics, in part arising from these insights as well. This interpretation is based on the concept of reality without realism, RWR (which places the reality considered beyond representation or even conception), introduced by this author previously, in turn, following Heisenberg and Bohr, and in response to quantum information theory.

Quantum mechanics as quantum information, mostly

2003 ◽  
Vol 50 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 987-1023 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information

scholarly journals BASICS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS, GEOMETRIZATION AND SOME APPLICATIONS TO QUANTUM INFORMATION

2008 ◽  
Vol 05 (06) ◽  
pp. 989-1032 ◽  
Author(s):  
JESÚS CLEMENTE-GALLARDO ◽  
GIUSEPPE MARMO
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Hilbert Spaces ◽  
Functional Independence ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Finite Dimensional ◽  
Entanglement Witnesses ◽  
Geometric Formulation

In this paper we present a survey of the use of differential geometric formalisms to describe Quantum Mechanics. We analyze Schrödinger framework from this perspective and provide a description of the Weyl–Wigner construction. Finally, after reviewing the basics of the geometric formulation of quantum mechanics, we apply the methods presented to the most interesting cases of finite dimensional Hilbert spaces: those of two, three and four level systems (one qubit, one qutrit and two qubit systems). As a more practical application, we discuss the advantages that the geometric formulation of quantum mechanics can provide us with in the study of situations as the functional independence of entanglement witnesses.

RELATIVITY AND THE SPEED OF LIGHT – A 100 YEAR OLD MISUNDERSTANDING

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 275-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. ŚWIATECKI
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Special Relativity ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Minkowski Spacetime ◽  
Speed Of Light ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mistaken Belief

I point out a conceptual misunderstanding in the exposition of relativity, namely the mistaken belief that light has something to do with the essence of relativity. This misunderstanding can be clarified by stressing that the content of Special Relativity is simply that "we live in a Minkowski spacetime", together with a thought experiment that illustrates how one could discover this fact without ever mentioning even the existence of light. I also note a recently uncovered implication of living in Minkowski spacetime, namely the Copenhagen reinterpretation of Quantum Mechanics, developed in the past decade.

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