14065 research outputs found
Sort by
Many Worlds as Anti-Conspiracy Theory: Locally and causally explaining a quantum world without finetuning
Get PDFWhy are quantum correlations so puzzling? A standard answer is that they seem to require either nonlocal influences or conspiratorial coincidences. This suggests that by embracing nonlocal influences we can avoid conspiratorial fine-tuning. But that’s not entirely true. Recent work, leveraging the framework of graphical causal models, shows that even with nonlocal influences, a kind of fine-tuning is needed to recover quantum correlations. This fine-tuning arises because the world has to be just so as to disable the use of nonlocal influences to signal, as required by the no-signaling theorem. This places an extra burden on theories that posit nonlocal influences, such as Bohmian mechanics, of explaining why such influences are inaccessible to causal control. I argue that Everettian Quantum Mechanics suffers no such burden. Not only does it not posit nonlocal influences, it operates outside the causal models framework that was presupposed in raising the fine-tuning worry. Specifically, it represents subsystems with density matrices instead of random variables. This allows it to sidestep all the results (including EPR and Bell) that put quantum correlations in tension with causal models. However, this doesn’t mean one must abandon causal reasoning altogether in a quantum world. After all, quantum systems can clearly stand in causal relations. When decoherence is rampant and there’s no controlled entanglement, Everettian Quantum Mechanics licenses our continued use of standard causal models. When controlled entanglement is present---such as in Bell-type experiments---we can employ recently proposed quantum causal models that are consistent with Everettian Quantum Mechanics. We never need invoke any kind of nonlocal influence or any kind of fine-tuning
The Problem of Atypicality in LLM-Powered Psychiatry
Get PDFLarge language models (LLMs) are increasingly proposed as scalable solutions to the global mental health crisis. But their deployment in psychiatric contexts raises a distinctive ethical concern: the problem of atypicality. Because LLMs generate outputs based on population-level statistical regularities, their responses—while typically appropriate for general users—may be dangerously inappropriate when interpreted by psychiatric patients, who often exhibit atypical cognitive or interpretive patterns. We argue that standard mitigation strategies, such as prompt engineering or fine-tuning, are insufficient to resolve this structural risk. Instead, we propose Dynamic Contextual Certification (DCC): a staged, reversible, and context-sensitive framework for deploying LLMs in psychiatry, inspired by clinical translation and dynamic safety models from AI governance. DCC reframes chatbot deployment as an ongoing epistemic and ethical process that prioritizes interpretive safety over static performance benchmarks. Atypicality, we argue, cannot be eliminated – but it can, and must, be proactively managed
Noncommutative Geometry and Chronogeometry in Quantum Gravity
Get PDFChronogeometry is often conceived as a necessary condition for spatiotemporality, yet many theories of quantum gravity (QG) seem to challenge it. Applications of noncommutative geometry (NCG) to QG propose that spacetime exhibits noncommutative features at or beyond the Planck scale, thereby replacing relativistic symmetries with their deformations, known as quantum groups. This leads to an algebraic formulation of noncommutative structure that postulates a minimal length scale and deforms relativistic (commutative) physics, raising questions about whether noncommutative theories preserve spatiotemporal content,
and specifically, chronogeometry. I argue that noncommutative approaches can satisfy an appropriate definition of chronogeometry, thus attaining physical
significance within QG. In particular, I contend that noncommutativity is compatible with chronogeometricity, using κ-Minkowski spacetime as case study in NCG. In this algebraic setting, physical interpretation hinges on two crucial elements: a representation of the noncommutative algebra and a corresponding set of observers. I show how this framework enables the algebra to encode localisation
procedures for events in noncommutative spacetime, relative to a noncommutative reference frame, with frame transformations governed by the quantum group structure. By enriching the theory with noncommutative reference frames, NCG can satisfy the necessary representational principles to support chronogeometric content
Quantum Systems as Indivisible Stochastic Processes
Get PDFAccording to the stochastic-quantum correspondence, a quantum system can be understood as a stochastic process unfolding in an old-fashioned configuration space based on ordinary notions of probability and ‘indivisible’ stochastic laws, which are a non-Markovian generalization of the laws that describe a textbook stochastic process. The Hilbert spaces of quantum theory and their ingredients, including wave functions, can then be relegated to secondary roles as convenient mathematical appurtenances. In addition to providing an arguably more transparent way to understand and modify quantum theory, this indivisible-stochastic formulation may lead to new possible applications of the theory. This paper initiates a deeper investigation into the conceptual foundations and structure of the stochastic-quantum correspondence, with a particular focus on novel forms of gauge invariance, dynamical symmetries, and Hilbert-space dilations
A Deflationary Account of Quantum Theory and its Implications for the Complex Numbers
Get PDFWhy does quantum theory need the complex numbers? With a view toward answering this question, this paper argues that the usual Hilbert-space formalism is a special case of the general method of Markovian embeddings. This paper then describes the ‘indivisible interpretation’ of quantum theory, according to which a quantum system can be regarded as an ‘indivisible’ stochastic process unfolding in an old-fashioned configuration space, with wave functions and other exotic Hilbert-space ingredients demoted from having an ontological status. The complex numbers end up being necessary to ensure that the Hilbert-space formalism is indeed a Markovian embedding
Making Measurement Useful: Integrating Measurement, Uncertainty, and Sensitivity
Get PDFWe employ a pragmatist model of inquiry to explain how measurement in physics can solve the problem of usefulness. In spite of the fact that a variety of resources, including theory, simulation, heuristics, rules of thumb, and practical considerations contribute to the context of a specific measurement inquiry, the measurement inquiry process partially decontextualizes its results, making them useful for other inquiries. This measurement inquiry process involves a process of transformation of data we call "entheorization," which happens in conjunction with the evaluation of uncertainty of measurement results. These uncertainty estimates then serve to define the sensitivity of the result to the aims of subsequent inquiries. On this approach, the epistemology of measurement requires treating measurement procedure, uncertainty estimation, and sensitivity to targets of inquiry as equally fundamental to understanding how measurement yields knowledge. To help understand how the abstract elements of our epistemological model of experimental inquiries are applicable to concrete episodes of measurement, we use the example of the W-boson mass measurement at the Large Hadron Collider to illustrate our arguments
How is a relational ontology (such as a formal learning model) formally relational? An phenomenological exploration of the semiotic logic of agency in physics, mathematics, and biology
Get PDFA phenomenological exploration of the distinction between a relational formal ontology (also called a process ontology) and a classical formal ontology (also called an object ontology) for modelling physical phenomena that exhibit relationally-mediated holism, such as phenomena from quantum physics and biosemiotics. Whereas a classical formal ontology is based on mathematical objects and classes, a relational formal ontology is based on mathematical signs and categories. A relational formal ontology involves nodal networks that are dynamically sustained through signalling. Nodal networks are systems of constrained iterative processes (dynamical nodes) that have individual semiotic ageny within a matrix of determinate possibilities (a semiotic scaffolding). The nodal networks are hierarchically ordered and exhibit characteristics of deep learning. Clarifying the distinction between classical and relational formal ontologies may help to clarify the role of interpretative context in physics (eg. the role of the observer in quantum theory), the role of signalling in biological systems and the role of hierarchical nodal networks in computational models of learning processes in generative artificial intelligence (AI)
Apples Falling, Buckets Rolling, and Why Inertia Keeps Trolling: Inertial Motion is Not Natural Motion
Get PDFInertia has long been treated as the paradigm of natural motion. This paper challenges this identification through the lens of General Relativity. By refining Norton (2012)’s distinction between idealisation and approximation and drawing on key insights from Tamir (2012) regarding the theorems and proofs of Einstein and Grommer (1927), Geroch and Jang (1975), Geroch and Traschen (1987) and Ehlers and Geroch (2004), I argue that geodesic motion—commonly taken as the relativistic counterpart of inertial motion—qualifies as neither an approximation nor an idealisation. Rather, geodesic motion is best understood as a useful construct—a formal artefact of the theory’s geometric structure, lacking both real and fictitious instantiation, and ultimately excluded by the dynamical structure of General Relativity. In place of inertial motion, I develop a layered account of natural motion, which is not encoded in a single ‘master equation of motion’. Extended, structured, and backreacting bodies require dynamical formalisms of increasing refinement that systematically depart from geodesic motion. This pluralist framework displaces inertial motion as the privileged expression of pure gravitational motion, replacing it with a dynamically grounded hierarchy of approximations fully consistent with the Einstein field equations
The Epistemic Grounds for Lay Interference in the Conduct of Science
Get PDFI present a heretofore untheorised form of lay science, called extitutional science, whereby lay scientists, by virtue of their collective experience, are able to detect errors committed by institutional scientists and attempt to have them corrected. I argue that the epistemic success of institutional science is enhanced to the extent that it takes up this extitutional criticism. Since this uptake does not occur spontaneously, extitutional interference in the conduct of institutional science is required. I make a proposal for how to secure this epistemically beneficial form of lay interference
Randomness, Quantum Uncertainty, and Emergence: A Suggestion for Testing the Seemingly Untestable
Get PDFThe functioning of complex natural structures, such as living systems, has been awaiting a generally accepted theoretical basis and respective empirical verification for decades, partly due to a lack of meaningful experiments. We therefore propose a class of experiments designed to test whether an unknown principle of order is at work in natural dynamical systems that cannot be captured by known physical laws. The working hypothesis is that the quantum mechanical uncertainty principle allows for ordering phenomena in chaotic or nearly chaotic physical systems, in the sense of a strong emergence principle, which would not be expected when they are modelled conventionally, as several authors have already formulated in various forms. In order to account for the harsh conditions prevailing in living systems which appear to preclude fragile macroscopic quantum coherence, our hypothesis does not require such coherence at all, contrary to earlier proposals that included coherent quantum mechanical states. The key idea behind testing this bold hypothesis is to compare two virtually identical, sufficiently complex experimental setups. One setup operates with deterministic pseudo-random number generators at key sensitive points, while the other uses quantum-based physical random-number generators, the two setups being otherwise identical. Existing artificial neural networks are proposed as possible test objects for this purpose, and their overall performance under identical training conditions could be used as a quantitative benchmark. As this working hypothesis extends far beyond artificial networks, a successful outcome of such an experiment could have significant implications for many other branches of science