Founding our analysis on the Geneva-Brussels approach to the foundations of physics, we provide a clarification and classification of the key concept of observation. An entity can be observed with or without a scope. In the second case, the observation is a purely non-invasive discovery process; in the first case, it is a purely invasive process, which can involve either creation or destruction aspects. An entity can also be observed with or without a full control over the observational process. In (...) the latter case, the observation can be described by a symmetry breaking mechanism, through which a specific deterministic observational process is selected among a number of potential ones, as explained in Aerts’ hidden measurement approach. This is what is called a product test, or product observation, whose consequences are that outcomes can only be predicted in probabilistic terms, as it is the case in typical quantum measurements. We also show that observations can be about intrinsic (stable) properties of the observed entity, or about relational (ephemeral) properties between the observer and observed entities; also, they can be about intermediate properties, neither purely classical, nor purely quantum. Our analysis allows us to propose a general conceptual characterization of quantum measurements, as observational processes involving three aspects: (1) product observations, (2) pure creation aspects and (3) ephemeral relational properties. We also discuss the important concept of non-spatiality and emphasize some of the differences and similarities between quantum and classical/relativistic observations. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is threefold. Firstly, it aims to present, in an educational and non-technical fashion, the main ideas at the basis of Aerts’ creation-discovery view and hidden measurement approach : a fundamental explanatory framework whose importance, in this author’s view, has been seriously underappreciated by the physics community, despite its success in clarifying many conceptual challenges of quantum physics. Secondly, it aims to introduce a new quantum machine—that we call the δ quantum machine —which is able to (...) reproduce the transmission and reflection probabilities of a one-dimensional quantum scattering process by a Dirac delta-function potential. The machine is used not only to demonstrate the pertinence of the above mentioned explanatory framework, in the general description of physical systems, but also to illustrate (in the spirit of Aerts’ ∊-model) the origin of classical and quantum structures, by revealing the existence of processes which are neither classical nor quantum, but irreducibly intermediate. We do this by explicitly introducing what we call the k-model and by proving that its processes cannot be modelized by a classical or quantum scattering system. The third purpose of this work is to exploit the powerful metaphor provided by our quantum machine, to investigate the intimate relation between the concept of potentiality and the notion of non-spatiality , that we characterize in precise terms, introducing for this the new concept of process-actuality. (shrink)

We put forward a possible new interpretation and explanatory framework for quantum theory. The basic hypothesis underlying this new framework is that quantum particles are conceptual entities. More concretely, we propose that quantum particles interact with ordinary matter, nuclei, atoms, molecules, macroscopic material entities, measuring apparatuses, in a similar way to how human concepts interact with memory structures, human minds or artificial memories. We analyze the most characteristic aspects of quantum theory, i.e. entanglement and non-locality, interference and superposition, identity and (...) individuality in the light of this new interpretation, and we put forward a specific explanation and understanding of these aspects. The basic hypothesis of our framework gives rise in a natural way to a Heisenberg uncertainty principle which introduces an understanding of the general situation of ‘the one and the many’ in quantum physics. A specific view on macro and micro different from the common one follows from the basic hypothesis and leads to an analysis of Schrödinger’s Cat paradox and the measurement problem different from the existing ones. We reflect about the influence of this new quantum interpretation and explanatory framework on the global nature and evolutionary aspects of the world and human worldviews, and point out potential explanations for specific situations, such as the generation problem in particle physics, the confinement of quarks and the existence of dark matter. (shrink)

We consider the classical concept of time of permanence and observe that its quantum equivalent is described by a bona fide self-adjoint operator. Its interpretation, by means of the spectral theorem, reveals that we have to abandon not only the idea that quantum entities would be characterizable in terms of spatial trajectories but, more generally, that they would possess the very attribute of spatiality. Consequently, a permanence time shouldn’t be interpreted as a “time” in quantum mechanics, but as a measure (...) of the total availability of a quantum entity in participating to a process of creation of a spatial localization. (shrink)

After presenting Apostel’s views on scientific realism, I present definitions of the concepts of ontology and metaphysics. I then proceed to develop Apostel’s basic ontology and his metaphysics. Apostel proposed a particular understanding of existence based on his views on causation. He also developed a view of the universe as a causal self-explaining system. I discuss and illustrate three kinds of what he calls “metaphysical deductions” that aim to deliver such a view of the universe. The most important one is (...) the Leibnizian variational method, that should allow us to deduce the existing universe as the ‘best’ of all possible worlds. (shrink)

The condition of explicit theoretically discursive cognitive performance, as it culminates in scientific activity, is, I claim, the life world. I contrast life world and scientific world and argue that the latter arises from the first and that contrary to the prevailing views the scientific world (actually, worlds, since the classical world is substantially different from the quantum world) finds its completion in the life world and not the other way around. In other words: the closure we used to search (...) in a complete and comprehensive scientific description of all aspects of experience by referring it back to underlying atoms, genes and other scientific objects and the covering laws ruling them, should be sought in a reintegrating and occasionally dissolving of the abstract scientific model in the self-organizational fluidity and superposition-like indeterminateness and non-locality of the life world: “We have to acknowledge the indeterminate as a positive phenomenon” (Merleau-Ponty in his The Phenomenology of Perception). (shrink)

In this paper we concentrate on the nature of the liar paradox asa cognitive entity; a consistently testable configuration of properties. We elaborate further on a quantum mechanical model (Aerts, Broekaert and Smets, 1999) that has been proposed to analyze the dynamics involved, and we focus on the interpretation and concomitant philosophical picture. Some conclusions we draw from our model favor an effective realistic interpretation of cognitive reality.