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  1. (1 other version)Ockhamism and Philosophy of Time.Alessio Santelli (ed.) - 2022 - Springer Cham.
    This book discusses fundamental topics on contemporary Ockhamism. The collected essays show how contemporary Ockhamism can impact areas of research such as semantics, metaphysics and also the philosophy of science. In addition, the volume hosts one historian of Medieval philosophy who investigates the way in which William of Ockham “in flesh and bone” construed time and, more generally, future contingency. The essays explore the different meanings of this theory. They cover three main topics, in particular. The first examines the thesis (...)
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  • A modal-Hamiltonian interpretation of quantum mechanics.Olimpia Lombardi & Mario Castagnino - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 39 (2):380-443.
    The aim of this paper is to introduce a new member of the family of the modal interpretations of quantum mechanics. In this modal-Hamiltonian interpretation, the Hamiltonian of the quantum system plays a decisive role in the property-ascription rule that selects the definite-valued observables whose possible values become actual. We show that this interpretation is effective for solving the measurement problem, both in its ideal and its non-ideal versions, and we argue for the physical relevance of the property-ascription rule by (...)
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  • The quantum measurement problem: State of play.David Wallace - 2008 - In Dean Rickles (ed.), The Ashgate Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Physics. Ashgate.
    This is a preliminary version of an article to appear in the forthcoming Ashgate Companion to the New Philosophy of Physics.In it, I aim to review, in a way accessible to foundationally interested physicists as well as physics-informed philosophers, just where we have got to in the quest for a solution to the measurement problem. I don't advocate any particular approach to the measurement problem (not here, at any rate!) but I do focus on the importance of decoherence theory to (...)
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  • Quantum mechanics, orthogonality, and counting.Peter J. Lewis - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):313-328.
    In quantum mechanics it is usually assumed that mutually exclusives states of affairs must be represented by orthogonal vectors. Recent attempts to solve the measurement problem, most notably the GRW theory, require the relaxation of this assumption. It is shown that a consequence of relaxing this assumption is that arithmatic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects. It is argued that such a radical move is unwarranted given the current state of understanding of the foundations of quantum mechanics.
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  • Non-accessible mass and the ontology of GRW.Cristian Mariani - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 91 (C):270-279.
    The Mass Density approach to GRW (GRWm for short) has been widely discussed in the quantum foundations literature. A crucial feature of GRWm is the introduction of a Criterion of Accessibility for mass, which allows to explain the determinacy of experimental outcomes thus also addressing the tails problem of GRW. However, the Criterion of Accessibility leaves the ontological meaning of the non-accessible portion of mass utterly unexplained. In this paper I discuss two viable approaches to non-accessible mass, which I call (...)
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  • A new application of the modal-Hamiltonian interpretation of quantum mechanics: The problem of optical isomerism.Sebastian Fortin, Olimpia Lombardi & Juan Camilo Martínez González - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 62:123-135.
    The modal-Hamiltonian interpretation belongs to the modal family of interpretations of quantum mechanics. By endowing the Hamiltonian with the role of selecting the subset of the definite-valued observables of the system, it accounts for ideal and non-ideal measurements, and also supplies a criterion to distinguish between reliable and non-reliable measurements in the non-ideal case. It can be reformulated in an explicitly invariant form, in terms of the Casimir operators of the Galilean group, and the compatibility of the MHI with the (...)
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  • Unique transition probabilities in the modal interpretation.Pieter E. Vermaas - 1996 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 27 (2):133-159.
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  • Interpretation and identity in quantum theory.Jeremy Butterfield - 1993 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 24 (3):443--76.
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  • GRW and the tails problem.Peter Lewis - 1995 - Topoi 14 (1):23-33.
    The GRW theory is a recent attempt to solve the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, and the tails problem is a well-known and potentially fatal criticism of the GRW theory. The first half of the paper is an exposition of the measurement problem, the GRW theory, and the tails problem. In the remainder of the paper, two methods of dealing with the tails problem are considered: first, altering the GRW theory so as to avoid the tails problem; and second, denying (...)
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  • Dissipating the quantum measurement problem.Richard Healey - 1995 - Topoi 14 (1):55-65.
    The integration of recent work on decoherence into a so-called modal interpretation offers a promising new approach to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. In this paper I explain and develop this approach in the context of the interactive interpretation presented in Healey (1989). I begin by questioning a number of assumptions which are standardly made in setting up the measurement problem, and I conclude that no satisfactory solution can afford to ignore the influence of the environment. Further, I argue (...)
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  • Compatibility between Environment-Induced Decoherence and the Modal-Hamiltonian Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.Olimpia Lombardi, Juan Sebastián Ardenghi, Sebastian Fortin & Mario Castagnino - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (5):1024-1036.
    Given the impressive success of environment-induced decoherence, nowadays no interpretation of quantum mechanics can ignore its results. The modal-Hamiltonian interpretation has proved to be effective for solving several interpretative problems, but since its actualization rule applies to closed systems, it seems to stand at odds with EID. The purpose of this article is to show that this is not the case: the states einselected by the interaction with the environment according to EID are the eigenvectors of an actual-valued observable belonging (...)
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  • Modal interpretations, decoherence and measurements.Guido Bacciagaluppi & Meir Hemmo - 1996 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 27 (3):239-277.
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  • Interpreting spontaneous collapse theories.Peter J. Lewis - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 36 (1):165-180.
    Spontaneous collapse theories of quantum mechanics require an interpretation if their claim to solve the measurement problem is to be vindicated. The most straightforward interpretation rule, the fuzzy link, generates a violation of common sense known as the counting anomaly. Recently, a consensus has developed that the mass density link provides an appropriate interpretation of spontaneous collapse theories that avoids the counting anomaly. In this paper, I argue that the mass density link violates common sense in just as striking a (...)
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  • Fundamental physical theories: mathematical structures grounded on a primitive ontology.Valia Allori - 2007 - Dissertation, Rutgers
    In my dissertation I analyze the structure of fundamental physical theories. I start with an analysis of what an adequate primitive ontology is, discussing the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and theirs solutions. It is commonly said that these theories have little in common. I argue instead that the moral of the measurement problem is that the wave function cannot represent physical objects and a common structure between these solutions can be recognized: each of them is about a clear three-dimensional (...)
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  • Event ontology in quantum mechanics and the problem of emergence.Rodolfo Gambini & Jorge Pullin - unknown
    We introduce an ontology of objects and events that is particularly well suited for several interpretations of quantum mechanics. It leads to an important revision of the notion of matter and its implications. Within this context one can show that systems in entangled states present emergent new properties and downward causation where certain behavior of parts of the system are only determined by the state of the whole. Interpretations of quantum mechanics that admit such an event ontology solve the problem (...)
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  • On the Status of Primitive Ontology.Peter J. Lewis - unknown
    Spontaneous collapse theories provide a promising solution to the measurement problem. But they also introduce a number of problems of their own concerning dimensionality, vagueness, and locality. In response to these problems, advocates of collapse theories have proposed various accounts of the primitive ontology of collapse theories—postulated underlying entities governed by the collapse theory and underwriting our observations. The most prominent of these are a mass density distribution over three-dimensional space, and a set of discrete “flash” events at space-time points. (...)
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