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  1. Mad-Dog Everettianism: Quantum Mechanics at Its Most Minimal.Sean M. Carroll & Ashmeet Singh - 2019 - In Anthony Aguirre, Brendan Foster & Zeeya Merali (eds.), What is Fundamental? Cham: Springer Verlag. pp. 95-104.
    To the best of our current understanding, quantum mechanics is part of the most fundamental picture of the universe. It is natural to ask how pure and minimal this fundamental quantum description can be. The simplest quantum ontology is that of the Everett or Many-Worlds interpretation, based on a vector in Hilbert space and a Hamiltonian. Typically one also relies on some classical structure, such as space and local configuration variables within it, which then gets promoted to an algebra of (...)
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  • Two Kinds of High-Level Probability.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2019 - The Monist 102 (4):458-477.
    According to influential views the probabilities in classical statistical mechanics and other special sciences are objective chances, although the underlying mechanical theory is deterministic, since the deterministic low level is inadmissible or unavailable from the high level. Here two intuitions pull in opposite directions: One intuition is that if the world is deterministic, probability can only express subjective ignorance. The other intuition is that probability of high-level phenomena, especially thermodynamic ones, is dictated by the state of affairs in the world. (...)
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  • The physics of implementing logic: Landauer's principle and the multiple-computations theorem.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 68:90-105.
    This paper makes a novel linkage between the multiple-computations theorem in philosophy of mind and Landauer’s principle in physics. The multiple-computations theorem implies that certain physical systems implement simultaneously more than one computation. Landauer’s principle implies that the physical implementation of “logically irreversible” functions is accompanied by minimal entropy increase. We show that the multiple-computations theorem is incompatible with, or at least challenges, the universal validity of Landauer’s principle. To this end we provide accounts of both ideas in terms of (...)
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  • (2 other versions)A field guide to recent work on the foundations of statistical mechanics.Roman Frigg - 2008 - In Dean Rickles (ed.), The Ashgate Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Physics. Ashgate. pp. 99-196.
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  • Ontology of the wave function and the many-worlds interpretation.Lev Vaidman (ed.) - 2019 - Cambridge University Press, UK.
    It is argued that the many-worlds interpretation is by far the best interpretation of quantum mechanics. The key points of this view are viewing the wave functions of worlds in three dimensions and understanding probability through self-locating uncertainty.
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  • (1 other version)Foundation of statistical mechanics: Mechanics by itself.Orly Shenker - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (12):e12465.
    Statistical mechanics is a strange theory. Its aims are debated, its methods are contested, its main claims have never been fully proven, and their very truth is challenged, yet at the same time, it enjoys huge empirical success and gives us the feeling that we understand important phenomena. What is this weird theory, exactly? Statistical mechanics is the name of the ongoing attempt to apply mechanics, together with some auxiliary hypotheses, to explain and predict certain phenomena, above all those described (...)
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  • Consciousness Explained.Daniel Dennett - 1991 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (4):905-910.
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  • Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays.Jaegwon Kim - 1993 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (4):579-607.
    For three decades the writings of Jaegwon Kim have had a major influence in philosophy of mind and in metaphysics. Sixteen of his philosophical papers, together with several new postscripts, are collected in Kim [1993]. The publication of this collection prompts the present essay. After some preliminary remarks in the opening section, in Section 2 I will briefly describe Kim's philosophical 'big picture' about the relation between the mental and the physical. In Section 3 I will situate Kim's approach on (...)
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  • Maxwell's Demon.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2010 - Journal of Philosophy 107 (8):389-411.
    This paper proves that Maxwell's Demon is compatible with classical mechanics. In particular it shows how the cycle of operation - including measurement and erasure - can be carried out with no entropy cost, contrary to the Landauer-Bennett thesis (according to which memory erasure costs kln2 of entropy increase per bit). The Landauer-Bennet thesis is thus proven to be mistaken.
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  • Everettian rationality: defending Deutsch's approach to probability in the Everett interpretation.David Wallace - 2003 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 34 (3):415-439.
    An analysis is made of Deutsch's recent claim to have derived the Born rule from decision-theoretic assumptions. It is argued that Deutsch's proof must be understood in the explicit context of the Everett interpretation, and that in this context, it essentially succeeds. Some comments are made about the criticism of Deutsch's proof by Barnum, Caves, Finkelstein, Fuchs, and Schack; it is argued that the flaw which they point out in the proof does not apply if the Everett interpretation is assumed.
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  • The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics.Alyssa Ney & David Albert (eds.) - 2013 - , US: Oxford University Press USA.
    This is a new volume of original essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. The essays address questions such as: What fundamental metaphysics is best motivated by quantum mechanics? What is the ontological status of the wave function? Does quantum mechanics support the existence of any other fundamental entities, e.g. particles? What is the nature of the fundamental space of quantum mechanics? What is the relationship between the fundamental ontology of quantum mechanics and ordinary, macroscopic objects like tables, chairs, and (...)
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  • The Everett Interpretation.David Wallace - unknown
    The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics - better known as the Many-Worlds Theory - has had a rather uneven reception. Mainstream philosophers have scarcely heard of it, save as science fiction. In philosophy of physics it is well known but has historically been fairly widely rejected. Among physicists, it is taken very seriously indeed, arguably tied for first place in popularity with more traditional operationalist views of quantum mechanics. In this article, I provide a fairly short and self-contained introduction to (...)
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  • (1 other version)Physics and Chance.Lawrence Sklar - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (1):145-149.
    Statistical mechanics is one of the crucial fundamental theories of physics, and in his new book Lawrence Sklar, one of the pre-eminent philosophers of physics, offers a comprehensive, non-technical introduction to that theory and to attempts to understand its foundational elements. Among the topics treated in detail are: probability and statistical explanation, the basic issues in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, the role of cosmology, the reduction of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, and the alleged foundation of the very notion (...)
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  • The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory According to the Everett Interpretation.David Wallace - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    David Wallace argues that we should take quantum theory seriously as an account of what the world is like--which means accepting the idea that the universe is constantly branching into new universes. He presents an accessible but rigorous account of the 'Everett interpretation', the best way to make coherent sense of quantum physics.
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  • Time, decoherence and quantum mechanics.Simon Saunders - 1995 - Synthese 102 (2):235-266.
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  • (1 other version)On the interpretation of measurement in quantum theory.H. D. Zeh - 1970 - Foundations of Physics 1 (1):69-76.
    It is demonstrated that neither the arguments leading to inconsistencies in the description of quantum-mechanical measurement nor those “explaining” the process of measurement by means of thermodynamical statistics are valid. Instead, it is argued that the probability interpretation is compatible with an objective interpretation of the wave function.
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  • (1 other version)A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of ‘Hidden’ Variables, I and II.David Bohm - 1952 - Physical Review (85):166-193.
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  • Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky & Nathan Rosen - 1935 - Physical Review (47):777-780.
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  • The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul.Douglas R. Hofstadter & Daniel Clement Dennett (eds.) - 1981 - New York: Basic Books.
    Essays from some of the 20th century's greatest thinkers explore topics as diverse as artificial intelligence, evolution, science fiction, philosophy, reductionism, and consciousness, presenting a variety of conflicting visions of the self and the soul. Illustrations.
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  • On schizophrenic experiences of the neutron or why we should believe in the many‐worlds interpretation of quantum theory.Lev Vaidman - 1990 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (3):245 – 261.
    This is a philosophical paper in favor of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. The necessity of introducing many worlds is explained by analyzing a neutron interference experiment. The concept of the “measure of existence of a world” is introduced and some difficulties with the issue of probability in the framework of the MWI are resolved.
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  • Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.Lev Vaidman - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is an approach to quantum mechanics according to which, in addition to the world we are aware of directly, there are many other similar worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics.
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  • Relational quantum mechanics.Federico Laudisa - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Relational quantum mechanics is an interpretation of quantum theory which discards the notions of absolute state of a system, absolute value of its physical quantities, or absolute event. The theory describes only the way systems affect each other in the course of physical interactions. State and physical quantities refer always to the interaction, or the relation, between two systems. Nevertheless, the theory is assumed to be complete. The physical content of quantum theory is understood as expressing the net of relations (...)
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  • Compendium of the foundations of classical statistical physics.Jos Uffink - 2006 - In J. Butterfield & J. Earman (eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of physics. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
    Roughly speaking, classical statistical physics is the branch of theoretical physics that aims to account for the thermal behaviour of macroscopic bodies in terms of a classical mechanical model of their microscopic constituents, with the help of probabilistic assumptions. In the last century and a half, a fair number of approaches have been developed to meet this aim. This study of their foundations assesses their coherence and analyzes the motivations for their basic assumptions, and the interpretations of their central concepts. (...)
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  • (2 other versions)A field guide to recent work on the foundations of statistical mechanics.Roman Frigg - 2008 - In Dean Rickles (ed.), The Ashgate Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Physics. Ashgate. pp. 99-196.
    This is an extensive review of recent work on the foundations of statistical mechanics.
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  • Time, quantum mechanics, and decoherence.Simon Saunders - 1995 - Synthese 102 (2):235 - 266.
    State-reduction and the notion of actuality are compared to passage through time and the notion of the present; already in classical relativity the latter give rise to difficulties. The solution proposed here is to treat both tense and value-definiteness as relational properties or facts as relations; likewise the notions of change and probability. In both cases essential characteristics are absent: temporal relations are tenselessly true; probabilistic relations are deterministically true. The basic ideas go back to Everett, although the technical development (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Special sciences (or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis).Jerry Fodor - 1974 - Synthese 28 (2):97-115.
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  • Interpreting the many-worlds interpretation.David Albert & Barry Loewer - 1988 - Synthese 77 (November):195-213.
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  • (2 other versions)Special sciences.Jerry A. Fodor - 1974 - Synthese 28 (2):97-115.
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  • Real patterns.Daniel C. Dennett - 1991 - Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):27-51.
    Are there really beliefs? Or are we learning (from neuroscience and psychology, presumably) that, strictly speaking, beliefs are figments of our imagination, items in a superceded ontology? Philosophers generally regard such ontological questions as admitting just two possible answers: either beliefs exist or they don't. There is no such state as quasi-existence; there are no stable doctrines of semi-realism. Beliefs must either be vindicated along with the viruses or banished along with the banshees. A bracing conviction prevails, then, to the (...)
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  • Consciousness Explained.Daniel C. Dennett - 1991 - Penguin Books.
    Little, Brown, 1992 Review by Glenn Branch on Jul 5th 1999 Volume: 3, Number: 27.
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  • (1 other version)On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox.J. S. Bell - 1964 - \em Physics 1:195-200.
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  • A challenge to the second law of thermodynamics from cognitive science and vice versa.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):4897-4927.
    We show that the so-called Multiple-Computations Theorem in cognitive science and philosophy of mind challenges Landauer’s Principle in physics. Since the orthodox wisdom in statistical physics is that Landauer’s Principle is implied by, or is the mechanical equivalent of, the Second Law of thermodynamics, our argument shows that the Multiple-Computations Theorem challenges the universal validity of the Second Law of thermodynamics itself. We construct two examples of computations carried out by one and the same dynamical process with respect to which (...)
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  • The Road to Maxwell’s Demon.Orly Shenker & Meir Hemmo - 2012 - Cambridge University Press.
    This book provides a conceptual foundation for statistical mechanics, which is - more generally - a conceptual framework for understanding natural kinds, which later became the conceptual framework for our reductive-physicalist view of the mind called Flat Physicalism.
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  • (1 other version)Foundation of statistical mechanics: The auxiliary hypotheses.Orly Shenker - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (12):e12464.
    Statistical mechanics is the name of the ongoing attempt to explain and predict certain phenomena, above all those described by thermodynamics on the basis of the fundamental theories of physics, in particular mechanics, together with certain auxiliary assumptions. In another paper in this journal, Foundations of statistical mechanics: Mechanics by itself, I have shown that some of the thermodynamic regularities, including the probabilistic ones, can be described in terms of mechanics by itself. But in order to prove those regularities, in (...)
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  • Probability and Typicality in Deterministic Physics.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (3):575-586.
    In this paper we analyze the relation between the notion of typicality and the notion of probability and the related question of how the choice of measure in deterministic theories in physics may be justified. Recently it has been argued that although the notion of typicality is not a probabilistic notion, it plays a crucial role in underwriting probabilistic statements in classical statistical mechanics and in Bohm’s theory. We argue that even in theories with deterministic dynamics, like classical statistical mechanics (...)
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  • (4 other versions)Mental Events.Donald Davidson - 1970 - In Lawrence Foster & Joe William Swanson (eds.), Experience and Theory. London, England: Humanities Press.
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  • (1 other version)On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox.J. S. Bell - 2004 - In John Stewart Bell (ed.), Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics: collected papers on quantum philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 14--21.
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  • Delocalized Properties in the Modal Interpretation of a Continuous Model of Decoherence.Guido Bacciagaluppi - 2000 - Foundations of Physics 30 (9):1431-1444.
    I investigate the character of the definite properties defined by the Basic Rule in the Vermaas and Dieks' (1995) version of the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics, specifically for the case of the continuous model of decoherence by Joos and Zeh (1985). While this model suggests that the characteristic length that might be associated with the localisation of an individual system is the coherence length of the state (which converges rapidly to the thermal de Broglie wavelength), I show in an (...)
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  • Unified dynamics for microscopic and macroscopic systems.GianCarlo Ghirardi, Alberto Rimini & Tullio Weber - 1986 - Physical Review D 34 (D):470–491.
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  • Quantum Theory of Probability and Decisions.David Deutsch - 1999 - Proceedings of the Royal Society of London:3129--37.
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  • (1 other version)The role of decoherence in quantum mechanics.Guido Bacciagaluppi - 2003 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Interference phenomena are a well-known and crucial feature of quantum mechanics, the two-slit experiment providing a standard example. There are situations, however, in which interference effects are (artificially or spontaneously) suppressed. We shall need to make precise what this means, but the theory of decoherence is the study of (spontaneous) interactions between a system and its environment that lead to such suppression of interference. This study includes detailed modelling of system-environment interactions, derivation of equations (‘master equations’) for the (reduced) state (...)
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  • Supervenience and mind: selected philosophical essays.Jaegwon Kim - 1993 - New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
    Jaegwon Kim is one of the most preeminent and most influential contributors to the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. This collection of essays presents the core of his work on supervenience and mind with two sets of postscripts especially written for the book. The essays focus on such issues as the nature of causation and events, what dependency relations other than causal relations connect facts and events, the analysis of supervenience, and the mind-body problem. A central problem in the philosophy (...)
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  • (4 other versions)Mental Events.Donald Davidson - 2003 - In John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • Brute Facts.Elly Vintiadis & Constantinos Mekios (eds.) - 2018 - Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    Brute facts are facts that don't have explanations. They are instrumental in our attempts to give accounts of other facts or phenomena, and so they play a key role in many philosophers' views about the structure of the world. This volume explores neglected questions about the nature of brute facts and their explanatory role.
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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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  • Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett. [REVIEW]Ned Block - 1993 - Journal of Philosophy 90 (4):181-193.
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  • Toward a quantum theory of observation.H. D. Zeh - 1973 - Foundations of Physics 3 (1):109-116.
    The program of a physical concept of information is outlined in the framework of quantum theory. A proposal is made for how to avoid the intuitive introduction of observables. The conventional and the Everett interpretations in principle may lead to different dynamical consequences. An ensemble description occurs without the introduction of an abstract concept of information.
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  • (1 other version)Quantum probability and many worlds.Meir Hemmo - 2007 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (2):333-350.
    We discuss the meaning of probabilities in the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. We start by presenting very briefly the many worlds theory, how the problem of probability arises, and some unsuccessful attempts to solve it in the past. Then we criticize a recent attempt by Deutsch to derive the quantum mechanical probabilities from the nonprobabilistic parts of quantum mechanics and classical decision theory. We further argue that the Born probability does not make sense even as an additional probability (...)
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  • Everett's relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics.Jeffrey Barrett - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Everett's relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to solve the measurement problem by dropping the collapse dynamics from the standard von Neumann-Dirac theory of quantum mechanics. The main problem with Everett's theory is that it is not at all clear how it is supposed to work. In particular, while it is clear that he wanted to explain why we get determinate measurement results in the context of his theory, it is unclear how he intended to do this. There (...)
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  • (1 other version)”Relative state’ formulation of quantum mechanics.Hugh Everett - 1957 - Reviews of Modern Physics 29 (3):454--462.
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