Quantum holism: nonseparability as common ground

Ismael, Jenann; Schaffer, Jonathan

doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1201-2

Cited by 60 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…But our aim here is not to generate an explanation of the fundamental that will be acceptable to everyone, only to show that an explanation of the fundamental is possible given some recognizable (and recognizably metaphysical ) assumptions – for surely that suffices to undermine brutalism status as an uncontroversial metaphysical doctrine. We can note further that in making this assumption we are at least in good company, since Ismael and Schaffer () have recently expressed a similar conviction in their recent discussion of the metaphysics of the wavefunction. (The worry that there is something ‘trivial’ about the resulting explanation – an accusation often waged at anti‐Humean explanation in general – will be addressed below in Section 6.…”

Section: Introducing Quantum Fieldsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Against Brute Fundamentalism

McKenzie

2017

Dialectica

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In metaphysics, the fundamental is standardly equated with that which has no explanation – with that which is, in other words, ‘brute’. But this doctrine of brutalism is in tension with physicists’ ambitions to not only describe but also explain why the fundamental is the way that it is. The tension would ease were science taken to be incapable of furnishing the sort of explanations that brutalists are concerned with, given that these are understood to be of a distinctively ‘metaphysical sort’. But to assume this is to assume a sharp demarcation between physics and metaphysics that surely cannot be taken for granted. This paper sets out to examine the standing of brutalism from the perspective of contemporary fundamental physics, together with theories of explanation drawn both from the philosophy of science and metaphysics. Focusing on what fundamental kinds the world instantiates and how physicists go about determining them, I argue that a partial explanation, in Hempel's sense, may be given of this fundamental feature. Moreover, since this partial explanation issues, at least in part, from stipulations as to the essential nature of the kinds involved, I claim that it has as much right to be regarded as a metaphysical explanation as do grounding explanations. As such, my conclusion will be that the doctrine of brutalism can no longer be regardedas tenable: at least modulo certain plausible essentialist assumptions, it is no longer the case that no explanation can be given of the fundamental.

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Section: Introducing Quantum Fieldsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Against Brute Fundamentalism

McKenzie

2017

Dialectica

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“…The difference between states prior to and posterior to measurement calls for a metaphysical account distinguishing ontic and epistemic quantum realities [62,63] as different domains of discourse. For instance, Ismael and Schaffer [64] argue for a "common ground" principle that "casts nonseparable entities in a holistic light, as scattered reflections of a more unified underlying reality." In another vein, Allen et al [65] propose an option to generalize Reichenbach's common cause principle to quantum causal models in a graph-theoretical framework.…”

Section: Nonlocal Quantum Correlationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…So dual-aspect monism combines a base ontology with its derivative epistemologies. Using (and perhaps overstretching) Ismael and Schaffer's [64] wording, the mental and the physical are "scattered reflections of a more unified underlying reality".…”

Section: Mind-matter Correlationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlations and How to Interpret Them

Atmanspacher

Martin

2019

Information

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Correlations between observed data are at the heart of all empirical research that strives for establishing lawful regularities. However, there are numerous ways to assess these correlations, and there are numerous ways to make sense of them. This essay presents a bird's eye perspective on different interpretive schemes to understand correlations. It is designed as a comparative survey of the basic concepts. Many important details to back it up can be found in the relevant technical literature. Correlations can (1) extend over time (diachronic correlations) or they can (2) relate data in an atemporal way (synchronic correlations). Within class (1), the standard interpretive accounts are based on causal models or on predictive models that are not necessarily causal. Examples within class (2) are (mainly unsupervised) data mining approaches, relations between domains (multiscale systems), nonlocal quantum correlations, and eventually correlations between the mental and the physical.Here, µ X and µ Y are expectation values of X and Y, respectively, and σ X and σ Y are their standard deviations; E is the expected value operator; cov stands for covariance; and corr for correlation.But more often than not random variables X and Y are not linearly dependent. In this case, ρ X,Y may be greater than 0, but does only insufficiently characterize the dependence between X and Y. Also, different datasets with the same ρ X,Y can be of entirely different origin if they reflect variables that are nonlinearly related (a classic but still impressive example is the "Anscombe quartet" [4]). Even the case ρ X,Y = 0 does typically not reflect vanishing dependence for nonlinear relations. More sophisticated correlation measures have to be used in nonlinear time series analysis [5] to address nonlinar dependence relations properly.If two random (or stochastic) processes {X t } and {Y t } are statistically dependent, then they are correlated. The relevant quantitative measure (for wide-sense stationary processes with constant mean and well-defined variance) is the cross-correlation function τ → R X,Y (τ),where τ = t 1 − t 2 is the time lag between X t and Y t (for complex-valued processes, Y t+τ has to be replaced by its complex conjugate). For temporal correlations within a single process {X t }, this simplifies to the autocorrelation function R X,X (τ) = E[X t X t+τ ] .The Fourier-transform of R X,X (τ) yields the power spectrum of the process {X t } as a function of frequency f :

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“…Even if unrestricted composition is true, this version of pluralism is compatible with “No Parthood”, as Kaladin is not a proper part of either Elric or Dalinar. Nevertheless, I do think it is plausible to suppose – like Schaffer – that as basic objects are not grounded in any other basic object, they should be “modally free” of one another (per the argument from “modal connections” we saw earlier, which can be traced to Ismael and Schaffer (forthcoming)). Having said that, there are admittedly those who are sceptical of whether basic/fundamental entities should be freely recombinable (i.e., Wang, ).…”

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confidence: 92%

An Inconsistent Triad: Priority Pluralism, Perdurantism and (the Possibility of) Gunky Time

Taylor

2020

Theoria

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Priority pluralism, perdurantism and that temporal gunkwhere some interval of time is gunky iff every interval of it has a proper subintervalis at least metaphysically possible, are three commonly held views in contemporary metaphysics. However, there cannot be a temporally gunky world where objects perdure, and where there are mereological simples. Given thatas I will arguepluralists should be committed to atomism, and cannot plausibly revise their view to accommodate temporal gunk if they are perdurantists, pluralism is incompatible with the combination of temporal gunk and perdurantism. Therefore, priority pluralism, perdurantism and the possibility of temporal gunk are jointly incompatible, and at least one of these views must be false. Subsequently, it means that at least one of the following views must be true: priority monism or metaphysical infinitism; endurantism; and/or that time is atomistic. The triad's inconsistency, then, has some interesting metaphysical implications.

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Quantum holism: nonseparability as common ground

Cited by 60 publications

References 35 publications

Against Brute Fundamentalism

Against Brute Fundamentalism

Correlations and How to Interpret Them

An Inconsistent Triad: Priority Pluralism, Perdurantism and (the Possibility of) Gunky Time

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