The Quantum Labyrinth

At the outset of the research leading to this book I held a position somewhere close to 'the standard Copenhagen interpretation' of QM. I was strongly attracted to, in particular, the philosophy of Niels Bohr. However, being aware of some of the problematic sides and ambiguities of his views and of new developments which have taken place in QM after his time, the main challenge would be to develop a more up to date version version of his approach and express it in a philosophically unobjectionable way. Traces of this original attitude can still be found in views I hold nowadays. For instance, I think that I now know a satisfactory and correct way of dealing with features like 'complementarity', and I still see this as a relevant subject. In many other respects, however, there have been major changes in my position. In fact, during certain stages of my research my views simply started moving and kept on doing so at an irritating pace and for uncomfortably long periods of time. I learned, for example that at least some of the classical ideas about theory structure are much better than I had realized, and cannot just be pushed aside for anything even as impressive as empirical success.

Klappentext
This volume deals with the question of whether quantum mechanics can provide a picture of physical reality. This question is investigated from physical, philosophical, and logical perspectives on the basis of modern views on measurement and open quantum systems. New ways are found of respecting the rules of classical logic in quantum mechanics, by developing a formalization of the concept of a context' within a modularized version of modal logic. Various applications are given, both within and outside quantum theory. A contextual quantum process theory' is presented as a general framework for further interpretation. Several such interpretations are outlined, and ensuing problems of completeness and (non)locality are discussed. A special chapter is devoted to a manifestly covariant relativistic interpretation in terms of `quantum events'. This book will be of interest to experts on quantum theory, but it will also appeal to a wider public of physicists, philosophers and logicians.

Zusammenfassung
However, being aware of some of the problematic sides and ambiguities of his views and of new developments which have taken place in QM after his time, the main challenge would be to develop a more up to date version version of his approach and express it in a philosophically unobjectionable way.

Inhalt
The Quantum Labyrinth, A Treatise on Quantum Mechanics and Comparative Metaphysics.- 1 Realism, empiricism, pluralism.- 1.1 Realism versus empiricism.- 1.2 Metaphysical pluralism.- 2 Comparative metaphysics.- 2.1 Ambiguity and meta-ambiguity.- 2.2 Describing complex systems.- 3 The construction of physical reality.- 3.1 A model of theories.- 3.2 Contexts.- 3.3 Further elaborations on contextual semantics.- 4 Quantum mechanics.- 4.1 Logical peculiarities of QM.- 4.2 Measurement postulates.- 5 'Recent' developments in measurement theory.- 5.1 Effect valued measures.- 5.2 Operation valued measures.- 5.3 Some cases in measurement theory.- 5.4 ABL measures.- 6 Contextual QM.- 6.1 The initial contextual formulation of QM.- 6.2 Quantum process theory.- 6.3 A particle interpretation.- 6.4 Event theory.- 7 Completeness and locality.- 7.1 Quantum 'theory'?.- 7.2 Contextual QM and completeness.- 7.3 Splitting magnitudes.- 7.4 The incompleteness of the standard formalism of QM.- 7.5 Locality.- 7.6 Speculations on time-symmetry, causality, and quantum gravity.- 8 A maze of QMs.- 8.1 General methodological remarks.- 8.2 Nonclassical alternatives.- 8.3 Variations on the initial formalism.- 8.4 The Von Neumann chain.- 8.5 Relative process states.- 8.6 Conclusions.- 9 Quantum Event Theory, A Tetrode-Fokker version of Quantum Field Theory.- 9.1 Quantum events.- 9.2 Event fields.- 9.3 Field equations.- 9.4 The correspondence between field theory and event theory.- 9.5 Probabilities reconsidered.- 10 Contextual logic.- 10.1 The general structure of contextual logic.- 10.2 Some applications.- 10.3 Relevance, truth, reality.- 10.4 End.