Solutions of Lee Smolin Five Great Problems from his book {\it The Trouble with Physics: the Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next} are described. This solutions is obtained only from the properties of probability without any ontological hypotheses.
A number of books have appeared purporting to explain quantum mechanics to the general public. These books have put considerable emphasis on so-called quantum 'paradoxes', using them to portray the quantum theory as mysterious or 'spooky'. The author discusses these 'paradoxes' from a different viewpoint with the aim of demystifying the theory. Emphasis is shifted from an epistemological viewpoint (as exemplified by the 'probability interpretation') to an ontological one (the description of matter by physical fields). Difficulties in reconciling the probability interpretation with relativity are noted, and the importance of phase coherence, which is inadequately treated in the probability interpretation, is emphasised. In the light of such as approach, the 'paradoxes' are resolved.
THE PUZZLE CONCERNING THE CONCEPT OF PROBABILITY IN SM Throughout the book we have been preoccupied with a single simple scenario. We consider now an n -particle system M that is in a state s t at t . We want to know whether s t has a certain property A . The question that we are asking has a perfectly clear physical meaning. Nevertheless, the information that the answer requires may not always be available to us. It may be the case that the experiment needed to answer the question is too expensive or difficult to perform. It is also possible that there are theoretical reasons why we cannot perform the experiment, or, simply, the experiment has not been performed yet. In all of these cases the need for probabilities arises. We need to calculate the probability P ( s t ∈ A ) and use our results to derive predictions concerning M . But, even if there is little doubt that we constantly use probabilities, there is a basic problem concerning the interpretation of the probabilities. It is difficult to define probabilities as observable parameters that depend only on the physical properties of M . This difficulty gives rise to a philosophical puzzle: If probabilities are not physical parameters that we discover by methods of observation and measurement only, how can we justify our willingness to be guided by them? How can we explain the utility of probabilities? In the previous chapters, we reviewed several attempts to solve this problem.
Through both an historical and philosophical analysis of the concept of possibility, we show how including both potentiality and actuality as part of the real is both compatible with experience and contributes to solving key problems of fundamental process and emergence. The book is organized into four main sections that incorporate our routes to potentiality: (1) potentiality in modern science [history and philosophy; quantum physics and complexity]; (2) Relational Realism [ontological interpretation of quantum physics; philosophy and logic]; (3) Process Physics [ontological interpretation of relativity theory; physics and philosophy]; (4) on speculative philosophy and physics [limitations and approximations; process philosophy]. We conclude that certain fundamental problems in modern physics require complementary analyses of certain philosophical and metaphysical issues, and that such scholarship reveals intrinsic features and limits of determinism, potentiality and emergence that enable, among others, important progress on the quantum theory of measurement problem and new understandings of emergence.
Foundational issues in statistical mechanics and the more general question of how probability is to be understood in the context of physical theories are both areas that have been neglected by philosophers of physics. This book fills an important gap in the literature by providing a most systematic study of how to interpret probabilistic assertions in the context of statistical mechanics. The book explores both subjectivist and objectivist accounts of probability, and takes full measure of work in the foundations of probability theory, in statistical mechanics, and in mathematical theory. It will be of particular interest to philosophers of science, physicists and mathematicians interested in foundational issues, and also to historians of science.