One of the fundamental insights of quantummechanics is that complete knowledge of the state of a quantum system is not possible. Such incomplete knowledge of a physical system is the norm rather than the exception. This is becoming increas-ingly apparent as we apply scientific methods to increasingly complex situations. Empirically intensive disciplines in the biological, human, and geosciences all operate in situations where valid conclusions must be drawn, but deductive com-pleteness is impossible. This paper argues that such situations are emerging exam-ples of Open World Science. In this paradigm, scientific models are known to be acting with incomplete information. Open World models acknowledge their incompleteness, and respond positively when new information becomes available. Many methods for creating Open World models have been explored analytically in quantitative disciplines such as statis-tics, and the increasingly mature area of machine learning. This paper examines the role of quantum theory and quan-tum logic in the underpinnings of Open World models, ex-amining the importance of structural features of such as non-commutativity, degrees of similarity, induction, and the im-pact of observation. Quantum mechanics is not a problem around the edges of classical theory, but is rather a secure bridgehead in the world of science to come.
One of the fundamental insights of quantummechanics is that complete knowledge of the state of a quantum system is not possible. Such incomplete knowledge of a physical system is the norm rather than the exception. This is becoming increas-ingly apparent as we apply scientific methods to increasingly complex situations. Empirically intensive disciplines in the biological, human, and geosciences all operate in situations where valid conclusions must be drawn, but deductive com-pleteness is impossible. This paper argues that such situations are emerging exam-ples of Open World Science. In this paradigm, scientific models are known to be acting with incomplete information. Open World models acknowledge their incompleteness, and respond positively when new information becomes available. Many methods for creating Open World models have been explored analytically in quantitative disciplines such as statis-tics, and the increasingly mature area of machine learning. This paper examines the role of quantum theory and quan-tum logic in the underpinnings of Open World models, ex-amining the importance of structural features of such as non-commutativity, degrees of similarity, induction, and the im-pact of observation. Quantum mechanics is not a problem around the edges of classical theory, but is rather a secure bridgehead in the world of science to come.
Quantum mechanics has achieved unparalleled success as an operational theory, describing a wide range of experiments to remarkable accuracy. However, the physical foundations on which it rests remain as puzzling as they were a century ago, and a concise statement of the physical principles that underlie quantum mechanics is still outstanding. One promising approach holds that these principles should be formulated in terms of information, since many of the counter-intuitive effects in quantum theory concern questions such as what one can know about a quantum system and how the information encoded therein can be processed and distributed between parties. Another challenging feature of quantum theory is its incompatibility with the other cornerstone of modern physics, general relativity. In order to reconcile the two, one must identify and retain only the essential concepts and principles of each theory, and in the case of general relativity, causality has been identified as such a concept. This raises the question of how our classical understanding of causality must change when quantum theory is taken into account. In order to address these questions about information, knowledge and causality, I turn to the framework of causal models. In classical statistics, causal models explain the relations among a set of variables in terms of causal influences, which makes them a powerful tool for structuring our knowledge about complex systems and developing strategies for interacting with them. More importantly, the framework provides the conceptual underpinnings and mathematical methods for addressing questions about causation, information and knowledge in a rigorous manner. In this thesis, I develop a version of the classical causal models framework that is compatible with quantum theory and explore its physical implications. \n \n \nA first step is to define quantum versions of fundamental elements such as variables, conditionals and belief propagation rules. This allows one to consider the question of what one can come to know about a quantum variable from the point of view of causal modelling. The conditionals relating quantum variables are found to have a richer structure than their classical counterparts, which can be exploited for the task of discerning causal relations given limited data -- a central problem in classical causal modelling. The mathematical properties of quantum conditionals also establish a correspondence between various classes of two-party correlations, such as bound and distillable entanglement, and the types of causal structures that can give rise to them, which may become a useful tool for entanglement theory and quantum information processing. In the context of open quantum systems dynamics, quantum causal models provide a clear physical explanation of not completely positive maps and, more broadly, of non-Markovian quantum dynamics. Finally, I consider the possibility of non-classical effects in the way that different causal mechanisms are combined -- that is, non-classical causal structures. For the simple case of two causally ordered variables, I propose indicators that witness different classes of combinations of causal mechanisms, including a non-classical mixture, and describe an experiment realizing examples of the different classes. \n \n \nAs these results illustrate, the framework of quantum causal models provides both greater conceptual clarity and a comprehensive mathematical formalism for studying a diverse set of problems, ranging from foundational questions to applications in open systems dynamics and the exploration of non-classical causal structures, which are likely to feature in a future theory of quantum gravity. The material presented in this thesis is intended as a foundation and inspiration for further applications of quantum causal models.
Abstract The study of open systems is a cornerstone of many scientific disciplines outside physics. Across the biological, social, and cognitive sciences, systems are commonly understood in terms of their interactions with an environment. This is because, at a fundamental level, the entities studied in these disciplines are rarely, if ever, isolated. While openness is often taken as a given in the special sciences, physics has historically developed with a strong emphasis on closed-system modelling. The success of Newtonian mechanics, classical thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics has to a large extent relied on the ability to isolate and describe systems in terms of well-defined boundary conditions. However, recent developments suggest that the importance of open systems is gaining increasing recognition even within physics. In this introduction we introduce the general topic of open systems in physics and the open systems view, and we summarise each of the other chapters of the volume.
Abstract Quantum mechanics is our most successful and versatile account of the basic constituents of matter, of their interaction and of their compounds. We introduce the theory via a sketch of its history and lay out its mathematical structure in some detail. Before this background we address the important and controversial question of how to interpret that structure. We contextualise our own position, which is linked to our account of ontological emergence as detailed in Chap. 2 , and which is mathematically best expressed in the Heisenberg picture of quantum dynamics. Indeterminism and irreversible processes are fundamental for our approach. We discuss the dialectics of the deterministic challenge to our position and argue that indeterminism in the form of quantum randomness has turned from a philosophical riddle to a technological resource. This claim is supported by a discussion of quantum information science, including some of its basic protocols. Towards the end of the chapter we argue that agency and quantum mechanics come as a package deal. For one, quantum mechanics describes the world as offering open possibilities for the future at a fundamental physical level, which is needed for real higher-order organisation, including agency. Of course, this does not in any way show that the actual existence of agents in our world is guaranteed. But it does show that general agency scepticism has no basis in physics. Second, we show that quantum mechanics is best understood as a theory that describes our agential interactions with nature, and not as a theory that represents nature from the point of view of an inert, detached observer.
It is impossible to fully grasp reality and the universe without a sound understanding of quantum science, i.e. theory. The aim of this paper is twofold, namely first presenting what quantum information processing consists of, and then consequently discussing the implications of quantum science to the understanding of reality. I shall claim that the world is fully quantum, and the classical world is but a limit case of the quantum world. The crux of the argument is that quantum information can be taken as a living phenomenon. Quantum information processing (QIP) has been mainly the subject of computational approaches. Here we take it as the way in which information allows for a non-dualistic explanation of the world. In this sense, quantum information processing consists in understanding how entanglement stands as the ground for a coherent reality yet highly dynamical, vibrant and vivid. Information, I argue, is a living phenomenon that creates itself out of nothing. Quantum information is a relational view of entities, systems, phenomena, and events (Auletta, 2005).
The findings of physics at the beginning of the last century have caused a revolutionary change in our commonly accepted view of the world. Because of their seemingly paradoxical features the philosophical consequences of the new insights, however, were never really adopted by the scientific community despite the quite apparent and far-reaching technical innovations they enabled. The new so-called „quantum“ physics revealed that the world at its foundation is no longer the familiar, tangible (thing-like) reality but rather a holistic immaterial „gestalt“: pure „interconnectedness“, inseparable „potentiality“. Its evolution in time does not follow from strictly determined laws but is only guided by certain inherent tendencies exhibited in terms of definite probabilities for possible material-energetic realizations. Generally these realizations recover the appearance of the familiar classical world as an objective reality with rigorous dynamic laws. In contrast to the old world view, where matter, consisting of discrete, constant building blocks, ranks first, and its various forms result secondarily from different law-determined arrangements of these building blocks, the situation in the modern view is turned around: Relationship or „gestalt“ or „information“ is now more fundamental and substance or matter/energy appears subsequently as an as-if phenomenon on the macroscopic level. The new world view sets limits to knowledge and the related science on principle. It proves to be very powerful because it establishes bridges between all disciplines and hitherto conflicting paradigms and descriptions. In particular in this more open framework the non-living and living phenomena (including the human species) no longer appear as basically different, but as two different structures of the same immaterial essence, relating respectively to static stable and static instable (highly sensitive), but dynamically stabilised (homeostatic) configurations. In such a „basically alive“ world biology and medicine, therefore, have to accept that logistically the immaterial, information-type (“spiritual“) software in the background becomes more important than the (physical) hardware being guided by it. The well-known difficulty of complementary medicine – and in particular of homeopathy with its impressive healing record – to explain its experience in the language of the old science, based on substances and a mechanistic dynamic, may thus be resolved within the more open and flexible framework of modern „science“, in which knowledge has a more open meaning (due to basic indeterminism) offering many more dimensions for healing to the devoted healer. The observation of a highly diversified filigree crystalline structure of (liquid) water, as demonstrated by recent studies, may represent a material/energetic print-out of the hidden information coded in the basic immaterial software.
Quantum physics can be understood as an epistemological rupture that transforms the foundations of modern scientific rationality. In contrast to the Newtonian mechanistic worldview that underpinned universalist notions of progress, objectivity, and control, quantum mechanics introduces uncertainty, contextuality, non-locality, and the constitutive role of observation into scientific knowledge. These features destabilize the image of reality as a unified, hierarchically structured, and fully transparent domain, thereby challenging the epistemic premises of Western universalism. At the cultural level, this rupture finds expression in forms of scientific magical realism, where the quantum world appears as strange, paradoxical, elusive and fundamentally ungraspable. Such representations allow the quantum revolution to be interpreted not only as a theoretical breakthrough in physics but as an internal epistemological transformation of modern rationality itself. The issue is not the abandonment of rationality, but the reconfiguration of its foundations: the acknowledgment of uncertainty, contextuality, and the participatory role of the observer as structural features of knowledge. This shift is comparable to the epistemological tensions identified by postcolonial theory in situations where hegemonic discourses encounter forms of knowledge that cannot be reduced to their universalist logic. In this sense, quantum physics emerges as a form of internal epistemological alterity within Western science: while remaining part of its canon, it simultaneously rearticulates its ontological assumptions and limits its claim to constitute the sole normative regime of rationality. Extending quantum logic into social theory enables a shift from mechanistic social ontology toward a quantum social ontology, in which relationality, co-constitution, and process take precedence over fixed entities and linear causality. This transformation unfolds as a form of passive revolution, in the Gramscian sense: a profound ontological reorientation achieved not through the destruction of disciplinary institutions, but through their gradual conceptual reconfiguration. The epistemological outcome of this shift is the pluralization of knowledge and the emergence of a pluriversal onto-epistemological horizon, where scientific rationality becomes compatible with multiple cosmologies and situated ways of knowing. In this sense, the quantum turn opens a pathway toward the decolonization of knowledge and the rethinking of global order beyond universalist epistemic hierarchies.