Quantum Objects: Parts and Wholes

Gregg S. Jaeger

Ramona Ardelean

If the paradigm of classical epistemology follows the logic of the part, being tributary to the principle of subject-object separability, in which the subject, that is, the part, is considered separate from the object, that is, the whole, then the new paradigm of the quantum theory has replaced the principle of separability, specific to the logic of the part, with the principle of subject-object nonseparability or global intercorrelation, specific to the logic of the whole. Starting from this principle of quantum nonseparability, I will show that it can be explored and applied in new forms of psychotherapy. I mean here the art of meditation, as the art of the whole, that is, the art of perceiving the world and ourselves in a nondualistic nonanalytical, and nonfragmentary way, in which the subject and the object, the observer and the observed, the part and the whole, are not separated, but interconnected.

Gregg S. Jaeger

William M. Simpson

Abstract The Problem of Macro-Objects concerns how three-dimensional, middle-sized objects, such as scientists and their measuring devices, can exist in a quantum world. This paper discusses the problem for wave function realism and the primitive ontology approach to quantum mechanics, focussing on Alyssa Ney’s recent two-stage solution, in which macro-objects are functionally reduced to micro-objects and micro-objects are parts of a whole in which they are grounded (the wave function field). It raises metaphysical difficulties with this proposal which a hylomorphic account of wholes may be able to address, noting possible implications for one’s philosophy of mind depending on one’s preferred solution to the Measurement Problem.

Gustavo Esteban Romero

Pedro F. González-Dı́az

Technical and physical reasons are given in favor of the idea that single universes, accelerating or not, essentially are quantum-mechanical entities without any classical analogs, even when they are forming part of a given multi- verse.