Leibniz' notion of "pre-established harmony" is one of the central notions of his philosophy. It is the conceptual hinge which allows all monads to be interrelated and coordinated yet not influenced by each other through causal interactions, allowing Leibniz to construct a model of the world where moral justice can be philosophically incorporated. This concept has been viewed with some misgivings during the history of philosophy, finally being dismantled during the post-modern turn. We suggest its revival, based on the concept of a weak or generalised quantum theory, an axiomatic, systems theoretical approach, modelled along the same lines as the algebraic quantum theory. In contrast to quantum theory this drops a lot of definitions and restrictions, and is also applicable to different types of systems. Interestingly, its formalism preserves one central element of the quantum mechanical formalism: the handling of non-commuting or complementary observables. In consequence, the model predicts a generalised form of entanglement, i.e. non-local correlations across distance and time, that are not mediated through signals, but through the make up of the system as such. This seems to be a "mechanism" or coordination which could operate independent of and complementary to standard causal interactions, akin to the way Leibniz conceived pre-established harmony. We argue that such a generalised version of entanglement (GET) is in fact a systematic novel interpretation of pre-established harmony. If this line or argument is prolonged into the realm of morality and ethics, we have in fact a full fledged revival of Leibniz pre-established harmony.
Leibniz' notion of "pre-established harmony" is one of the central notions of his philosophy. It is the conceptual hinge which allows all monads to be interrelated and coordinated yet not influenced by each other through causal interactions, allowing Leibniz to construct a model of the world where moral justice can be philosophically incorporated. This concept has been viewed with some misgivings during the history of philosophy, finally being dismantled during the post-modern turn. We suggest its revival, based on the concept of a weak or generalised quantum theory, an axiomatic, systems theoretical approach, modelled along the same lines as the algebraic quantum theory. In contrast to quantum theory this drops a lot of definitions and restrictions, and is also applicable to different types of systems. Interestingly, its formalism preserves one central element of the quantum mechanical formalism: the handling of non-commuting or complementary observables. In consequence, the model predicts a generalised form of entanglement, i.e. non-local correlations across distance and time, that are not mediated through signals, but through the make up of the system as such. This seems to be a "mechanism" or coordination which could operate independent of and complementary to standard causal interactions, akin to the way Leibniz conceived pre-established harmony. We argue that such a generalised version of entanglement (GET) is in fact a systematic novel interpretation of pre-established harmony. If this line or argument is prolonged into the realm of morality and ethics, we have in fact a full fledged revival of Leibniz pre-established harmony.
Science is always presupposing some basic concepts that are held to be useful. These absolute presuppositions (Collingwood) are rarely debated and form the framework for what has been termed “paradigm” by Kuhn. Our currently accepted scientific model is predicated on a set of presuppositions that have difficulty accommodating holistic structures and relationships and are not geared towards incorporating non-local correlations. Since the theoretical models we hold also determine what we perceive and take as scientifically viable, it is important to look for an alternative model that can deal with holistic relationships. One approach is to generalise algebraic quantum theory, which is an inherently holistic framework, into a generic model. Relaxing some restrictions and definitions from quantum theory proper yields an axiomatic framework that can be applied to any type of system. Most importantly, it keeps the core of the quantum theoretical formalism. It is capable of handling complementary observables, i.e. descriptors which are non-commuting, incompatible and yet collectively required to fully describe certain situations. It also predicts a generalised form of non-local correlations that in quantum theory are known as entanglement. This generalised version is not quantum entanglement but an analogue form of holistic, non-local connectedness of elements within systems, predicted to occur whenever elements within systems are described by observables which are complementary to the description of the whole system. While a considerable body of circumstantial evidence supports the plausibility of the model, we are not yet in a position to use it for clear cut predictions that could be experimentally falsified. The series of papers offered in this special issue are the beginning of what we hope will become a rich scientific debate.
BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM: A main problem for the acceptance of many methods belonging to the broad spectrum of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is that there is no conceivable theoretical bridge between the mainstream biomedical model and CAM theories and practice. Although empirical evidence is one important side of the coin of credibility, theoretical feasibility is the other. History of science teaches that no amount of empirical evidence will convince sceptics and followers of more conventional paradigms as long as there is no good theoretical model to make empirical findings plausible. METHODS AND SOLUTION: I therefore propose to broaden the spectrum of theoretical concepts beyond the reigning local-causalist model toward a non-local model that encompasses effects as encountered in CAM. Such a model can be derived from a generalized and weaker version of quantum theory recently developed and published by my colleagues and I as weak quantum theory (WQT). This theoretical model predicts nonlocal correlations analogous to Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR)-like correlations in quantum mechanics proper. The discerning moment, though, is that these nonlocal correlations within WQT are not EPR correlations postulated to extend into the classical world, but a broader, generalized version of entanglement not dependent on the strict quantum nature of the system under question. WQT predicts entanglement between elements of a system if two variables or observables are complementary: one describing a global and one the local aspects of the system. Entanglement then ensues between those local elements of a system that are complementary to the global description or observable of that system. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: This paper explores this rather abstract and general notion and expands it into more concrete examples. It is at the moment a purely explanatory structure, which, however, lends itself to exact empirical testing due to rather precise predictions, which will be developed. Because this structure of generalized entanglement is ubiquitous and also operative in conventional medicine, and because it is derived from one of the strongest theories that science has developed so far, it would constitute a theoretical bridge between the different medical and scientific traditions.
Homeopathy is scientifically banned, both for lack of consistent empirical findings, but more so for lack of a sound theoretical model to explain its purported effects. This paper makes an attempt to introduce an explanatory idea based on a generalized version of quantum mechanics (QM), the weak quantum theory (WQT). WQT uses the algebraic formalism of QM proper, but drops some restrictions and definitions typical for QM. This results in a general axiomatic framework similar to QM, but more generalized and applicable to all possible systems. Most notably, WQT predicts entanglement, which in QM is known as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlatedness within quantum systems. According to WQT, this entanglement is not only tied to quantum systems, but is to be expected whenever a global and a local variable describing a system are complementary. This idea is used here to reconstruct homeopathy as an exemplification of generalized entanglement as predicted by WQT. It transpires that homeopathy uses two instances of generalized entanglement: one between the remedy and the original substance (potentiation principle) and one between the individual symptoms of a patient and the general symptoms of a remedy picture (similarity principle). By bringing these two elements together, double entanglement ensues, which is reminiscent of cryptographic and teleportation applications of entanglement in QM proper. Homeopathy could be a macroscopic analogue to quantum teleportation. This model is exemplified and some predictions are derived, which make it possible to test the model.
In classical mechanics, two (or more) systems that do not interact – that do not exert any kind of force on each other – are completely separated (see Sec. 1.1), i.e. experiments performed locally on one of them cannot in any way influence experiments performed locally on the other. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, admits that there can be a form of interdependence even in absence of physical interaction. This type of correlation goes under the name of entanglement (see Def. 5.1: p. 183). We already know that entanglement means non-factorizability of the state vector describing a system with at least two different degrees of freedom. In this chapter, we shall see that this may be the case also for systems that are very far away (space-like distant) from each other and we shall learn many interesting consequences of this state of affairs. Recent developments show that one may entangle even particles that have never interacted with each other. The starting point of the following analysis is necessarily represented by the pioneering paper of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, who inaugurated an incredible series of theoretical and experimental investigations right up to the present day that have confirmed the predictions of quantum mechanics. The “irony” of this history is that Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, EPR for short, aimed to present a definitive proof of the inconsistency of quantum mechanics relative to classical physical theory. In fact, they initiated one of the most prolific fields of modern science.
Quantum entanglement remains one of the most conceptually unresolved phenomena in modern physics. Although quantum mechanics predicts experimental outcomes with exceptional accuracy, the ontological interpretation of nonlocal correlations remains open to debate. This paper presents a conceptual relational interpretation proposal in which entangled systems originate from a unified invariant informational structure. Under this framework, measurement is not treated as passive observation of pre-existing classical values, but as a contextual projection process interacting with an underlying shared state. The proposal suggests that entangled particles may remain contextual projections of a deeper unified relational structure rather than fully independent separated systems exchanging information after separation. To clarify the concept, the paper introduces a software architecture analogy in which multiple observable variants may share the same immutable core state while generating contextual outputs depending on interaction and input configuration. Under this interpretation, correlated quantum outcomes may emerge from shared invariant structure rather than post-separation communication. The paper also introduces a complementary Color Sphere analogy representing a unified quantum state containing structured relational information. Different measurement configurations generate distinct projections of the same underlying structure while preserving internal relational consistency. This proposal does not claim experimental verification or a complete mathematical replacement for quantum mechanics. Instead, it offers a conceptual and philosophical framework intended to motivate future mathematical, informational, or relational approaches toward understanding entanglement, measurement, and structural consistency in physical reality.
This manuscript revisits quantum entanglement from a quantum field–theoretic perspective,with the aim of clarifying its conceptual status rather than proposing a new theory. The central claim is that quantum entanglement need not be understood as a mysteriousnonlocal phenomenon.When quantum fields are taken as the primary physical entities, entanglement followsnaturally from the non-separable structure of global field excitations.What appears puzzling in particle-based descriptions is thus revealed to be an expectedfeature of field-based ontology combined with reduced descriptions. The paper emphasizes a structural reading of the wavefunction as a description of fieldexcitations, and interprets entanglement as a consequence of restricting access to aglobally defined state.Locality is preserved at the level of operators, and all empirical predictions of quantumfield theory remain unchanged. No new dynamics, interpretations, or empirical claims are introduced.Instead, the work makes explicit a conceptual perspective that is already implicit instandard quantum field theory but is rarely articulated in a unified and accessible form.Formal details supporting the argument are provided in an appendix, while the main textfocuses on conceptual clarity. This work is intended as a contribution to the foundations of quantum theory, clarifyingthe relationship between entanglement, locality, and field-theoretic structure.