The entanglement of physics and philosophy

Morton Masius

F. J. Duarte

One way to look at physics is from the perspective of philosophy. Indeed, physics can also be described as natural philosophy . Let us remember that universities don't award doctorates in physics (maybe they should) but they do award doctorates in philosophy to those who do physics. Here, we approach the subject of quantum philosophy without using any of the language associated with philosophy. We want a clear and direct discussion. The message is quite simple: quantum mechanics is based on indeterminism . Classical mechanics comes from determinism which is also one of the philosophical schools of thought. Given the enormous success of quantum mechanics, perhaps it is time for our philosophy friends to explore how indeterminism and uncertainty may temper deterministic perspectives in the classical domain. An additional message in this chapter, of interest to philosophers, is the fact that the physics of quantum entanglement , that is, derivation of its equations, is utterly independent of Bell's theorem .

Steven French

Alisa Bokulich, Gregg S. Jaeger

Recent work in quantum information science has produced a revolution in our understanding of quantum entanglement. Scientists now view entanglement as a physical resource with many important applications. These range from quantum computers, which would be able to compute exponentially faster than classical computers, to quantum cryptographic techniques, which could provide unbreakable codes for the transfer of secret information over public channels. These important advances in the study of quantum entanglement and information touch on deep foundational issues in both physics and philosophy. This interdisciplinary volume brings together fourteen of the world's leading physicists and philosophers of physics to address the most important developments and debates in this exciting area of research. It offers a broad spectrum of approaches to resolving deep foundational challenges - philosophical, mathematical, and physical - raised by quantum information, quantum processing, and entanglement. This book is ideal for historians, philosophers of science and physicists.

Dirk Eidemüller

David Wallace

Abstract This introductory chapter provides an overview of philosophy of physics, which is an interdisciplinary field sitting between physics proper, mainstream philosophy, and the general philosophy of science, and communicating ideas and insights between them. Philosophy of physics is mostly concerned not with physics as a whole but with particular areas within it. Given a field in physics, one can consider the conceptual—that is, philosophical—questions that arise in that field, and the problems in each sub-field are distinctive. The chapter briefly discusses many of these, including some in cutting-edge areas of physics like quantum cosmology, black holes, and string theory. But it notes that the bulk of work in philosophy of physics is concerned with three areas where the physics is reasonably well established: the philosophy of spacetime; the philosophy of statistical mechanics; and the philosophy of quantum mechanics.