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Harvard University Press eBooks

After Physics

David Z. Albert

Published Feb 2, 2015• 156 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Here the philosopher and physicist David Z Albert argues, among other things, that the difference between past and future can be understood as a mechanical phenomenon of nature and that quantum mechanics makes it impossible to present the entirety of what can be said about the world as a narrative of “befores” and “afters.”
DOI
10.4159/harvard.9780674735507

Related papers

Some remarks on “externalisms”

Hilary Putnam

David Albert has proved an important theorem, a surprising one, which certainly has relevance to the way we will understand quantum mechanics in the future. Whether its moral is really the “non-narratibility” of the history of the quantum world is, however, dependent on interpretative questions about which philosophers and physicists – even philosophers and physicists who, like David Albert and myself, are looking for what the late, great, J. S. Bell called an “unromantic” interpretation of quantum mechanics – are sure to disagree. In this brief comment I want to say what Albert has certainly shown , and what depends on those interpretative questions (and, of course, what those questions are). By an “unromantic” interpretation, what Bell meant is an intelligible and mathematically precise interpretation in which there is no talk about “consciousness” reducing the wave packet, “measurements” are simply described as a subclass of physical interactions, and, of course, there is no loose talk about the world consisting of “information.”

Routledge eBooks•Aug 21, 2012•0 citations

On What Being a World Takes Away

Rob Clifton

In their article “On What It Takes To Be a World”, David Albert and Jeffrey Barrett raise “a rather urgent question about what the proponents of a many-worlds interpretation [of quantum mechanics] can possibly mean by the term ‘worlds’” (1995, 35). I argue that their considerations do not translate into an argument against the Many-Worlds conception of a world unless one requires that the dispositions that measurement devices display through the outcomes they record be explainable in terms of facts particular to the worlds in which those devices do their recording. Granting that their conception of a world takes away the possibility of such an explanation, a Many-Worlds proponent can claim that the Universal quantum state, which does not represent a fact about any world in particular, is enough to ground the dispositions of measurement devices.

Philosophy of Science•Jan 1, 1996•3 citations

Book Symposium: David Albert, After Physics

Wayne C. Myrvold, David Z. Albert, Craig Callender +1 more

On April 1, 2016, at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, a book symposium, organized by Alyssa Ney, was held in honor of David Albert’s After Physics (Harvard University Press, 2015). All participants agreed that it was a valuable and enlightening session. We have decided that it would be useful, for those who weren’t present, to make our remarks publicly available. Please bear in mind that what follows are remarks prepared for the session, and that on some points participants may have changed their minds in light of the ensuing discussion.

•Apr 1, 2016•1 citation

Space, time and spooky action

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Albert Einstein's persistent opposition to quantum mechanics is a familiar, if still somewhat surprising, fact to all physicists, as David Bodanis observes in his latest book Einstein's Greatest Mistake: the Life of a Flawed Genius .

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A user-friendly quantum logic

Peter Gibbins

Why should anyone think that what is so deeply puzzling about the quantum world is really a matter of logic? Why should anyone think that studying the logic of quantum mechanics should be a route to a proper understanding of quantum mechanics? There is a tradition in the philosophy of quantum mechanics, a tradition stronger among philosophical commentators than among physicists, which sees the subject as the business of understanding quantum mechanical language and the way that language relates to the world. It is an idea more strongly held by philosophers – it comes much more naturally to them – because the analytic tradition, in which most Anglo-American philosophers of science are raised, is generally much exercised about words and how they hook on to things. The analytic tradition in the philosophy of quantum mechanics is not unreasonable. Everyone admits that we cannot picture the microphysical world, that a graphic or iconic representation of quantum systems is impossible. Therefore understanding quantum mechanics must be a matter of understanding the logic of the words and the mathematics of quantum mechanics. If this seems implausible, it is because of an ambiguity in our use of the verb ‘to understand’. We understand the physical world, and we understand physics. But physics is not the physical world. It is something of an entirely different sort, a human product, a way of representing the world.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Sep 25, 1987•20 citations

Heisenberg and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: The Physicist as Philosopher

Kristian Camilleri

This book provides a new perspective on Heisenberg's interpretation of quantum mechanics for researchers and graduate students in the history and philosophy of physics.

•Feb 23, 2009•77 citations
David Albert has proved an important theorem, a surprising one, which certainly has relevance to the way we will understand quantum mechanics in the future. Whether its moral is really the “non-narratibility” of the history of the quantum world is, however, dependent on interpretative questions about which philosophers and physicists – even philosophers and physicists who, like David Albert and myself, are looking for what the late, great, J. S. Bell called an “unromantic” interpretation of quantum mechanics – are sure to disagree. In this brief comment I want to say what Albert has certainly shown , and what depends on those interpretative questions (and, of course, what those questions are). By an “unromantic” interpretation, what Bell meant is an intelligible and mathematically precise interpretation in which there is no talk about “consciousness” reducing the wave packet, “measurements” are simply described as a subclass of physical interactions, and, of course, there is no loose talk about the world consisting of “information.”
In their article “On What It Takes To Be a World”, David Albert and Jeffrey Barrett raise “a rather urgent question about what the proponents of a many-worlds interpretation [of quantum mechanics] can possibly mean by the term ‘worlds’” (1995, 35). I argue that their considerations do not translate into an argument against the Many-Worlds conception of a world unless one requires that the dispositions that measurement devices display through the outcomes they record be explainable in terms of facts particular to the worlds in which those devices do their recording. Granting that their conception of a world takes away the possibility of such an explanation, a Many-Worlds proponent can claim that the Universal quantum state, which does not represent a fact about any world in particular, is enough to ground the dispositions of measurement devices.
On April 1, 2016, at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, a book symposium, organized by Alyssa Ney, was held in honor of David Albert’s After Physics (Harvard University Press, 2015). All participants agreed that it was a valuable and enlightening session. We have decided that it would be useful, for those who weren’t present, to make our remarks publicly available. Please bear in mind that what follows are remarks prepared for the session, and that on some points participants may have changed their minds in light of the ensuing discussion.
Why should anyone think that what is so deeply puzzling about the quantum world is really a matter of logic? Why should anyone think that studying the logic of quantum mechanics should be a route to a proper understanding of quantum mechanics? There is a tradition in the philosophy of quantum mechanics, a tradition stronger among philosophical commentators than among physicists, which sees the subject as the business of understanding quantum mechanical language and the way that language relates to the world. It is an idea more strongly held by philosophers – it comes much more naturally to them – because the analytic tradition, in which most Anglo-American philosophers of science are raised, is generally much exercised about words and how they hook on to things. The analytic tradition in the philosophy of quantum mechanics is not unreasonable. Everyone admits that we cannot picture the microphysical world, that a graphic or iconic representation of quantum systems is impossible. Therefore understanding quantum mechanics must be a matter of understanding the logic of the words and the mathematics of quantum mechanics. If this seems implausible, it is because of an ambiguity in our use of the verb ‘to understand’. We understand the physical world, and we understand physics. But physics is not the physical world. It is something of an entirely different sort, a human product, a way of representing the world.