In this paper I explore Aristotle’s notion of matter as a principle of potentiality in order to understand how could be applied to quantum physics. One of the main metaphysical problems concerning the wave function is that it seems to set some sort of indetermination within the physical reality. It is precisely for this reason that I believe that Aristotle’s vision of matter as a source of potentiality and indetermination might be a good metaphysical tool that can be applied to quantum mechanics.
In this paper I explore Aristotle’s notion of matter as a principle of potentiality in order to understand how could be applied to quantum physics. One of the main metaphysical problems concerning the wave function is that it seems to set some sort of indetermination within the physical reality. It is precisely for this reason that I believe that Aristotle’s vision of matter as a source of potentiality and indetermination might be a good metaphysical tool that can be applied to quantum mechanics.
In this paper I explore Aristotle’s notion of matter as a principle of potentiality in order to understand how could be applied to quantum physics. One of the main metaphysical problems concerning the wave function is that it seems to set some sort of indetermination within the physical reality. It is precisely for this reason that I believe that Aristotle’s vision of matter as a source of potentiality and indetermination might be a good metaphysical tool that can be applied to quantum mechanics.
One of the main philosophical problems of quantum mechanics is understanding in what manner Schödinger's wave function can said to be real.In this paper I explore the ways in which the Aristotelian notion of potentiality could be used to understand the reality of the wave function, as suggested by Heisenberg in some of his writings.For this reason I sketch some of the potential complications in the interpretation of wave function while trying to develop Aristotle's philosophy of potentiality in relation to quantum mechanics.I will also attempt to demonstrate the connections of Popper's account of propensities with the notion of potentiality.
Quantum mechanics has maintained over the years the reputation of being "the most obscure theory." It works perfectly well, but nobody seems to know why. It has been argued that the difficulty in understanding quantum theory is our failed attempt to force onto it a wrong conceptual scheme, wanting at all costs to think about the objects of the theory as, precisely, objects, i.e., entities having continuously actual spatiotemporal properties. This too restrictive spatiotemporal scheme is most probably at the heart of the problem, as also underlined by the Einsteinian revolution, but then what could be an alternative? Many thinkers have suggested that we must surrender to the fact that our physical world is one of immanent powers and potencies. Aristotle did so ante quantum litteram, followed by scholars like Heisenberg, Primas, Shimony, Piron, Kastner, Kauffman, de Ronde, just to name a few, including the authors, who were both students of Piron in Geneva. However, if on the one hand a potentiality ontology puts the accent on the processes of change, responsible for the incessant shifts between actual and potential properties, on the other hand it does not tell what these changes are all about. In other words, the metaphysical question remains of identifying the nature of the bearer of these potencies, or potentialities, and of the entities that can actualize them. It is the purpose of the present article to emphasize that the above question has found a possible answer in the recent Conceptuality Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which we believe offers the missing ontology and metaphysics that can make the theory fully intelligible, and even intuitive.
The present study is concerned with the problem of realism in quantum mechanics. Contrary to the prevailing view that quantum mechanics forces us to abandon the concept of realism and reality, the author attempts to substantiate another standpoint. Quantum objects indeed exist in a different way from classical bodies. Before the act of measurement begins, one cannot attribute any specific properties to the quantum object observed, as they only occur in the course observation. The concept of observation, however, should not be interpreted as the inclusion of subjective traits in the description of nature. Observation records processes in space and time and establishes the fact of transition from the potential to the reality. The potential is described by a wave function, which in its meaning does not fall in the habitual space and time, whereas the actual is described in terms of a reduction of the wave function, i.e. the transition from a range of possible states to the single one, the observed. Whatever has been observed, in contrast, already belongs to ordinary space and time and can be detected. What follows is that, in quantum mechanics, it is the notion of reality which needs to be reconsidered, not the realism as such rejected. A reconsideration of this sort is conducted here within the framework of a double-modus picture of reality including both potential and actual being, where the quantum level of existence is distinguished from the observed modi of being as described by means of classical concepts. Such a scheme can be described in terms of Aristotelian metaphysics (the fact first pointed out by Heisenberg). The act of transition from potential to actual can be accounted for both in the language of Aristotle’s metaphysics and the language of modern science. In traditional metaphysics it is called the 'principle of individuation', while in modern science it is known as the extended Mach principle. It is argued that the development of these ideas leads to the rejection of Cartesian paradigm in which the existence of a material object always means an existence in space and time.
"In this chapter, I argue that Aristotle's doctrine of hylomorphism, which con- ceived the natural world as consisting of substances which are metaphysically composed of matter and form, is ripe for rehabilitation in the light of quantum physics. I begin by discussing Aristotle's conception of matter and form, as it was understood by Aquinas, and how Aristotle's doctrine of hylomorphism was `physicalised' and eventually abandoned with the rise of microphysicalism. I argue that the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, and the emergence of irreducibly macroscopic phenomena in nite temperature quantum systems, have given us good reasons to doubt the truth of microphysicalism. In support of my argument, I show how to construct a hylomorphic interpretation of the de Broglie-Bohm theory that posits a single Cosmic Substance. I then show how to construct a hylomorphic interpretation of an alternative `contextual' wave function collapse theory (recently proposed by the physicists Barbara Drossel and George Ellis) which posits a plurality of Thermal Substances. Both of these neo-Aristotelian ontologies reject the microphysicalist dogma that nature consists fundamentally of some set of microscopic constituents."
In this chapter, I argue that Aristotle’s doctrine of hylomorphism, which conceived the natural world as consisting of substances which are metaphysically composed of matter and form, is ripe for rehabilitation in the light of quantum physics. I begin by discussing Aristotle’s conception of matter and form, as it was understood by Aquinas, and how Aristotle’s doctrine of hylomorphism was ‘physicalised’ and eventually abandoned with the rise of microphysicalism. I argue that the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, and the emergence of irreducibly macroscopic phenomena in finite temperature quantum systems, have given us good reasons to doubt the truth of microphysicalism. In support of my argument, I show how to construct a hylomorphic interpretation of the de Broglie-Bohm theory that posits a single Cosmic Substance. I then show how to construct a hylomorphic interpretation of an alternative ‘contextual’ wave function collapse theory (recently proposed by the physicists Barbara Drossel and George Ellis) which posits a plurality of thermal substances. Both of these neo-Aristotelian ontologies reject the microphysicalist dogma that nature consists solely of some set of microscopic constituents.