A Historicized Ontology for the Quantum World

This book discusses ontology in the quantum world and argues that it should be interpreted as historicized ontology. This perspective is advocated by quantum histories interpretation.

This book discusses the ontology in the quantum world and argues that it should be interpreted as a historicized ontology. This perspective is advocated by the quantum histories interpretation.

Inspired by the nomological interpretation from Bohmian mechanics and the corresponding understanding of the law of nature and logic, the ontology will be useful to solve the difficulties of confusing ontology and perplexing logical inference. Furthermore, this book proposes that the historicized ontology can be generalized to more complicated structures and fit naturally into temporal correlation. Core philosophical issues such as the law of nature, the ontology of events, history, and processes, and the metaphysics of history are coherently discussed, revealing the profound meaning behind the formalism of quantum histories. By providing a new framework for a historicized picture of ontology, it will effectively promote the debates in the philosophy of physics and the fundamental research in quantum mechanics.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and quantum theory.

Autorentext

Kefu Zhu is a researcher in the philosophy of science. He obtained his PhD in the philosophy of science and technology from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His main research interests encompass philosophy of physics, philosophy of logic, philosophy of artificial intelligence, and scientific metaphysics.

Inhalt

1 Introduction 2 The formalisms and interpretations of quantum mechanics 3 The histories interpretation of quantum mechanics 4 Ontological and logical issues in histories interpretation of quantum mechanics 5 The nomological interpretation of quantum wave function 6 The histories formalisms from the nomological perspective 7 Historicized ontology, scientific metaphysics, and philosophy of history 8 Conclusion and directions for future research