Wow! eBook
Foundations of Relational Realism: A Topological Approach to Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Nature
Author(s): Michael Epperson (Author), Elias Zafiris (Author)
- Publisher: Lexington Books (UK)
- Publication Date: 20 Jun. 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 422 pages
- ISBN-10: 0739180320
- ISBN-13: 9780739180327
Book Description
In this unique two-part volume, designed to be comprehensible to both specialists and non-specialists, the authors chart out a pathway forward by identifying the central deficiency in most interpretations of quantum mechanics: That in its conventional, metrical depiction of extension, inherited from the Enlightenment, objects are characterized as fundamental to relations—i.e., such that relations presuppose objects but objects do not presuppose relations. The authors, by contrast, argue that quantum mechanics exemplifies the fact that physical extensiveness is fundamentally topological rather than metrical, with its proper logico-mathematical framework being category theoretic rather than set theoretic.
By this thesis, extensiveness fundamentally entails not only relations of objects, but also relations of relations. Thus, the fundamental quanta of quantum physics are properly defined as units of logico-physical relation rather than merely units of physical relata as is the current convention. Objects are always understood as relata, and likewise relations are always understood objectively. In this way, objects and relations are coherently defined as mutually implicative. The conventional notion of a history as “a story about fundamental objects” is thereby reversed, such that the classical “objects” become the story by which we understand physical systems that are fundamentally histories of quantum events.
These are just a few of the novel critical claims explored in this volume—claims whose exemplification in quantum mechanics will, the authors argue, serve more broadly as foundational principles for the philosophy of nature as it evolves through the twenty-first century and beyond.
Editorial Reviews
Review
ROLAND OMNÈS, Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at the University of Paris-Sud, author of The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Converging Realities (both Princeton University Press).
“This is a unique book in its scope, approach and method. A novel physical and philosophical interpretation of sheaf theory sheds new light on the quantum measurement problem, entanglement, locality and truth. A new systematic and rigorous relational realistic paradigm for natural philosophy has emerged, rooted on the same principles with Abstract (Modern) Differential Geometry, that transmutes the above into a fully fledged dynamical theory.”
ANASTASIOS MALLIOS, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, University of Athens, author of Geometry of Vector Sheaves (Springer) and Modern Differential Geometry in Gauge Theories (Birkhäuser).
About the Author
Elias Zafiris holds a M.Sc. (Distinction) in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces from Imperial College at the University of London, and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Imperial College. He has published numerous papers on category-theoretic methods in quantum physics and complex systems theories, topological localization and modern differential geometry in quantum field theory and quantum gravity, generalized spacetime quantum theory, decoherence, and many other topics in the foundations of physics. He is a research professor in theoretical and mathematical physics at the Institute of Mathematics at the University of Athens, and is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Logic, Institute of Philosophy, Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. He is also a senior research fellow and Principal Investigator at the Center for Philosophy and the Natural Sciences in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at California State University, Sacramento.
