conference in France / reminder on Paris seminars

[GRINBAUM Alexei]

A forthcoming conference in France and a reminder on Paris seminars

Conference "Philosophical and Formal Foundations of Modern Physics", Les Treilles, April 23-28 (organized by Michel Bitbol and Alexei Grinbaum) 
See web  <http://www-drecam.cea.fr/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast_visu.php?id_ast=762> page
 
Monday, April 23

7:30 pm   Alexei Grinbaum and Michel Bitbol Introduction and welcoming remarks


Tuesday, April 24


Morning session. Chair: Jean Petitot

9:30 am  Hermann Nicolai Quantum gravity: an introductory survey 

10:30 am  Oliver Pooley Background independence 

12 noon  Lucien Hardy The causaloid formalism: a tentative framework for quantum gravity 
 
Afternoon session. Chair: Hermann Nicolai

4 pm John Baez Quantum quandaries: a category-theoretic perspective 

5:30 pm Marc Lachièze-Rey Remarks on categories and physics (tentative title)


Wednesday, April 25


Morning session. Chair: Michel Bitbol

9:30 am Michael Friedman Einstein and the relativized a priori 

10:30 am Katherine Brading Hilbert, the foundations of physics, and Einstein's general theory of relativity 

12 noon Thomas Ryckman Weyl, Cartan and la méthode du repère mobile
 
Afternoon session. Chair: Brigitte Falkenburg 

4 pm Paolo Parrini Epistemological conventionalism beyond the geochronometrical problems

5:30 pm Patricia Kauark-Leite Transcendental philosophy and quantum theory 


Thursday, April 26


Morning session. Chair : Alexei Grinbaum

9:00 am Jeffrey Bub Information and objectivity in quantum mechanics

10:00 am Howard Barnum Toward information-processing characterizations of quantum and classical theory 

11:15 am Matteo Smerlak Relational quantum mechanics and EPR
 
12 noon Christopher Timpson What kind of theory is quantum information theory? 

Friday, April 27


Morning session. Chair: Michael Friedman

9:30 am Brigitte Falkenburg Wave-particle duality: a neglected topic in the philosophical discussion of quantum theory

10:30 am Rob Spekkens Insights into wave-particle duality from an epistemic interpretation of quantum states 

12 noon Jean Petitot TBA

Afternoon session. Chair: Thomas Ryckman

4 pm Paul Teller Provisional knowledge in physics and elsewhere

5 pm General discussion

 
Seminars in Paris:
 
March 9, 14:00
IHPST, grande salle ( <http://www-ihpst.univ-paris1.fr/gen.php?lng=fr&cat=_general&rub=r05> directions)
Matteo Morganti (IHPST)
"Identity and individuality in physics"
A `reductionist' account of individuality, equating it with qualitative difference, holds for everyday objects and in classical mechanics. However, it does not hold for indistinguishable particles in quantum mechanics. As a consequence, it seems necessary to either take the individuality of quantum particles as a primitive metaphysical fact, or to give up the idea that the basic 'building blocks' of reality truly are individuals. The former alternative is usually looked at with suspicion on the basis of allegedly indispensable empiricist principles. In this paper, a) I argue that one recent attempt (Saunders 2006) to revive the reductionist account (for fermions) fails. Moreover, b) I show that the reductionist perspective cannot account for non-individual entities. Next, c) I contend that the reductionist view is not as compelling from the empiricist perspective as it is commonly taken to be. I conclude by d) suggesting one way to make sense of the idea that the individuality of particles is a primitive fact, while also satisfying the intuition that properties are all there is to things.

March 16, 16:30
CREA, salle 315 ( <http://www.crea.polytechnique.fr/planacces.htm> directions)
Jeffrey Bub (University of Maryland)
"Two Dogmas about Quantum Mechanics"
I discuss what Pitowsky (2007) has called two 'dogmas' about quantum mechanics. The first dogma is Bell's assertion that measurement should never be introduced as a primitive in a fundamental mechanical theory like classical or quantum mechanics, but should always be open to a dynamical analysis in principle. The second dogma is the view that the quantum state has an ontological significance analogous to the ontological significance of the classical state (which specifies a complete catalogue of a system's properties), i.e., that the quantum state is a (perhaps incomplete) representation of physical reality. I argue that both dogmas are called into question by a 'no cloning' principle that distinguishes quantum information from classical information. I distinguish two measurement problems: a problem about individual events, which I argue is a pseudo-problem, and a tractable problem about probabilities, which finds a solution in the phenomenon of decoherence.

March 23, 11:00
LARSIM, CEA Orme des Merisiers, bat. 774, Amphi Bloch ( <http://www-spht.cea.fr/Phocea-SPhT/ast_visu_spht.php?id_ast=352> directions)
Jeffrey Bub (University of Maryland)
"Why quantum theory?"
'Why the quantum?' was one of John Wheeler's 'Really Big Questions.' Several authors have recently proposed to derive quantum theory from simple axioms (Hardy quant-ph/0101012), or from broadly information-theoretic principles (Fuchs quant-ph/0205039, Clifton, Bub, Halvorson quant-ph/0211089; Brukner, Zeilinger quant-ph/0212084). Here I consider the significance of such programs for our understanding of quantum correlations.

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