2014/03/07 by Ken Wharton, K. B. Wharton · 1 voice · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Action (physics) #Artificial intelligence #Biofield Effects and Biophysics #Computer science #Parallels #Perspective (graphical) #Philosophy and History of Science #Physical law #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum information #Quantum mechanics #Quantum state #Spacetime #Theoretical physics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.3390/info5010190
published as Information, v.5 p.190-208 (2014) · 16 pages, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2014/03/07 · arxiv created 2014/03/08 · arxiv published 2014/03/08 · arxiv updated 2014/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Despite various parallels between quantum states and ordinary information, quantum no-go-theorems have convinced many that there is no realistic framework that might underly quantum theory, no reality that quantum states can represent knowledge about. This paper develops the case that there is a plausible underlying reality: one actual spacetime-based history, although with behavior that appears strange when analyzed dynamically (one time-slice at a time). By using a simple model with no dynamical laws, it becomes evident that this behavior is actually quite natural when analyzed “all-at-once” (as in classical action principles). From this perspective, traditional quantum states would represent incomplete information about possible spacetime histories, conditional on the future measurement geometry. Without dynamical laws imposing additional restrictions, those histories can have a classical probability distribution, where exactly one history can be said to represent an underlying reality.