Epistemic Horizons and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

2018/05/31 by Jochen Szangolies
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Calculus (dental) #Cartesian closed category #Cartesian coordinate system #Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms #Epistemology #Formalism (music) #Geometry #Mathematics #Philosophy #Philosophy and History of Science #Philosophy of science #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Theoretical physics #physics.hist-ph #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10701-018-0221-9

17 pages; forthcoming in Foundations of Physics

openalex publication_date 2018/10/16 · arxiv created 2018/10/18 · arxiv updated 2018/10/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

In-principle restrictions on the amount of information that can be gathered about a system have been proposed as a foundational principle in several recent reconstructions of the formalism of quantum mechanics. However, it seems unclear precisely why one should be thus restricted. We investigate the notion of paradoxical self-reference as a possible origin of such epistemic horizons by means of a fixed-point theorem in Cartesian closed categories due to F. W. Lawvere that illuminates and unifies the different perspectives on self-reference.

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