SMuK 2021 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 2: Quantum Theory 1

AGPhil 2.4: Talk

Tuesday, August 31, 2021, 12:45–13:15, H4

The Unactualized Certainty-Actuality Correspondence — •Armin Nikkhah Shirazi — University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

This talk investigates the correspondence between unactualized certainties and actualities. It does this first through the lens of a recently proposed enrichment of axiomatic probability which makes it possible to distinguish mathematically between actualities and unactualized possibilities, including those which are certain. Two kinds of unactualized certainties are considered: those due to the sample space being a singleton, and those involving a sample space with more than one element.

After comparing standard axiomatic probability with the enrichment in regards to how they represent the distinction, attention is then focused on quantum mechanics. There, the correspondence will be examined through the lens of a recently proposed modification of the standard formalism, the Heisenberg Interpretation, which, unlike the standard quantum formalism but like the enriched axiomatization of probability, also permits formal distinctions between unactualized possibilities and actualities. Two situations are found to exemplify the correspondence there: one involving partially measured entangled systems and the other involving the Born rule.