Lectures on the Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

David Albert - Columbia University - Fall 2006

October 23rd 2006
Wavefunction doesn't represent reality, it is reality.
QM evolution takes place in configuration space, not in ordinary 3d space.

October 30th 2006
Entanglement implies non-narratibility.
Lorentz tranformations do not act on the wave function.

November 13th 2006
A proposed relativistic version of GRW.
No need for measure on space of initial conditions to explain entropy increase.

November 20th 2006
Bohm's interpretation. Dynamics of probability distribution if initially different from |Ψ|².
Ontology in the many-particle case.

December 4th 2006
More about ontology in Bohm's theory. `Marvelous points'. Is 3d space an illusion if dynamics takes place in configuration space?
How do we interpret probability distributions over initial conditions if there is only one world?

December 11th 2006
More about probabilities in Bohm's theory. 3 approaches to making sense of probabilities in `Many Worlds':
1. `Many Minds', 2. `Quantum Mechanics in your face', 3. No probabilities - rational decision theory

December 13th 2006 - part 1, part 2
Many worlds theory with no probabilities.
Rational observers who believe the Schrödinger equation and are aiming to maximise utility should bet in accordance with the Born rule.
Criticisms.