Platonic Wholes and Quantum Ontology: Translated by Katarzyna Kretkowska (DIA-LOGOS)

The subject of the book is a reconsideration of the internalistic model of composition of the Platonic type, more radical than traditional, post-Aristotelian externalistic compositionism, and its application in the field of the ontology of quantum theory. At the centre of quantum ontology is nonseparability. Quantum wholes are atemporal wholes governed by internalistic logic and they are primitive, global physical entities, requiring an extreme relativization of the fundamental notions of mechanics. That ensures quantum theory to be fully consistent with the relativistic causal structure, without any spacelike nonlocality and time asymmetry, and makes the quantum blockworld ontology inevitable. It seems that the more internally relativized physics is, the more Platonic it becomes. Cover Contents Introduction Part One Chapter 1 Megiste mousike: The Hidden logos of Nature and Platonic Wholes 1.1 The relation of the whole and its parts in Plato’s ontology, the problem of the hidden structure and a new reading of the Parmenides 1.2 The division of the whole, Eleatic paradoxes and the Universal Principle of Relativity 1.3 The philocryptology of nature, internalistic compositionism and the hidden whole in microphysics Chapter 2 ‘The Adaptation of All Things’: Leibniz’s Series and the Foundations of Microphysics 2.1 Mathesis quaedam Divina: relational states, the Connection and a mathematizable process in the Leibnizian system 2.2 Action, the universal algebra of the process and the foundations of quantum physics 2.3 Quantum history as a hidden whole: the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment Part Two Chapter 3 Nonseparability as the Ur-Phenomenon of Mechanics and Holism in Microphysics 3.1 Is quantum mechanics magic? Einstein’s Local Realism, the Bell–Kochen–Specker Theorem and quantum contextuality 3.2 The global nonseparability of nature: state holism, contextual realism and the hidden structure of the physical process Chapter 4 ‘Esse est percipi aut percipere’: The Quantum Principle of Relativity and Measurement as a Correlation 4.1 Quantum frames of reference: relativity, the blockworld and the universal relativization of the observer 4.2 Frames of reference, correlations and the breakdown of unitarity Chapter 5 The Relational Structure of Quantum Mechanics and Internalistic Compositionism 5.1 The Principle of Relativity, the internal consistency of quantum mechanics and the quantum thermodynamics of time 5.2 Carlo Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics and internalistic compositionism in fundamental physics Bibliography General Index The subject of the book is a reconsideration of the internalistic model of composition of the Platonic type, and its application in the ontology of quantum theory. Nonseparability is at the centre of quantum ontology. Quantum wholes are atemporal wholes governed by internalistic logic, requiring a relativization of fundamental notions of mechanics.