Tim Maudlin Quotes

If one resolves the measurement problem by postulating additional variables beside the wave function, it is the dynamics of these variables which manifests the non-locality and which resists a fully Relativistic formulation.

At its most fundamental level, physics tells us about what there is, about the categories of being. And modern physics tells us that what there is ain't nothing like what we thought there is.

The Theory of Relativity has overthrown classical presumptions about the structure of space and time. The quantum theory has provided us with intimations of a new conception of physical reality. Classical notions of causality, of actuality, and of the role of the observer... have all come under attack.

The scientific realist maintains that in at least some cases, we have good evidential reasons to accept theories or theoretical claims as true, or approximately true, or on-the-road-to-truth. The scientific antirealist denies this. These attitudes come in degrees... [T]his is a question addressed by epistemology and confirmation theory...

[P]hysical theories are neither realist nor antirealist. That is... a . It is a person's attitude toward a physical theory that is either realist or antirealist. ...[T]he theory toward which Osiander was antirealist and Galileo realist is one and the same theory. The theory itself is neither.

[M]ost clear philosophical ideas can be presented intuitively, shorn of the manifold qualifications, appendices and terminological innovations that grow like weeds in academic soil.

The presentation of Bell's inequality needs no more than some algebra... Understanding Relativity also requires no more than algebraic manipulation... but would tax the patience of the average reader. So I have tried to present Relativity pictorially...

Sometimes, accepting the Copenhagen Interpretation is understood... to use the quantum recipe without... question: Shut up and calculate. Such rejects the aspiration... defined above. Hence it is not even in the running...

The central problem facing attempts to understand a quantum theory is how it manages to model empirical phenomena in a principled way. This is often referred to as "the measurement problem"...

The Theory of Relativity is presented, first and foremost, as a theory of the geometry of space-time. Special Relativity is explained in enough detail to solve specific problems about the behavior of clocks and rigid objects in a relativistic world. General Relativity is presented less rigorously. My aim... make the conceptual foundations of these theories absolutely clear...

John Stewart Bell made a proposal... which he called the theory of local beables. "Beables" refers to the ontology of a theory: what it postulates to exist. "Local" indicates a beable that exists in a small region of space-time... What one needs... is an inventory of local beables and an account of their dynamics: how they get distributed in space-time.

Starting from what we understand and seeing clearly its inadequacies can provide a path to conceptual progress.

Pictures of space-time look misleadingly like pictures of space, and the novice must unlearn some of the conventions...

Perhaps the most vexing question confronting any study of Bell's inequality, and the experimental observation of violations of that... would never have been discovered if not for the existence of quantum formalism. On the other hand, the inequality... is derived without any mention of quantum theory and the violations are matters of plain experimental fact. So the explication and analysis of the importance of Bell's work can in principle proceed without mentioning quantum mechanics at all. Should an account of Bell's inequality emphasize its historical roots... or... sever those ties in the interest of clarity? ...I chose the second option ...the interpretation of quantum theory is troublesome enough ...to overshadow and confuse the relatively straightforward proof on non-locality.

Unlike space-time theory, where there is substantial agreement about how to understand the best physics we have (General Relativity), quantum theory has always been a battleground of contention. Nothing one can say would command the assent of most physicists and philosophers.