Tim Maudlin Quotes

Although this book is not the place to thrash out those issues, I have thrashed them... in other places.

The regrettably widespread opinion that there is no real non-locality inherent in the quantum theory is therefore deeply intertwined with the regrettably widespread opinion that the measurement problem can be painlessly solved without postulating either additional variables or any real collapse process.

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.

If one resolves the measurement problem by allowing a real physical process of wave collapse, it is the collapse dynamics which manifests the non-locality, and which resists the fully Relativistic formulation.

Non-locality appears at exactly the point where the "measurement problem" which infects standard quantum theory is resolved.

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.

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.

[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.

Quantum theory... formalism... uses no more than linear algebra and vector spaces. ...A particularly nice and accessible presentation of the requisite mathematics can be found in 's Quantum Mechanics and Experience (1992, Ch. 2).

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

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...

The sparks which fly when quantum theory collides with Relativity ignite conceptual brushfires of particular interest... problems about causation, time, and holism. Unfortunately much of the work... presupposes a considerable amount of familiarity with the physics. This is particularly sad since the physics is not, in most cases, very complicated.

I have often felt that whatever is of value in this book could be found in Bell's "The Theory of Local Beables" (1987, Ch. 7)... this book will have served a great purpose if it does no more than encourage people to read Bell with the care and attention that he deserves.

I believe that it is a fundamental, irreducible fact about the spatio-temporal structure of the world that time passes. ...The passage of time is an intrinsic asymmetry in the temporal structure of the world, an asymmetry that has no spatial counterpart. ...The belief that time passes ...has no bearing on the question of the 'reality' of the past or of the future. I believe that the past is real: there are facts about what happened in the past that are independent of the present state of the world and independent of all knowledge or beliefs about the past. I similarly believe that there is (i.e. will be) a single unique future. I know what it would be to believe that the past is unreal (i.e. nothing ever happened, everything was just created ex nihilo) and to believe that the future is unreal (i.e. all will end, I will not exist tomorrow, I have no future). I do not believe these things... Insofar as belief in the reality of the past and the future constitutes a belief in a 'block universe', I believe in a block universe. But I also believe that time passes, and see no contradiction or tension between these views.

Metaphysics is ontology. Ontology is the most generic study of what exists. Evidence for what exists, at least in the physical world, is provided solely by empirical research. Hence the proper object of most metaphysics is the careful analysis of our best scientific theories (and especially of fundamental physical theories) with the goal of determining what they imply about the constitution of the physical world.