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Epistemic Horizons and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

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Abstract

In-principle restrictions on the amount of information that can be gathered about a system have been proposed as a foundational principle in several recent reconstructions of the formalism of quantum mechanics. However, it seems unclear precisely why one should be thus restricted. We investigate the notion of paradoxical self-reference as a possible origin of such epistemic horizons by means of a fixed-point theorem in Cartesian closed categories due to Lawvere that illuminates and unifies the different perspectives on self-reference.

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Acknowledgements

My first and foremost thanks is due to Dagmar Bruß and Hermann Kampermann, whose guidance and tutelage I had the great privilege to receive, and who have been instrumental in the sharpening of the ideas presented here. Furthermore, I wish to thank Karl Svozil and Noson Yanofsky for invaluable discussion of the material compiled in this article.

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    Jochen Szangolies

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Szangolies, J. Epistemic Horizons and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Found Phys 48, 1669–1697 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-018-0221-9

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