A Categorial Semantic Representation of Quantum Event Structures

Foundations of Physics 43 (9):1090-1123 (2013)
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Abstract

The overwhelming majority of the attempts in exploring the problems related to quantum logical structures and their interpretation have been based on an underlying set-theoretic syntactic language. We propose a transition in the involved syntactic language to tackle these problems from the set-theoretic to the category-theoretic mode, together with a study of the consequent semantic transition in the logical interpretation of quantum event structures. In the present work, this is realized by representing categorically the global structure of a quantum algebra of events (or propositions) in terms of sheaves of local Boolean frames forming Boolean localization functors. The category of sheaves is a topos providing the possibility of applying the powerful logical classification methodology of topos theory with reference to the quantum world. In particular, we show that the topos-theoretic representation scheme of quantum event algebras by means of Boolean localization functors incorporates an object of truth values, which constitutes the appropriate tool for the definition of quantum truth-value assignments to propositions describing the behavior of quantum systems. Effectively, this scheme induces a revised realist account of truth in the quantum domain of discourse. We also include an Appendix, where we compare our topos-theoretic representation scheme of quantum event algebras with other categorial and topos-theoretic approaches

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References found in this work

The Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics.Simon Kochen & E. P. Specker - 1967 - Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics 17:59--87.
[Omnibus Review].Robert Goldblatt - 1986 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 51 (1):225-227.
Category Theory.S. Awodey - 2007 - Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 13 (3):371-372.
Topoi: The Categorial Analysis of Logic.R. I. Goldblatt - 1982 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33 (1):95-97.
Category Theory.Steve Awodey - 2006 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

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