Why quantum physicists should read Whitehead

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:25100175,
            doi = {10.48660/25100175},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/25100175},
            author = {Catani, Lorenzo},
            keywords = {Quantum Foundations},
            language = {en},
            title = {Why quantum physicists should read Whitehead},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2025},
            month = {oct},
            note = {PIRSA:25100175 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }
          

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, Alfred North Whitehead developed the most comprehensive metaphysical framework of process philosophy. Although he also applied his ideas to interpret quantum theory, his insights have remained largely unnoticed by the physics community, especially by today’s researchers in quantum foundations. In this talk, I will introduce the main ideas of process reality, with a special focus on Whitehead’s approach. The core idea is that the basic elements of reality are processes of becoming rather than static material substances. The picture of the world is one of a growing organism, where the individual parts are dynamic, relational units whose identity is defined by the network of interactions they participate in. I will argue that adopting a process-based ontology can offer the conceptual shift needed to resolve the main interpretational puzzles of quantum theory, in particular the ones associated with the no-go theorems (Bell, Kochen-Specker, etc.).