Valia Allori, 2017–2018 | National Humanities Center

Valia Allori (NHC Fellow, 2017–18)

Project Title

Quantum Mechanics and its Metaphysics: Primitive Ontology, Metaphysical Neutrality, and the Role of the Wave Function in Quantum Theories

Northern Illinois University

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Fellowship Work Summary, 2017–18

Valia Allori completed the majority of her book, Dismantling Quantum Paradoxes. She also began work on an edited volume, Statistical Mechanics and Scientific Explanation: Determinism, Indeterminism and Laws of Nature, to be published by World Scientific in 2019. She also worked on "A New Argument for the Nomological Interpretation of the Wave Function: The Galilean Group and the Classical Limit of Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics" for International Studies in the Philosophy of Science (vol. 31, no. 2, 2018); "Free Will in a Quantum World?" in Quanta and Mind: Essays on the Connection  between Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness, edited by J. A. de Barros and C. Montemayor (Synthese Library); "Scientific Realism and Primitive Ontology. Or: The Pessimistic Induction and the Nature of the Wave Function" for Lato Sensu: Revue de la Societe de Philosophic des Sciences (vol. 5, no. 1); and "An Example of Naturalized Quantum Metaphysics: Scientific Realism without the Wave Function" for Scientific Realism and the Quantum, edited by J. Saatsi and S. French (Oxford University Press). She also has two works in progress: "Quantum Mechanics, Time and Ontology" and "The Wave Function is What the Wave Function Does."