Michael David Silberstein

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Elizabethtown College

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Einstein introduced quantum entanglement in 1935 and referred to it as “spooky actions at a distance” because it seemed to conflict with his theory of special relativity. Today, some refer to it as “the greatest mystery in physics,” and the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize was even awarded for experimental confirmation of the “spookiness.” While the myster...

Price and Wharton have recently suggested that "constrained retrocausal collider bias is the origin of entanglement." In this paper, we argue that their connection across a constrained collider (CCC) for the V-shaped case with the Bell states is not "a mechanism for entanglement," providing a negative answer to the title of arXiv:2406.04571. Rather...

EMERGENCE IN CONTEXT: A Treatise in Twenty-First Century Natural Philosophy by Robert C. Bishop, Michael Silberstein, and Mark Pexton. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022. 363 pages. Hardcover; $103.65. ISBN: 9780192849786. *Reductionists dream of a day when all scientific truths can be derived from fundamental physics. Bishop, Silberstein, a...

There is growing evidence that brain processes involve multiscale overlapping networks and that the mapping between such neural processes and cognitive functions is many-to-many. So, the answer to the question what spatiotemporal scales in the brain are most relevant for cognition, action, experience, etc., is that several inextricably interconnect...

This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer thes...

There is a great deal of argument over the years about what exactly Bell’s theorem entails or forces us to give up, such as “locality”, “local hidden variables”, “local realism”, etc., etc. There are many ways to characterize the assumptions of Bell’s theorem and each carries serious implications for its violation, e.g., superluminal causal influen...

Consciousness and quantum mechanics are two mysteries in our times. A careful and thorough examination of possible connections between them may help unravel these two mysteries. On the one hand, an analysis of the conscious mind and psychophysical connection seems indispensable in understanding quantum mechanics and solving the notorious measuremen...

Consciousness and quantum mechanics are two mysteries in our times. A careful and thorough examination of possible connections between them may help unravel these two mysteries. On the one hand, an analysis of the conscious mind and psychophysical connection seems indispensable in understanding quantum mechanics and solving the notorious measuremen...

Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? This book introduces a new account, contextual emergence, seeking to answer these questions. The authors offer an alternative picture of the world with...

This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer thes...

This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer thes...

This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer thes...

This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer thes...

This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer thes...

This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer thes...

We review how the kinematic structures of special relativity and quantum mechanics both stem from the relativity principle, i.e., "no preferred reference frame" (NPRF). Essentially, NPRF applied to the measurement of the speed of light c gives the light postulate and leads to the geometry of Minkowski space, while NPRF applied to the measurement of...

The authors wish to make the following correction to this paper [...]

Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? This book introduces a new account, contextual emergence, seeking to answer these questions. The authors offer an alternative picture of the world with...

While there are by now many, many different definitions of emergence in the scientific and philosophical literature, they tend to reduce to either “weak emergence” or “strong emergence.”

Quantum information theorists have created axiomatic reconstructions of quantum mechanics (QM) that are very successful at identifying precisely what distinguishes quantum probability theory from classical and more general probability theories in terms of information-theoretic principles. Herein, we show how one such principle, Information Invarian...

We review how the kinematic structures of special relativity and quantum mechanics both stem from the relativity principle, i.e., "no preferred reference frame" (NPRF). Essentially, NPRF applied to the measurement of the speed of light $c$ gives the light postulate and leads to the geometry of Minkowski spacetime, while NPRF applied to the measurem...

Quantum information theorists have created axiomatic reconstructions of quantum mechanics (QM) that are very successful at identifying precisely what distinguishes quantum probability theory from classical and more general probability theories in terms of information-theoretic principles. Herein, we show how two such principles, i.e., "Existence of...

While quantum mechanics (QM) is covered at length in introductory physics textbooks, the concept of quantum entanglement is typically not covered at all, despite its importance in the rapidly growing area of quantum information science and its extensive experimental confirmation. Thus, physics educators are left to their own devices as to how to in...

Our account provides a local, realist and fully non-causal principle explanation for EPR correlations, contextuality, no-signalling, and the Tsirelson bound. Indeed, the account herein is fully consistent with the causal structure of Minkowski spacetime. We argue that retrocausal accounts of quantum mechanics are problematic precisely because they...

This paper is a follow up to Silberstein and Chemero (2013), wherein it was argued that contra the new mechanist philosophy, localization and decomposition often fail to obtain in complex biological systems. Herein it is argued that: (1) Mechanistic explanation is historically and still often defined exhaustively by the new mechanists in terms of l...

In 1981, Mermin published a now famous paper titled, "Bringing home the atomic world: Quantum mysteries for anybody" that Feynman called, "One of the most beautiful papers in physics that I know." Therein, he presented the "Mermin device" that illustrates the conundrum of quantum entanglement per the Bell spin states for the "general reader." He th...

Herein we are not interested in merely using dynamical systems theory, graph theory, information theory, etc., to model the relationship between brain dynamics and networks, and various states and degrees of conscious processes. We are interested in the question of how phenomenal conscious experience and fundamental physics are most deeply related....

Herein we are not interested in merely using dynamical systems theory, graph theory, information theory, etc., to model the relationship between brain dynamics and networks, and various states and degrees of conscious processes. We are interested in the question of how conscious experience and fundamental physics are most deeply related. Any attemp...

To answer Wheeler’s question “Why the quantum?” via quantum information theory according to Bub, one must explain both why the world is quantum rather than classical and why the world is quantum rather than superquantum, i.e., “Why the Tsirelson bound?” We show that the quantum correlations and quantum states corresponding to the Bell basis states,...

Reviews concepts and examples of complexity and feedback and how these are related to emergence.

We discuss the implications for the determinateness and intersubjective consistency of conscious experience in two gedanken experiments from quantum mechanics (QM). In particular, we discuss Wigner's friend and the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment with a twist. These are both cases (experiments) where quantum phenomena, or at least allegedl...

In Newtonian gravity, mass is an intrinsic property of matter, while in general relativity (GR), mass is a contextual property of matter, e.g. when two different GR spacetimes are adjoined. Herein, we explore the possibility that the astrophysical missing mass attributed to nonbaryonic dark matter (DM) is actually obtained because we have been assu...

To answer John Wheeler's "Really Big Question," "Why the quantum?" via quantum information theory according to Bub, one must explain both why the world is quantum rather than classical and why the world is quantum rather than superquantum, i.e., "Why the Tsirelson bound?" We propose an answer to these questions based on the assumption that the worl...

Theoretical physics and foundations of physics have not made much progress in the last few decades. There is no consensus among researchers on how to approach unifying general relativity and quantum field theory (quantum gravity), explaining so-called dark energy and dark matter (cosmology), or the interpretation and implications of quantum mechani...

Relational Blockworld (RBW) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the path integral approach to physics. In the path integral approach, quantum mechanics is couched in spacetime rather than 3N-dimensional configuration space, since the path integral computation of a probability amplitude is based on a particular outcome in spacetime. T...

It is argued that when it comes to the hard problem of consciousness neutral monism beats out the competition. It is further argued that neutral monism provides a unique route to a novel type of panentheism via Advaita Vedanta Hinduism.

It will be argued that strong/radical emergence while possible is problematic on a number of fronts, in particular it is neither explanatory nor unifying. Fortunately, there is a better, more unifying and explanatory alternative that be will called contextual emergence. The notion of contextual emergence will be explicated and defended against comp...

Since general relativity (GR) has already established that matter can simultaneously have two different values of mass depending on its context, we argue that the missing mass attributed to non-baryonic dark matter (DM) actually obtains because there are two different values of mass for the baryonic matter involved. The globally obtained "dynamical...

We argue that dark matter and dark energy phenomena associated with galactic rotation curves, X-ray cluster mass profiles, and type Ia supernova data can be accounted for via small corrections to idealized general relativistic spacetime geometries due to disordered locality. Accordingly, we fit THINGS rotation curve data rivaling modified Newtonian...

We argue that dark matter and dark energy phenomena associated with galactic rotation curves, X-ray cluster mass profiles, and type Ia supernova data can be accounted for via small corrections to idealized general relativistic spacetime geometries due to disordered locality. Accordingly, we fit THINGS rotation curve data rivaling modified Newtonian...

We propose an adynamical interpretation of quantum theory called Relational Blockworld (RBW) where the fundamental ontological element is a 4D graphical amalgam of space, time and sources called a “spacetimesource element.” These are fundamental elements of space, time and sources, not source elements in space and time. The transition amplitude for...

If neural reuse is true, then: (1) fully escaping phrenology will eventually require an even less brain-centric and mechanistic cognitive neuroscience that focuses on relations and interactions between brain, body, and environment at many different scales and levels across both space and time, and (2) although scientific psychology must be heavily...

We agree with critics that enactive, sensorimotor, and ecological accounts of conscious experience do not in and of themselves fully deflate the hard problem of consciousness. As we noted in our earlier work (Silberstein and Chemero, 2011a), even if an extended account of cognition and intentionality allows us to be rid of qualia by deflating the d...

We refute the claim made by authors of a July 2014 paper in Nature Communications that their interferometer experiment instantiated the spatial separation of neutrons and their spins. Our refutation requires nothing more than the pedagogic calculation of the intensities used and observed in their experiment, but not provided in their paper. In thes...

Philosophers and cognitive scientists reassess systematicity in the post-connectionist era, offering perspectives from ecological psychology, embodied and distributed cognition, enactivism, and other methodologies. In 1988, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn challenged connectionist theorists to explain the systematicity of cognition. In a highly influ...

This will be an admittedly opinionated (perhaps even partisan) review that gives with one hand and takes with the other. Let me be clear though from the outset that there is much to admire and agree with here. Perhaps, the biggest complaint is the failure of the author to engage with other highly relevant literature in philosophy of science and met...

The goal of this paper is to defend the following claims: (1) neutral monism is the best metaphysical alternative when it comes to the question of how the mental and physical relate (Sect. 1), (2) neutral monism is not just more metaphysics, properly understood, it already has a budding scientific expression in the form of embodied, embedded and ex...

Several articles have recently appeared arguing that there really are no viable alternatives to mechanistic explanation in the biological sciences ðKaplan and Bechtel; Kaplan and CraverÞ. We argue that mechanistic explanation is defined by localization and decomposition. We argue further that systems neuroscience contains explanations that violate...

Several articles have recently appeared arguing that there really are no viable alternatives to mechanistic explanation in the biological sciences (Kaplan and Bechtel; Kaplan and Craver). We argue that mechanistic explanation is defined by localization and decomposition. We argue further that systems neuroscience contains explanations that violate...

We propose a path integral over graphs approach to quantum gravity and unification that requires a modification and reinterpretation of both general relativity (GR) and quantum field theory (QFT) via their graphical instantiations, Regge calculus and lattice gauge theory (LGT), respectively. As we outline below, the spacetime metric and the matter...

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae." However, it is not the case that the type Ia supernova data necessitates accelerating expansion. Since we do not have a successful theory of quantum gravity, we should not assume general relativit...

Using Regge calculus, we construct a Regge differential equation for the time evolution of the scale factor $a(t)$ in the Einstein-de Sitter cosmology model (EdS). We propose two modifications to the Regge calculus approach: 1) we allow the graphical links on spatial hypersurfaces to be large, as in direct particle interaction when the interacting...

The complex systems approach to cognitive science invites a new understanding of extended cognitive systems. According to this understanding, extended cognitive systems are heterogenous, composed of brain, body, and niche, non-linearly coupled to one another. This view of cognitive systems, as non-linearly coupled brain-body-niche systems, promises...

We propose a new path integral based interpretation of quantum field theory (QFT). In our interpretation, QFT is the continuous approximation of a more fundamental, discrete graph theory (theory X) whereby the transition amplitude Z is not viewed as a sum over all paths in configuration space, but measures the symmetry of the differential operator...

In this paper two different approaches to unification will be compared, Relational Blockworld (RBW) and Hiley's implicate order. Both approaches are monistic in that they attempt to derive matter and spacetime geometry `at once' in an interdependent and background independent fashion from something underneath both quantum theory and relativity. Hil...

In this paper two different approaches to unification will be compared, Relational Blockworld (RBW) and Hiley's implicate order. Both approaches are monistic in that they attempt to derive matter and spacetime geometry 'at once' in an interdependent and background independent fashion from something underneath both quantum theory and relativity. Hil...

We propose that quantum physics is the continuous approximation of a more fundamental, discrete graph theory (theory X). Accordingly, the Euclidean transition amplitude Z provides a partition function for geometries over the graph, which is characterized topologically by the difference matrix and source vector of the discrete graphical action. The...

Ever since Hermann Minkowski’s now infamous comments in 1908 concerning the proper way to view space-time, the debate has raged as to whether or not the universe should be viewed as a four-dimensional, unified whole wherein the past, present, and future are regarded as equally real or whether the views espoused by the possibilists, historicists, an...

We propose an adynamical, background independent approach to quantum gravity and unification whereby the fundamental elements of Nature are graphical units of space, time and sources (in parlance of quantum field theory). The transition amplitude for these elements of “spacetimesource” is computed using a path integral with discrete Gaussian graphi...

We propose a discrete path integral formalism over graphs fundamental to quantum mechanics (QM) based on our interpretation of QM called Relational Blockworld (RBW). In our approach, the transition amplitude is not viewed as a sum over all field configurations, but is a mathematical machine for measuring the symmetry of the discrete differential op...

Skrbina, D. (2009): Mind That Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium. John Benjamins Publishing Corp., Amster- dam. ISBN 978-90-272-5211-1 (Euro 110.-; hbk)

We articulate the problems posed by the quantum liar experiment (QLE) for backwards causation interpretations of quantum mechanics, time-symmetric accounts and other dynamically oriented local hidden variable theories. We show that such accounts cannot save locality in the case of QLE merely by giving up “lambda-independence.” In contrast, we show...

The Relational Blockworld (RBW) interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) is introduced. Accordingly, the spacetime of NRQM is a relational, nonseparable blockworld whereby spatial distance is only defined between interacting transtemporal objects. RBW is shown to provide a novel statistical interpretation of the wavefunction that...

Introduction: The Problem of Emergence and ReductionThe Varieties of Reductionism: Ontological and EpistemologicalThe Reduction and Emergence Debate Today: Specific Cases Seeming to Warrant the Label of Ontological or Epistemological EmergenceQuestions for Future Research

We use the Relational Blockworld (RBW) interpretation of quantum mechanics to resolve the foundational problems therein. As predicted by Smolin, the resolution of these problems is not independent of the problem of unification and the nature of time. Specifically, RBW requires a theory fundamental to quantum physics in which one must explicitly con...

The first section of this article discusses the relevance of emergence to theology. The second section characterizes different varieties of emergence. It argues that only radical mereological/causal emergence and nomological emergence - both of which are forms of ontological emergence - have any real relevance for theology. The third section focuse...

We provide a taxonomy of the two most important debates in the philosophy of the cognitive and neural sciences. The first debate is over methodological individualism: is the object of the cognitive and neural sciences the brain, the whole animal, or the animal--environment system? The second is over explanatory style: should explanation in cognitiv...

Ever since the now infamous comments made by Hermann Minkowski in 1908 concerning the proper way to view space-time, the debate has raged as to whether or not the universe should be viewed as a four-dimensional, unified whole wherein the past, present, and future are equally real or whether the views espoused by the possibilists, historicists, and...

We use a new, distinctly “geometrical” interpretation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) to argue for the fundamentality of the 4D block world ontology. We argue for a geometrical interpretation whose fundamental ontology is one of space-time relations as opposed to constructive entities whose time-dependent behavior is governed by dynamic...

In this talk, we defend extended cognition against several criticisms. We argue that extended cognition does not derive from armchair theorizing and that it neither ignores the results of the neural sciences, nor minimizes the importance of the brain in the production of intelligent behavior. We also argue that explanatory success in the cognitive...

We introduce a new interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM) called Relational Blockworld (RBW). We motivate the interpretation by outlining two results due to Kaiser, Bohr, Ulfeck, Mottelson, and Anandan, independently. First, the canonical commutation relations for position and momentum can be obtained from boost and translation o...

The transition from the quantum realm to the classical realm is described in the context of the Relational Blockworld (RBW) interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. We first introduce RBW, discuss its philosophical implications and provide an example of its explanatory methodology via the so-called "quantum liar experiment." We then pr...

We use a new distinctly "geometrical" interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) to argue for the fundamentality of the 4D blockworld ontology. Our interpretation rests on two formal results: Kaiser, Bohr & Ulfbeck and Anandan showed independently that the Heisenberg commutation relations of NRQM follow from the relativity of simul...

We present a spacetime setting for non-relativistic quantum mechanics that deflates "quantum mysteries" and relates non-relativistic quantum mechanics to special relativity. This is achieved by assuming spacetime symmetries are fundamental in a blockworld setting, i.e., by interpreting spacetime relations as fundamental to relata. To justify this R...

We introduce the Relational Blockworld (RBW) as a paradigm for deflating the mysteries associated with quantum non-separability/non-locality and the measurement problem. We begin by describing how the relativity of simultaneity implies the blockworld, which has an explanatory potential subsuming both dynamical and relational explanations. It is the...