Quantum theory (QT) has been confirmed by numerous experiments, yet we still cannot fully grasp the meaning of the theory. As a consequence, the quantum world appears to us paradoxical. In a recent work, we shed new light on QT by having it follow from two main postulates (i) the theory should be logically consistent; (ii) inferences in the theory should be computable in polynomial time. The first postulate is what we require to each well-founded mathematical theory. The computation postulate defines the physical component of the theory. We show that the computation postulate is the only true divide between QT, seen as a generalised theory of probability, and classical probability. All quantum paradoxes, and entanglement in particular, arise from the clash of trying to reconcile a computationally intractable, somewhat idealised, theory (classical physics) with a computationally tractable theory (QT) or, in other words, from regarding physics as fundamental rather than computation.
The above research completes a foundational path we initiated in 2016.
- Quantum mechanics: The Bayesian theory generalized to the space of Hermitian matrices. In: Physics Review A, vol. 94, pp. 042106, 2016.
- A Gleason-Type Theorem for Any Dimension Based on a Gambling Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. In: Foundations of Physics, vol. 47, no. 7, pp. 991–1002, 2017, ISSN: 1572-9516.
- Quantum rational preferences and desirability. In: Proceedings of The 1st International Workshop on “Imperfect Decision Makers: Admitting Real-World Rationality”, NIPS 2016, 2016.
- Keynote talk at Isipta/Ecsqaru 2017