This workshop explores philosophical and historical questions in the foundations of quantum theory: from Bohr to Wheeler; from Complementarity to Mysticism; from Quantum Biology to the Physics of Information.

Programme

09:30 – 10:15: Guido Bacciagaluppi (Utrecht): Better than Bohr? Grete Hermann’s Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
10:15 – 11:00: Ray Pedersen (Oxford) and Jer Steeger (Bristol): Complementarity as infringement
11:00 — 11:30 Coffee
11:30 – 12:15: Noah Stemeroff (Bristol): Baptised Anti-Metaphysical? Pauli and Heisenberg’s Later Mysticism
12:15 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 14:45: Noemi Bolzonetti and Mor Lumbroso (Utrecht): The Eye as an Optical Instrument – Bohr, Physiology and the Gamma Ray Microscope
14:45 – 15:30: Margarida Hermida (Bristol & King’s College London): Philosophy of Quantum Biology
15:30 – 16:00: Coffee
16:00 – 16:45: Stefano Furlan (Utrecht): Beyond the End of Time – Prolegomena to ‘It from Bit’
16:45 – 17:30: Dean Rickles (Sydney): Why Your Cosmos Needs You: John Wheeler and the Physics of Information

This workshop is associated with the Bristol Centre for Science and Philosophy, two Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professorships and the ERC project Niels Bohr for the 21st Century