Grünbaum Memorial Lecture - Stephan Hartmann - The Open Systems View

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh invites you to join us for our 67th Annual Lecture Series Talk. Attend in person in room 1008 in the Cathedral of Learning (10th Floor) or visit our live stream on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg. The Annual Lecture Series, the Center’s oldest program, was established in 1960, the year when Adolf Grünbaum founded the Center. Each year the series consists of six to eight lectures, about three quarters of which are given by philosophers, historians, and scientists from other universities. Annual Lecture Series - Stephan Hartmann Friday, September 25th @ 3:30 pm - 5:30pm EDT 1008 Cathedral of Learning Title: The Open Systems View Abstract: Quantum theory is commonly understood as a theory of closed, isolated systems, with open systems treated as merely effective descriptions obtained by embedding them into larger closed systems. In this talk, I challenge this assumption and defend the open systems view, according to which systems interacting with their environments can themselves be treated as fundamental. The motivation is both physical and methodological: in central areas of contemporary physics–decoherence, quantum thermodynamics, cosmology, and black hold physics–strict isolation is neither realistic nor clearly defined, and its privileged status rests on idealizations whose epistemic and ontological roles require closer scrutiny. I present a general framework for open quantum dynamics in which environmental influence is incorporated directly into the system’s dynamical laws, without presupposing an underlying unitary system-environment decomposition, thereby treating openness as a basic structural feature of quantum theory rather than a derivative approximation. I then argue that standard interpretations of quantum mechanics–both orthodox and Everettian–are, despite appearances, already committed to open systems at the ontological level.