On Counterfactuals and Contextuality

Counterfactual reasoning and contextuality is defined and critically evaluated with regard to its nonempirical content. To this end, a uniqueness property of states, explosion views and link observables are introduced. If only a single context associated with a particular maximum set of observables can be operationalized, then a context translation principle resolves measurements of different contexts.Comment: 10 pages, presented at Foundations of Probability and Physics-3, Vaexjoe University, Sweden, June 7-12, 200

Finite automata models of quantized systems: conceptual status and outlook

Since Edward Moore, finite automata theory has been inspired by physics, in particular by quantum complementarity. We review automaton complementarity, reversible automata and the connections to generalized urn models. Recent developments in quantum information theory may have appropriate formalizations in the automaton context.Comment: 12 pages, prepared for the Sixth International Conference on Developments in Language Theory, Kyoto, Japan, September 18-21, 200

A pre-semantics for counterfactual conditionals and similar logics

The elegant Stalnaker/Lewis semantics for counterfactual conditonals works with distances between models. But human beings certainly have no tables of models and distances in their head. We begin here an investigation using a more realistic picture, based on findings in neuroscience. We call it a pre-semantics, as its meaning is not a description of the world, but of the brain, whose structure is (partly) determined by the world it reasons about. In the final section, we reconsider the components, and postulate that there are no atomic pictures, we can always look inside

Towards the Integration of an Intuitionistic First-Order Prover into Coq

An efficient intuitionistic first-order prover integrated into Coq is useful to replay proofs found by external automated theorem provers. We propose a two-phase approach: An intuitionistic prover generates a certificate based on the matrix characterization of intuitionistic first-order logic; the certificate is then translated into a sequent-style proof.Comment: In Proceedings HaTT 2016, arXiv:1606.0542

Extending Kolmogorov's axioms for a generalized probability theory on collections of contexts

Kolmogorov's axioms of probability theory are extended to conditional probabilities among distinct (and sometimes intertwining) contexts. Formally, this amounts to row stochastic matrices whose entries characterize the conditional probability to find some observable (postselection) in one context, given an observable (preselection) in another context. As the respective probabilities need not (but, depending on the physical/model realization, can) be of the Born rule type, this generalizes approaches to quantum probabilities by Auff\'eves and Grangier, which in turn are inspired by Gleason's theorem.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, greatly revise

Coherence in Modal Logic

A variety is said to be coherent if the finitely generated subalgebras of its finitely presented members are also finitely presented. In a recent paper by the authors it was shown that coherence forms a key ingredient of the uniform deductive interpolation property for equational consequence in a variety, and a general criterion was given for the failure of coherence (and hence uniform deductive interpolation) in varieties of algebras with a term-definable semilattice reduct. In this paper, a more general criterion is obtained and used to prove the failure of coherence and uniform deductive interpolation for a broad family of modal logics, including K, KT, K4, and S4

Reactive preferential structures and nonmonotonic consequence

We introduce information bearing systems (IBRS) as an abstraction of many logical systems. We define a general semantics for IBRS, and show that IBRS generalize in a natural way preferential semantics and solve open representation problems

Disagreement about logic

Under embargo until: 2021-02-08What do we disagree about when we disagree about logic? On the face of it, classical and nonclassical logicians disagree about the laws of logic and the nature of logical properties. Yet, sometimes the parties are accused of talking past each other. The worry is that if the parties to the dispute do not mean the same thing with ‘if’, ‘or’, and ‘not’, they fail to have genuine disagreement about the laws in question. After the work of Quine, this objection against genuine disagreement about logic has been called the meaning-variance thesis. We argue that the meaning-variance thesis can be endorsed without blocking genuine disagreement. In fact, even the type of revisionism and nonapriorism championed by Quine turns out to be compatible with meaning-variance.acceptedVersio

On the undefinability of Tsirelson's space and its descendants

We prove that Tsirelson's space cannot be defined explicitly from the classical Banach sequence spaces. We also prove that any Banach space that is explicitly definable from a class of spaces that contain $\ell_p$ or $c_0$ must contain $\ell_p$ or $c_0$ as well