Quantum mechanics, strong emergence and ontological non-reducibility

We show that a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the notion of event is defined without reference to measurement or observers, allows to construct a quantum general ontology based on systems, states and events. Unlike the Copenhagen interpretation, it does not resort to elements of a classical ontology. The quantum ontology in turn allows us to recognize that a typical behavior of quantum systems exhibits strong emergence and ontological non-reducibility. Such phenomena are not exceptional but natural, and are rooted in the basic mathematical structure of quantum mechanics.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Foundations of Chemistr

Linear Logic and Strong Normalization

Strong normalization for linear logic requires elaborated rewriting techniques. In this paper we give a new presentation of MELL proof nets, without any commutative cut-elimination rule. We show how this feature induces a compact and simple proof of strong normalization, via reducibility candidates. It is the first proof of strong normalization for MELL which does not rely on any form of confluence, and so it smoothly scales up to full linear logic. Moreover, it is an axiomatic proof, as more generally it holds for every set of rewriting rules satisfying three very natural requirements with respect to substitution, commutation with promotion, full composition, and Kesner\u27s IE property. The insight indeed comes from the theory of explicit substitutions, and from looking at the exponentials as a substitution device

Quantum leaps in philosophy of mind

I discuss the quantum mechanical theory of consciousness and freewill offered by Stapp (1993, 1995, 2000, 2004). First I show that decoherence-based arguments do not work against this theory. Then discuss a number of problems with the theory: Stapp's separate accounts of consciousness and freewill are incompatible, the interpretations of QM they are tied to are questionable, the Zeno effect could not enable freewill as he suggests because weakness of will would then be ubiquitous, and the holism of measurement in QM is not a good explanation of the unity of consciousness for essentially the same reason that local interactions may seem incapable of accounting for it

On Higher-Order Probabilistic Subrecursion

We study the expressive power of subrecursive probabilistic higher-order calculi. More specifically, we show that endowing a very expressive deterministic calculus like Godel's T with various forms of probabilistic choice operators may result in calculi which are not equivalent as for the class of distributions they give rise to, although they all guarantee almost-sure termination. Along the way, we introduce a probabilistic variation of the classic reducibility technique, and we prove that the simplest form of probabilistic choice leaves the expressive power of T essentially unaltered. The paper ends with some observations about the functional expressive power: expectedly, all the considered calculi capture the functions which T itself represents, at least when standard notions of observations are considered

Monometallic cerium layered double hydroxide supported Pd-Ni nanoparticles as high performance catalysts for lignin hydrogenolysis

Monometallic cerium layered double hydroxides (Ce-LDH) supports were successfully synthesized by a homogeneous alkalization route driven by hexamethylenetetramine (HMT). The formation of the Ce-LDH was confirmed and its structural and compositional properties studied by XRD, SEM, XPS, iodometric analyses and TGA. HT-XRD, N-2-sorption and XRF analyses revealed that by increasing the calcination temperature from 200 to 800 degrees C, the Ce-LDH material transforms to ceria (CeO2) in four distinct phases, i.e., the loss of intramolecular water, dehydroxylation, removal of nitrate groups and removal of sulfate groups. When loaded with 2.5 wt% palladium (Pd) and 2.5 wt% nickel (Ni) and calcined at 500 degrees C, the PdNi-Ce-LDH-derived catalysts strongly outperform the PdNi-CeO2 benchmark catalyst in terms of conversion as well as selectivity for the hydrogenolysis of benzyl phenyl ether (BPE), a model compound for the alpha-O-4 ether linkage in lignin. The PdNi-Ce-LDH catalysts showed full selectivity towards phenol and toluene while the PdNi-CeO2 catalysts showed additional oxidation of toluene to benzoic acid. The highest BPE conversion was observed with the PdNi-Ce-LDH catalyst calcined at 600 degrees C, which could be related to an optimum in morphological and compositional characteristics of the support

Joins and meets in the structure of Ceers

We study computably enumerable equivalence relations (abbreviated as ceers) under computable reducibility, and we investigate the resulting degree structure Ceers, which is a poset with a smallest and a greatest element. We point out a partition of the ceers into three classes: the finite ceers, the light ceers, and the dark ceers. These classes yield a partition of the degree structure as well, and in the language of posets the corresponding classes of degrees are first order definable within Ceers. There is no least, no maximal, no greatest dark degree, but there are infinitely many minimal dark degrees. We study joins and meets in Ceers, addressing the cases when two incomparable degrees of ceers X,Y have or do not have join or meet according to where X,Y are located in the classes of the aforementioned partition: in particular no pair of dark ceers has join, and no pair in which at least one ceer is dark has meet. We also exhibit examples of ceers X,Y having join which coincides with their uniform join, but also examples when their join is strictly less than the uniform join. We study join-irreducibility and meet-irreducibility. In particular we characterize the property of being meet-irreducible for a ceer E, by showing that it coincides with the property of E being self-full, i.e. every reducibility from E to itself is in fact surjective on its equivalence classes (this property properly extends darkness). We then study the quotient structure obtained by dividing the poset Ceers by the degrees of the finite ceers, and study joins and meets in this quotient structure. We look at automorphisms of Ceers, and show that there are continuum many automorphisms fixing the dark ceers, and continuum many automorphisms fixing the light ceers. Finally, we compute the complexity of the index sets of the classes of ceers studied in the paper