Foundational puzzles on quantum universality: From Wigner's friend to black holes
Abstract
Despite its remarkable empirical success and predictive power, quantum theory is riddled with mysteries. One such conceptual puzzle is the measurement problem: why do quantum systems in superposition collapse to a single-valued outcome upon being measured? The scenario of Wigner's friend illustrates this tension, with recent extensions deriving strong no-go results for the nature of reality. Another fundamental puzzle arises at the interface of quantum theory and general relativity---the black hole information paradox. This thesis further explores these two foundational paradoxes. Part I of this thesis focuses on extensions of the Wigner's friend scenario. We introduce several novel extended Wigner's friend arguments, and establish connections with notions of nonclassicality, i.e. the study of quantum phenomena that evade classical explanation. Key results are a refined version of the Frauchiger--Renner paradox, new extended Wigner's friend scenarios based on contextuality, and an argument against the absoluteness of free choices based on the Pusey--Barrett--Rudolph theorem. The latter result complements the Local Friendliness no-go theorem, which challenged the absoluteness of experimentally obtained measurement outcomes. In Part II of this thesis, we turn to black hole puzzles and the interplay of quantum theory and gravity. We present a paradox that unifies extended Wigner's friend arguments with black hole puzzles, strengthening the cloning and firewall paradoxes. After discussing subtleties in these paradoxes, we next present an analysis combining elements of quantum theory with gravity, analyzing the detector response near a superposed black hole using elements of quantum reference frames.
Related
- Extended Wigner's Friend Scenarios with Agent-like Observers on Quantum Computers
- General Quantum Circuit Framework for Extended Wigner’s Friend Scenarios: Logically and Causally Consistent Reasoning without Absolute Measurement Events
- Questioning the absoluteness of free choices when internalized in Wigner's friend scenarios
- Agreement and Compatibility in Wigner's Friend Paradox
- Resolving the universality and polarization puzzles in J/ψ hadroproduction
BibTeX
@misc{walleghem2026foundational,
title = {{Foundational puzzles on quantum universality: From Wigner's friend to black holes}},
author = {Laurens Walleghem},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.03979},
eprint = {2610.03979},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.03979},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Foundational puzzles on quantum universality: From Wigner's friend to black holes
AU - Laurens Walleghem
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/02
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.03979
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.03979
AB - Despite its remarkable empirical success and predictive power, quantum theory is riddled with mysteries. One such conceptual puzzle is the measurement problem: why do quantum systems in superposition collapse to a single-valued outcome upon being measured? The scenario of Wigner's friend illustrates this tension, with recent extensions deriving strong no-go results for the nature of reality. Another fundamental puzzle arises at the interface of quantum theory and general relativity---the black hole information paradox. This thesis further explores these two foundational paradoxes. Part I of this thesis focuses on extensions of the Wigner's friend scenario. We introduce several novel extended Wigner's friend arguments, and establish connections with notions of nonclassicality, i.e. the study of quantum phenomena that evade classical explanation. Key results are a refined version of the Frauchiger--Renner paradox, new extended Wigner's friend scenarios based on contextuality, and an argument against the absoluteness of free choices based on the Pusey--Barrett--Rudolph theorem. The latter result complements the Local Friendliness no-go theorem, which challenged the absoluteness of experimentally obtained measurement outcomes. In Part II of this thesis, we turn to black hole puzzles and the interplay of quantum theory and gravity. We present a paradox that unifies extended Wigner's friend arguments with black hole puzzles, strengthening the cloning and firewall paradoxes. After discussing subtleties in these paradoxes, we next present an analysis combining elements of quantum theory with gravity, analyzing the detector response near a superposed black hole using elements of quantum reference frames.
ER -