QISS is a consortium of leading scientists from the communities of Quantum Information and Quantum Gravity, and leading philosophers of science, that share a strong interest in fundamental conceptual questions.
Quantum Information and Quantum Gravity have encountered similar questions regarding the foundation of our understanding of the world. Physics has modified the notions of Locality, Objectivity, Space and Time, Information, Observer. This deepens our understanding of reality, but also reveals our ignorance: in light of what we have learnt, what can we call an "objective fact", today? What are spatial and temporal localization? What is an observer, in a world where everything, including ourselves and the space and time we inhabit, are quantum entities? What kind of physical systems are we, human beings, in a world which is no longer captured by the naive scientific materialism of old mechanical philosophy?
The notion of Information, in particular, is playing an increasingly important role both in Quantum Gravity and in understanding the foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Information plays a role in contexts that range from efforts to understand the physics of black holes to the questioning of objectivity that appears to be implied when the quantum properties of the quantum observer are taken into account. The possibility of detecting quantum superposition of spacetimes in a laboratory has been pointed out using this notion. QISS will explore and compare the different uses of the notion of Information, and its role in a conceptual framework capable of encompassing our current knowledge of the physical world.
QISS aims to investigate these big questions at the foundations of basic science from a multiplicity of perspectives, from pure philosophy to the laboratory bench, providing the forum for a fertile dialogue between communities and catalyzing cross-disciplinary collaborations.
