Science and ultimate reality: quantum theory, cosmology, and complexity

PART I. AN OVERVIEW OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER

John Archibald Wheeler and the clash of ides / Paul C.W. Davies

PART II. AN HISTORIAN'S TRIBUTE TO JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER AND SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION THROUGHT THE AGES

The heritage of Heraclitus: John Archiblad Wheeler and the itch to speculate / Jaroslav Pelikan

PART III. QUANTUM REALITY: THEORY

Why is nature described by quantum theory? / Lucien Hardy

Thought-experiments in honor of John Archibald Wheeler / Freeman J. Dyson

It from qubit / David Deutsch

The wave function: it or bit? / H. Dieter Zeh

Quantum Darwinism and envariance / Wojciech H. Zurek

Using qubits to learn about "it" / Juan Pablo Paz

Quantum gravity as an ordinary gauge theory / Juan M. Maldacena

The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics / Bryce S. DeWitt

PART IV. QUANTUM REALITY: EXPERIMENT

Why the quantum? "It" from "bit"? A participatory universe? Three far-reaching challenges from John Archibald Wheeler and their relation to experiment / Anton Zeilinger

Speakable and unspeakable, past and future / Aephraim M. Steinberg

Conceptual tensions between quantum mechanics and general relativity: are there experimental consequences? / Raymond Y. Chiao

Breeding nonlocal Schrödinger cats: a thought-experiment to explore the quantum-classical boundary / Serge Haroche

Quantum erasing the nature of reality: or, perhaps, the reality of nature? / Paul G. Kwiat, Berthold-Georg Englert

Quantum erasing the nature of reality: or, perhaps, the reality of nature? / Paul G. Kwiat, Berthold-Georg Englert

Quantum feedback and the quantum-classical transition / Hideo Mabuchi

What quantum computers may tell us about quantum mechanics / Christopher R. Monroe

PART V. BIG QUESTIONS IN COSMOLOGY

Cosmic inflation and the arrow of time / Andreas Albrecht

Cosmology and immutability / John D. Barrow

Inflation, quantum cosmology, and the anthropic principle / Andrei Linde

Parallel universes / Max Tegmark

Quantum theories of gravity: results and prospects / Lee Smolin

A genuinely evolving universe / João Magueijo

Planck-scale models of the universe / Fotini Markopoulou

Implications of additional spatial dimensions for questions in cosmology / Lisa Randall

PART VI. EMERGENCE, LIFE, AND RELATED TOPICS

Emergence: us from it / Philip D. Clayton

True complexity and its associated ontology / George F.R. Ellis

The three origins: cosmos, life, and mind / Marcelo Gleiser

Autonomous agents / Stuart Kauffman

To see a world in a grain of sand / Shou-Cheng Zhang

Appendix A: Science and ultimate reality program committees

Appendix B: Young researchers competition in honor of John Archibald Wheeler for physics graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and young faculty.