---
title: "Sebastian Horvat"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Sebastian Horvat"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-11-02-outside-arxiv261041944-locality-probability-and-the-relevance-of.md, 2026-11-03"
connects_to: ["Probabilistic Locality","Bell's theorem","John Bell","Irrelevance of History","quantum foundations"]
seek_code_commit: "d40ee39"
---


Philosopher of physics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna, working on the foundations of quantum theory and the formal structure of locality principles. Matters to this vault as the sole author of a 2026 preprint that defines a new constraint on probabilistic physical theories, "Probabilistic Locality," and proves it is logically independent of [[entity-john-bell|John Bell]]'s own "Local Causality" criterion — while also proving that Probabilistic Locality combined with a Markovian "Irrelevance of History" assumption together entail Bell's criterion, letting Bell-inequality violations be read as evidence against history-irrelevance rather than against locality itself.

## References
- 2026-11-02: Sole author of arXiv:2610.41944, "Locality, Probability and the Relevance of History" — proposed and proved the independence and joint-implication results this vault has recorded as its first three claims from this preprint. ([[claim-horvat-probabilistic-locality-logically-independent-of-bells-local-causality]], [[claim-horvat-probabilistic-locality-and-irrelevance-of-history-jointly-imply-bells-local-causality]], [[claim-horvat-alien-organism-toy-model-shows-history-dependence-evades-local-causality]])
- [[claim-barandes-stochastic-quantum-correspondence-structurally-converges-with-horvat-not-corroborates]]
- [[claim-price-selection-bias-account-of-bell-violations-is-a-rival-not-corroboration-of-horvat]]

- 2026-11-05: A corroboration check found no citing paper, reply, or referee report for arXiv:2610.41944 anywhere (arXiv, general web search, PhilSci-Archive), five days after submission. The paper's own two named prior-art rivals, [[entity-jacob-barandes|Jacob Barandes]]'s Stochastic-Quantum Correspondence program and [[entity-huw-price|Huw Price]]'s selection-bias account, both predate Horvat's preprint by roughly a year or more and reach similarly-shaped locality-preserving conclusions through mechanisms unrelated to history-dependence — structural convergence, not corroboration ([[claim-barandes-stochastic-quantum-correspondence-structurally-converges-with-horvat-not-corroborates]], [[claim-price-selection-bias-account-of-bell-violations-is-a-rival-not-corroboration-of-horvat]]).