Related papers: Bayesian Methods and Universal Darwinism
Evolution is the theory that plants and animals today have come from kinds that have existed in the past. Scientists such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace dedicate their life to observe how species interact with their environment, grow,…
Bayesian statistics is based on the subjective definition of probability as {\it ``degree of belief''} and on Bayes' theorem, the basic tool for assigning probabilities to hypotheses combining {\it a priori} judgements and experimental…
This chapter provides a overview of Bayesian inference, mostly emphasising that it is a universal method for summarising uncertainty and making estimates and predictions using probability statements conditional on observed data and an…
With unprecedented advances in genetic engineering we are starting to see progressively more original examples of synthetic life. As such organisms become more common it is desirable to be able to distinguish between natural and artificial…
A new interpretation of quantum mechanics is proposed according to which precedence, freedom and novelty play central roles. This is based on a modification of the postulates for quantum theory given by Masanes and Muller. We argue that…
It has been proposed that, since the origin of life and the ensuing evolution of biological species, a second evolutionary process has appeared on our planet. It is the evolution of culture-e.g., ideas, beliefs, and artifacts. Does culture…
Modern statistical software and machine learning libraries are enabling semi-automated statistical inference. Within this context, it appears easier and easier to try and fit many models to the data at hand, reversing thereby the Fisherian…
The aim of this paper is to introduce a field of study that has emerged over the last decade called Bayesian mechanics. Bayesian mechanics is a probabilistic mechanics, comprising tools that enable us to model systems endowed with a…
The scientific process is a means to turn the results of experiments into knowledge about the world in which we live. Much research effort has been directed toward automating this process. To do this, one needs to formulate the scientific…
The Darwinian paradigm of biological evolution is based on the separability of the variation and selection processes. As a result, the population thinking had always been an integral part of the Darwinian approach. I propose an alternative…
Quantum Darwinism posits that information becomes objective whenever multiple observers indirectly probe a quantum system by each measuring a fraction of the environment. It was recently shown that objectivity of observables emerges…
Life forms exhibit such a degree of exquisite organization that it seems impossible that they could have developed out of a process of trial and error, as intimated by the theory of Darwinian evolution. In this general public paper I…
Evolution is the fundamental physical process that gives rise to biological phenomena. Yet it is widely treated as a subset of population genetics, and thus its scope is artificially limited. As a result, the key issues of how rapidly…
The sciences of complexity present some recurrent themes: the emergence of qualitatively new behaviors in dissipative systems out of equilibrium, the aparent tendency of complex system to lie at the border of phase transitions and…
Instructive influence of environment on heredity has been a debated topic for centuries. Darwin's identification of natural selection coupled to chance variation as the driving force for evolution, against a formal interpretation proposed…
Quantum Darwinism explains the emergence of classical reality from the underlying quantum reality by the fact that a quantum system is observed indirectly, by looking at parts of its environment, so that only specific information about the…
Chaitin's work, in its depth and breadth, encompasses many areas of scientific and philosophical interest. It helped establish the accepted mathematical concept of randomness, which in turn is the basis of tools that I have developed to…
The scientific method is the cornerstone of human progress across all branches of the natural and applied sciences, from understanding the human body to explaining how the universe works. The scientific method is based on identifying…
In the {\em Many Worlds Interpretation} of quantum mechanics, the range of possible worlds (or histories) provides variation, and the Anthropic Principle is a selective principle analogous to natural selection. When looked on in this way,…
Scientists have long aimed to discover meaningful formulae which accurately describe experimental data. A common approach is to manually create mathematical models of natural phenomena using domain knowledge, and then fit these models to…