Related papers: At the Frontier of Knowledge
The limitations of current technology do not allow one to foresee the expansion of the humankind beyond our planet for at least a few decades. Furthermore, the laws of physics, as for as they are known, preclude any form of traveling beyond…
From the perspective of the physics of complex systems (1) we deal with the current state of mod-ern physics including the crisis in physics demonstrated through its epistemological, psychological, economical as well as the social context;…
We argue against current proposals concerning the non-existence of time. We point out that a large number of these proposals rely, at least implicitly, on the assumption of `closure' (or `partial closure') of the laws of Physics. I.e. the…
The physics of matter in the condensed state is concerned with problems in which the number of constituent particles is vastly greater than can be easily comprehended. The inherent physical limitations of the human mind are fundamental and…
The stipulation that no measurable quantity could have an infinite value is indispensable in physics. At the same time, in mathematics, the possibility of considering an infinite procedure as a whole is usually taken for granted. However,…
A century ago, discoveries of a serious kind of logical error made separately by several leading mathematicians led to acceptance of a sharply enhanced standard for rigor within what ultimately became the foundation for Computer Science. By…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…
Recent progress in artificial intelligence provides the opportunity to ask the question of what is unique about human intelligence, but with a new comparison class. I argue that we can understand human intelligence, and the ways in which it…
Paradoxes are a very frequent phenomenon in processes of thought which strive towards the intelectual and cognitive shifts. They occur in all areas of human spiritual activites. What we are interested here in, are the paradoxes in physics.…
Laymen and sometimes even physicists think of natural sciences, in particular of theoretical and mathematical physics often as subjects, which unfold according to an intrinsic logical pattern, with the limitations being set only by the…
The most dramatic developments in theoretical physics in the next millennium are likely to come when we make progress on so far unresolved foundational questions. In this essay I consider two of the deepest problems confronting us, the…
Discussions on indeterminism in physics focus on the possibility of an open future, i.e. the possibility of having potential alternative future events, the realisation of one of which is not fully determined by the present state of affairs.…
Many domains of science have developed complex simulations to describe phenomena of interest. While these simulations provide high-fidelity models, they are poorly suited for inference and lead to challenging inverse problems. We review the…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
The paper gives a few examples of the phenomena that will never be understood by the mankind. The first example is the physics at the scales of $\sim 10^{-33}$ cm where the gravitation interaction becomes strong, sales at the very beginning…
In 2007 an international conference engaged a reflection on the present conditions for sciences and scientific practice, to initiate a dialogue between science, philosophy, epistemology and sociology. Starting from many examples taken from…
It is a quite common view among people, that are not aware of the developments in modern physics, that it is part of human nature to substitute religious faith in places where there is no knowledge. Therefore, an increase in knowledge would…
The anthropic principle is an inevitable constraint on the space of possible theories. As such it is central to determining the limits of physics. In particular, we contend that what is ultimately possible in physics is determined by…
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…
Many believe that the deep question of "why is there something rather than nothing?" is unanswerable. The universe just is and no further explanation for its existence is possible. In this paper I explain why this question must have an…