Related papers: Less is Different: Emergence and Reduction Reconci…
It is argued that the occurrence of disproportionately ("un-natural") large (or small) numbers, as well as deep cancellations, are comparatively natural traits of the way Nature is geared to operate in most complex systems. The idea is…
This paper explores the connection between two central results in the proof theory of classical logic: Gentzen's cut-elimination for the sequent calculus and Herbrands "fundamental theorem". Starting from Miller's expansion-tree-proofs, a…
As Physics did in previous centuries, there is currently a common dream of extracting generic laws of nature in economics, sociology, neuroscience, by focalising the description of phenomena to a minimal set of variables and parameters,…
Gravity stands out among the fundamental interactions because of its apparent incompatibility with having a quantum description. Moreover, thermodynamic aspects of gravitation theory appears as puzzling features of some classical solutions…
Adversarial examples -- inputs with imperceptible perturbations that fool neural networks -- remain one of deep learning's most perplexing phenomena despite nearly a decade of research. While numerous defenses and explanations have been…
In their account of theory change in logic, Aberdein and Read distinguish 'glorious' from 'inglorious' revolutions--only the former preserves all 'the key components of a theory' [1]. A widespread view, expressed in these terms, is that…
Regardless of a system's complexity or scale, its growth can be considered to be a spontaneous thermodynamic response to a local convergence of down-gradient material flows. Here it is shown how growth can be constrained to a few distinct…
We discuss the recently developed method of refined absorption and how it is used to provide a new proof of the Existence Conjecture for combinatorial designs. This method can also be applied to resolve open problems in extremal and…
The special theory of relativity teaches us that, although distinct inertial frames perceive the same dynamical laws, space and time intervals differ in value. We revisit the problem of time contraction using the paradigmatic model of a…
It is not uncommon in analysis that existence of extremal objects is obtained via an iterative procedure: we start from a given admissible object, then modify it, then modify again etc... If being extremal means maximimizing a real valued…
The recapture relationship is an important element to any understanding of the connexion between different systems of logic. Loosely speaking, one system of logic recaptures another if it is possible to specify a subsystem of the former…
Empirical complex systems can be characterized not only by pairwise interactions, but also by higher-order (group) interactions influencing collective phenomena, from metabolic reactions to epidemics. Nevertheless, higher-order networks'…
We present a new characterization of quantum theory in terms of simple physical principles that is different from previous ones in two important respects: first, it only refers to properties of single systems without any assumptions on the…
How can we derive the evolution equations of dissipative systems? What is the relation between the different approaches? How much do we understand the fundamental aspects of a second law based framework? Is there a hierarchy of dissipative…
Maximum Entropy is a powerful concept that entails a sharp separation between relevant and irrelevant variables. It is typically invoked in inference, once an assumption is made on what the relevant variables are, in order to estimate a…
The problem of induction has persisted since Hume exposed the logical gap between repeated observation and universal inference. Traditional attempts to resolve it have oscillated between two extremes: the probabilistic optimism of Laplace…
Across neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and related fields, dominant models of intelligence typically privilege convergence: uncertainty is reduced, competing explanations are eliminated, and behaviour is governed by the optimisation…
Questioning the experimental basis of continuous descriptions of fundamental interactions we discuss classical gravity as an effective continuous first-order approximation of a discrete interaction. The sub-dominant contributions produce a…
Supervenience is an important philosophical concept. In this paper, inspired by the supervenience-determined consequence relation and the semantics of agreement operator, we introduce a modal logic of supervenience, which has a dyadic…
The theory of regularity is a philosophical perspective in which laws of nature are just descriptions, that is to say, laws of nature do not govern the world. Moreover, according to the theory of regularity, the number of laws of nature…