Related papers: A Theory of Scientific Practice
Modern physics is founded on two mainstays: mathematical modelling and empirical verification. These two assumptions are prerequisite for the objectivity of scientific discourse. Here we show, however, that they are contradictory, leading…
A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified, in connection with growing debate about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the key ideas can be explained…
According to scientific realism, science gives us an approximately true description of what the world is like. But what does it mean? In this chapter, we focus on the ontological and metaphysical aspects of this discussion. That is, we are…
In this essay, I argue that modern science is not the dichotomous pairing of theory and experiment that it is typically presented as, and I offer an alternative paradigm defined by its functions as a human endeavor. I also demonstrate how…
In this paper, we make a review on the concepts of rationality across several different fields, namely in economics, psychology and evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology. We review how processes like natural selection can help us…
For four decades it has been argued that we need to adopt a new conception of science called aim-oriented empiricism. This has far-reaching implications and repercussions for science, the philosophy of science, academic inquiry in general,…
With the continuous advancement of reasoning abilities in Large Language Models (LLMs), their application to scientific reasoning tasks has gained significant research attention. Current research primarily emphasizes boosting LLMs'…
Currently it is widely accepted that the language of science is mathematics. This book explores an alternative idea where the future of science is based on the language of algorithms and programs. How such a language can actually be…
The view of nature we adopt in the natural attitude is determined by common sense, without which we could not survive. Classical physics is modelled on this common-sense view of nature, and uses mathematics to formalise our natural…
A 21st century view of the nature of science is presented. It attempts to show how a consistent description of science and scientific progress can be given. Science advances through a sequence of models with progressively greater predictive…
This chapter argues that the general philosophy of science should learn metaphilosophical lessons from the case of metaphysical underdetermination, as it occurs in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Section 2 presents the traditional…
In recent years, a series of high-profile retractions and fraud cases have arisen in physics, sparking a conversation about research integrity and replicability. Here, we discuss how the practice of science is shaped by the social and…
The human mind is endowed with innate primordial perceptions such as space, distance, motion, change, flow of time, matter. The field of cognitive science argues that the abstract concepts of mathematics are not Platonic, but are built in…
One of the basic observations of the classical world is that physical entities are real and can be distinguished from each other. However, within quantum theory, the idea of physical realism is not well established. A framework to analyse…
Individual choices often depend on the order in which the decisions are made. In this paper, we expose a general theory of measurable systems (an example of which is an individual's preferences) allowing for incompatible (non-commuting)…
Quantum theory describes our universe incredibly successfully. To our classically-inclined brains, however, it is a bizarre description that requires a re-imagining of what fundamental reality, or "ontology", could look like. This thesis…
Underlying any theory of physics is a layer of conceptual frames. They connect the mathematical structures used in theoretical models with physical phenomena, but they also constitute our fundamental assumptions about reality. Many of the…
Mathematics and its relation to the physical universe have been the topic of speculation since the days of Pythagoras. Several different views of the nature of mathematics have been considered: Realism - mathematics exists and is…
Statistical science (as opposed to mathematical statistics) involves far more than probability theory, for it requires realistic causal models of data generators - even for purely descriptive goals. Statistical decision theory requires more…
The purpose of this essay is to bring out the unique role of Mathematics in providing a base to the diverse sciences which conform to its rigid structure. Of these the physical and economic sciences are so intimately linked with…