Related papers: No categorial support for radical ontic structural…
Recent developments in loop quantum gravity and topological quantum field theory are being mirrored with a view to the emergent structure of self- organized criticality (SOC). Referring back to an earlier paper [nlin.AO/ 0105064], the…
This brief brochure is intended to present a philosophical theory known as relational materialism. We introduce the postulates and principles of the theory, articulating its ontological and epistemological content using the language of…
In this paper we discuss the representational realist stance as a pluralist ontic approach to inter-theoretic relationships. Our stance stresses the fact that physical theories require the necessary consideration of a conceptual level of…
Constructor theory is a meta-theoretic approach that seeks to characterise concrete theories of physics in terms of the (im)possibility to implement certain abstract "tasks" by means of physical processes. Process theory, on the other hand,…
A symmetric monoidal category naturally arises as the mathematical structure that organizes physical systems, processes, and composition thereof, both sequentially and in parallel. This structure admits a purely graphical calculus. This…
Traditional category theory is typically based on set-theoretic principles and ideas, which are often non-constructive. An alternative approach to formalizing category theory is to use E-category theory, where hom sets become setoids. Our…
This paper is the fourth in a series whose goal is to develop a fundamentally new way of building theories of physics. The motivation comes from a desire to address certain deep issues that arise in the quantum theory of gravity. Our basic…
We begin by surveying the historical positions in different attempts to understand the material world since the rise of modern science, with specific focus on the role of Cartesian primary qualities in explanatory conceptualisation.…
In this article, I argue that modern spacetime physics causes problems for a number of traditional accounts of modality, but also offers important new ideas about the connection between modal and non-modal features of reality. I suggest…
Based on a clear ontology of material individuals, we analyze in detail the factual semantics of quantum theory, and argue that the basic mathematical formalism of quantum theory is just okay with (a certain form of ) realism and that it is…
Relativistic, scalar particles are considered, contained in a box with periodic boundary conditions. Although interactions are not expected to be a fundamental problem, we concentrate on free particles. By considering them to be harmonic…
Modern physics, via the standard model with Higgs mechanism and string theory for example, has supplied ether-like models and emergent general relativity scenarios that substantially weaken the usual defense of orthodox relativity and…
We develop a representation theory of categories as a means to explore characteristic structures in algebra. Characteristic structures play a critical role in isomorphism testing of groups and algebras, and their construction and…
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…
RS-frames were introduced by Gehrke as relational semantics for substructural logics. They are two-sorted structures, based on RS-polarities with additional relations used to interpret modalities. We propose an intuitive, epistemic…
After reviewing various interpretations of structural realism, I adopt here a definition that allows both relations between things that are already individuated (which I call ``relations between things'') and relations that individuate…
The aim of this comment is to call to the attention of DSR readers a basic fact. The introduction of noncommutative structures in problems like the one addressed in [1] is not necessary for the understanding of DSR physics. It can be…
It has become obvious in the recent development that the structural Ramsey property is a categorical property: it depends not only on the choice of objects, but also on the choice of morphisms involved. In this paper we explicitely put the…
Operational frameworks are very useful to study the foundations of quantum mechanics, and are sometimes used to promote antirealist attitudes towards the theory. The aim of this paper is to review three arguments aiming at defending an…
We present a fully relational definition of inertial systems based in the No Arbitrariness Principle, that eliminates the need for absolute inertial frames of reference or distinguished reference systems as the "fixed stars" in order to…