Related papers: The Preferred System of Reference Reloaded
A conditional knowledge base R is a set of conditionals of the form "If A, the usually B". Using structural information derived from the conditionals in R, we introduce the preferred structure relation on worlds. The preferred structure…
Inference is the process of using facts we know to learn about facts we do not know. A theory of inference gives assumptions necessary to get from the former to the latter, along with a definition for and summary of the resulting…
We introduce an approach to the foundations of physics that is more in line with the foundations of mathematics. The idea is to examine current theories and find a set of starting physical assumptions that are sufficient to rederive them,…
(l) I have enough evidence to render the sentence S probable. (la) So, relative to what I know, it is rational of me to believe S. (2) Now that I have more evidence, S may no longer be probable. (2a) So now, relative to what I know, it is…
A primary motivation for reasoning under uncertainty is to derive decisions in the face of inconclusive evidence. However, Shafer's theory of belief functions, which explicitly represents the underconstrained nature of many reasoning…
Possibility theory offers a framework where both Lehmann's "preferential inference" and the more productive (but less cautious) "rational closure inference" can be represented. However, there are situations where the second inference does…
Both classical and quantum mechanics assume that physical laws are invariant under changes in the way that the world is labeled. This Principle of Decompositional Equivalence is formalized, and shown to forbid finite experimental…
Various structured argumentation frameworks utilize preferences as part of their standard inference procedure to enable reasoning with preferences. In this paper, we consider an inverse of the standard reasoning problem, seeking to identify…
Probability theory, epistemically interpreted, provides an excellent, if not the best available account of inductive reasoning. This is so because there are general and definite rules for the change of subjective probabilities through…
Probabilities may be subjective or objective; we are concerned with both kinds of probability, and the relationship between them. The fundamental theory of objective probability is quantum mechanics: it is argued that neither Bohr's…
Does information play a significant role in the foundations of physics? Information is the abstraction that allows us to refer to the states of systems when we choose to ignore the systems themselves. This is only possible in very…
Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be…
This is the first expression of my thoughts and my experiments with Nature about the mathematical description of the Universe. The theories about our surrounding Nature became popular from our ancient civilizations and may be from the…
It is mostly agreed that Popper's criterion of falsifiability fails to provide a useful demarcation between science and pseudo-science, because ad-hoc assumptions are always able to save any theory that conflicts with the empirical data…
The following three sections and appendices are taken from my thesis "The Foundations of Inference and its Application to Fundamental Physics" from 2021, in which I construct a theory of entropic inference from first principles. The…
Both religion and science start with basic assumptions that cannot be proved but are taken on faith. Here I note that one basic assumption that is rather common in both enterprises is the assumption that in comparing different hypotheses…
Defeasible statements are statements that are likely, or probable, or usually true, but may occasionally be false. Plausible reasoning makes conclusions from statements that are either facts or defeasible statements without using numbers.…
Being mathematics a natural language to Mankind and to physics, it must be constantly adapted to our necessities and our natural perception. Then, mathematical concepts are not absolute to reality. Although mathematical theories are…
Criteria for defining errors of a physical theory are formulated. It is shown that the Special Theory of Relativity (STR) has a solid mathematical basis. An enormous amount of experiments carried out in particle physics use beams of…
Bayesian probability theory is used to analyze the oft-made assumption that humans are typical observers in the universe. Some theoretical calculations make the {\it selection fallacy} that we are randomly chosen from a class of objects by…