Related papers: A Farewell to Falsifiability
Despite significant developments in Proof Theory, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the concept of proof verifier. In particular, the mathematical community may be interested in studying different types of proof verifiers…
I investigate the question whether G\"odel's undecidability theorems play a crucial role in the search for a unified theory of physics. I conclude that unless the structure of space-time is fundamentally discrete we can never decide whether…
The no-supervenience theorem limits the capacity of physicalist theories to provide a comprehensive account of human consciousness. The proof of the theorem is difficult to formalize because it relies on both alethic and epistemic notions…
The famous G\"odel incompleteness theorem says that for every sufficiently rich formal theory (containing formal arithmetic in some natural sense) there exist true unprovable statements. Such statements would be natural candidates for being…
This paper addresses the question as to whether the methodology followed in building and assessing string theory can be considered scientific in the same sense, say, that the methodology followed in building and assessing the Standard Model…
An indeterministic interpretation of classical physics has been proposed recently, in which the argument relies on attacking an alleged unwarranted metaphysical hidden assumption of the standard deterministic interpretation. This short…
Are minds subject to laws of physics? Are the laws of physics computable? Are conscious thought processes computable? Currently there is little agreement as to what are the right answers to these questions. Penrose goes one step further and…
If the history of science has taught us anything, it's that persistence and creativity makes the once impossible possible. It has long been thought experimental tests of quantum gravity are impossible. But during the last decade, several…
When a physicist says that a theory is fine-tuned, they mean that it must make a suspiciously precise assumption in order to explain a certain observation. This is evidence that the theory is deficient or incomplete. One particular case of…
Theory testing in the physical sciences has been revolutionized in recent decades by Bayesian approaches to probability theory. Here, I will consider Bayesian approaches to theory extensions, that is, theories like inflation which aim to…
The main aim of this paper is to make a remark about the relation between (i) dualities between theories, as `duality' is understood in physics and (ii) equivalence of theories, as `equivalence' is understood in logic and philosophy. The…
This paper is concerned with the question of when a theory is refutable with certainty on the basis of sequence of primitive observations. Beginning with the simple definition of falsifiability as the ability to be refuted by some finite…
Although various limits on the predicability of physical phenomena as well as on physical knowables are commonly established and accepted, we challenge their ultimate validity. More precisely, we claim that fundamental limits arise only…
After briefly reviewing basic concepts of perturbative string theory, we explain in simple terms some of the new findings that created excitement among the string physicists. These developments include non-perturbative dualities and a…
One cannot yet point to any firm string prediction. While many approximate string ground states are known with interesting properties, we do not have any argument that one or another describes what we observe around us, and for reasons…
The best mathematical arguments against a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics - that gives definite but partially unknown values to all observables - are analysed and shown to be based on reasoning that is not compelling. This…
The basic problem posed by free will (FW) for physics appears to be not the \textit{physical} one of whether it is compatible with the laws of physics, but the \textit{logical} one of how to consistently define it, since it incorporates the…
On the basis of three physical axioms, we prove that if the choice of a particular type of spin 1 experiment is not a function of the information accessible to the experimenters, then its outcome is equally not a function of the information…
What would be the consequences if there were fundamental limits to our ability to experimentally explore the world? In this work we seriously consider this question. We assume the existence of statements whose truth value is not…
This is a broad-brush review of how string theory addresses several important questions of gravitational physics. The problem of non-renormalizability is first reviewed, followed by introduction of string theory as an ultraviolet-finite…