Related papers: Science and Illusions
Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldn't play a…
Hidden-variable models aim to reproduce the results of quantum theory and to satisfy our classical intuition. Their refutation is usually based on deriving predictions that are different from those of quantum mechanics. Here instead we…
Existing physical theories do not predict every feature of our experience but only certain regularities of that experience. That difference between what could be observed and what can be predicted is one kind of limit on scientific…
During the last centuries of human history, many questions was repeated in connection with the great problems of the existence and origin of human beings, and also of the Universe. The old questions of common sense and philosophy have not…
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…
Application of the uncertainty principle to conditional measurements is investigated, and found to be valid for measurements on separated sub-systems. In light of this, an apparent violation of the uncertainty principle obtained by Kim and…
The concept of informal mathematical proof considered in intuitionism is apparently vulnerable to a version of the liar paradox. However, a careful reevaluation of this concept reveals a subtle error whose correction blocks the…
I argue that, on a judicious reading of two existing criteria--one syntactic and the other semantic--dual theories can be taken to be empirically equivalent. The judicious reading is straightforward, but leads to the surprising conclusion…
When it isn't possible to tell two distinct experimental procedures apart purely from their input/output statistics, then it seems a plausible hypothesis that the two procedures must be physically identical. We call such a hypothesis…
In this letter, we point to three widely accepted challenges that the quantum theory, quantum information, and quantum foundations communities are currently facing: indeterminism, the semantics of conditional probabilities, and the spooky…
This paper avers that science is not demarcated from other disciplines by a specific unique methodology, but by its specific scientific rationality and rational grounds. In this context, the notion and structure of scientific reason are…
Here, by introducing a version of "Unexpected hanging paradox" we try to open a new way and a new explanation for paradoxes, similar to liar paradox. Also, we will show that we have a semantic situation which no syntactical logical system…
For AI systems to garner widespread public acceptance, we must develop methods capable of explaining the decisions of black-box models such as neural networks. In this work, we identify two issues of current explanatory methods. First, we…
An overview of the experimental and observational status in gravitational physics is given, both for the known tests of general relativity and Newtonian gravity, but also for the increasing number of results where these theories run into…
(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…
Practicing mathematicians often assume that mathematical claims, when they are true, have good reasons to be true. Such a state of affairs is "unreasonable", in Wigner's sense, because basic results in computational complexity suggest that…
While Evidence Theory (also known as Dempster-Shafer Theory, or Belief Functions Theory) is being increasingly used in data fusion, its potentialities in the Social and Life Sciences are often obscured by lack of awareness of its…
Mathematical proofs are both paradigms of certainty and some of the most explicitly-justified arguments that we have in the cultural record. Their very explicitness, however, leads to a paradox, because the probability of error grows…
I think we can agree that dealing with uncertainty is not easy. Probability is the main tool for dealing with uncertainty, and we know there are many probability-related puzzles and paradoxes. Here I describe a rather idiosyncratic…
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…