Related papers: Science and Illusions
Contrary to claims about the irrelevance of philosophy for science, I argue that philosophy has had, and still has, far more influence on physics than is commonly assumed. I maintain that the current anti-philosophical ideology has had…
Mathematical Theory of Evidence (MTE), a foundation for reasoning under partial ignorance, is blamed to leave frequencies outside (or aside of) its framework. The seriousness of this accusation is obvious: no experiment may be run to…
This article focuses on the problem of the authenticity of knowledge. It argues that the failure to integrate the observer into the act of observing is the main source of the disagreements and divisions in contemporary science and…
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…
This book presents a methodology and philosophy of empirical science based on large scale lossless data compression. In this view a theory is scientific if it can be used to build a data compression program, and it is valuable if it can…
Our knowledge of the Universe remains discovery-led: in the absence of adequate physics-based theory, interpretation of new results requires a scientific methodology. Commonly, scientific progress in astrophysics is motivated by the…
We argue that for the proof of Bell's theorem no assumptions about realism or free will are necessary. The key formula \[E(AB|a,b) = \int A(a,b,\lambda)B(a,b,\lambda)\rho(\lambda) d\lambda\] follows from the logic of plausible reasoning…
This paper proposes a new definition of science based on the distinction between the activity of scientists and the product of that activity: the former is denoted (lower-case) science and the latter (upper-case) Science. These definitions…
The quantum theory of decoherence plays an important role in a pragmatist interpretation of quantum theory. It governs the descriptive content of claims about values of physical magnitudes and offers advice on when to use quantum…
The scientific method is often presented, e.g. to children, as a linear process, starting by a question and ending by the elaboration of a theory, with a few experiments in-between. The reality of the building of science is much more…
The paper investigates the role of data, hypotheses and mathematical methods that can be used in the discovery of a law y=fo(u), relating variables u and y of a physical phenomenon, making use of experimental measurements of such variables.…
The method of maximum entropy has been very successful but there are cases where it has either failed or led to paradoxes that have cast doubt on its general legitimacy. My more optimistic assessment is that such failures and paradoxes…
Einstein's article on the EPR paradox is the most cited of his works, but not many know that it was not fully representative of the way he thought about the incompleteness of the quantum formalism. Indeed, his main worry was not…
This article describes epistemological distinctions between science and history. Science investigates models of natural law using repeatable experiments as the ultimate arbiter. In contrast, history investigates past events by considering…
Quantum pre- and post-selection (PPS) paradoxes occur when counterfactual inferences are made about different measurements that might have been performed, between two measurements that are actually performed. The 3 box paradox is the…
In an empirical logic, an experimentally verifiable proposition P relating to a quantum system is assigned the value of either true of false if the system is in the pure state that belongs or, respectively, does not belong to the Hilbert…
Although living organisms are affected by many interrelated and unidentified variables, this complexity does not automatically impose a fundamental limitation on statistical inference. Nor need one invoke such complexity as an explanation…
Many philosophers of physics maintain that a physical theory that exhibits (certain kinds of) symmetries is flawed, on the grounds that such theories posit "excess structure". In an influential paper, Dewar [2019, "Sophistication about…
Recently, it has been emphasized that the possibility theory framework allows us to distinguish between i) what is possible because it is not ruled out by the available knowledge, and ii) what is possible for sure. This distinction may be…
Most work on scholarly document processing assumes that the information processed is trustworthy and factually correct. However, this is not always the case. There are two core challenges, which should be addressed: 1) ensuring that…