Related papers: Thinking Inside and Outside the Box
Systems thinking is a way of making sense about the world in terms of multilevel, nested, interacting systems, their environment, and the boundaries between the systems and the environment. In this paper we discuss the evolution of systems…
We identify a choiceless variation of the box game paradox, in which players predict unknown real numbers with near-perfect accuracy despite lacking any useful information. We also verify that choice is necessary in the solution of the…
Learning physics is a context dependent process. I consider a broader interdisciplinary problem of where differences in understanding and reasoning arise. I suggest the long run effects a multiple choice based learning system as well as…
Epistemic interpretations of quantum mechanics fail to address the puzzle posed by the occurrence of probabilities in a fundamental physical theory. This is a puzzle about the physical world, not a puzzle about our relation to the physical…
In this note some philosophical thoughts and observations about mathematics are expressed, arranged as challenges to some common claims.
The prediction of the N-box paradox, that whichever box is opened will contain the record of the particle having passed through it, is traced to a failure to specify whether the other boxes are distinguishable or indistinguishable. These…
An origin is often an intriguing issue. It becomes doubly intriguing when the logical form of thinking is considered. In this paper we will investigate exactly that: we will conjecture on the origin of basic instruments of logical thinking.…
We discuss a generalization of logic puzzles in which truth-tellers and liars are allowed to deviate from their pattern in case of one particular question: "Are you guilty?"
The author reflects on the significance of Einstein's brain and the search for what makes it distinct.
I argue that research in physics operates under an implicit community philosophy, and I offer a definition I think physicists would accept, by and large. I compare this definition to what philosophers, sociologists, and historians of…
The two envelopes paradox is discussed. By calculating the conditional probability, we arrive at a conditional expectations which differs from existing results.
We are going to show that some variants of a puzzle called Pull in which the boxes have handles (i.e. we can only pull the boxes in certain directions) are NP-hard
We revive an old lateral-thinking puzzle by Michael Rabin, involving poisons with strange properties. We show that the puzzle admits several unintended solutions that are just as interesting as the intended solution. Analyzing these…
Various simplicial complexes can be associated with a graph. Box complexes form an important families of such simplicial complexes and are especially useful for providing lower bounds on the chromatic number of the graph via some of their…
We defined ordered black boxes in which for a partial $J$ we try to predict just a bound in $J$ to a function restricted to $C_\alpha$. The existence results are closely related to pcf, propagating downward. We can start with trivial cases.
This is a very basic introduction to some notions related to logic and complexity.
This paper is a comment on quant-ph/0606067 by Ravon and Vaidman, in which they defend the position that the ``three-box paradox'' is indeed paradoxical.
We envision a machine capable of solving mathematical problems. Dividing the quantitative reasoning system into two parts: thought processes and cognitive processes, we provide probabilistic descriptions of the architecture.
The author considers a class of mechatronic puzzles falling in the mixed-reality category, present examples of such devices, and propose a way to categorize them. Close relationships of such devices with the Tangible User Interface are…
From the philosopher's perspective, the interest in quantum computation stems primarily from the way that it combines fundamental concepts from two distinct sciences: physics (especially quantum mechanics) and computer science, each long a…