Related papers: What is "fundamental"?
The philosophical foundations of statistics involve issues in theoretical statistics, such as goals and methods to meet these goals, and interpretation of the meaning of inference using statistics. They are related to the philosophy of…
I discuss the historical and conceptual roots of reasoning about the parameters of fundamental physics and cosmology based on selection effects. I argue concretely that such reasoning can and should be combined with arguments based on…
Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its…
The study of opinions, their formation and change, is one of the defining topics addressed by social psychology, but in recent years other disciplines, as computer science and complexity, have addressed this challenge. Despite the…
A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified, in connection with growing debate about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the key ideas can be explained…
We introduce a logic for reasoning about evidence that essentially views evidence as a function from prior beliefs (before making an observation) to posterior beliefs (after making the observation). We provide a sound and complete…
Time variation of fundamental constants would not be surprising in the framework of theories involving extra dimensions. The variation of any one constant is likely to be correlated with variations of others in a pattern that is diagnostic…
When we try to search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence, we have to follow some guidelines. The first step is to clarify what is to be meant by "Life" and "intelligence", i.e. an attempt to define these words. The word "definition"…
This essay examines our fundamental conceptions of time, spacetime, the asymmetry of time, and the motion of a quantum mechanical particle. The concept of time has multiple meanings and these are often confused in the literature and must be…
Functional epistemology is about ways to access functional objects by using varieties of methods and procedures. Not all such means are equally capable of reproducing these functions in the desired consistency and resolution. Dyson's…
Constructor theory seeks to express all fundamental scientific theories in terms of a dichotomy between possible and impossible physical transformations - those that can be caused to happen and those that cannot. This is a departure from…
A sketch of three senses of emergence and a suggestive view on the emergence of time and the direction of time is presented. After trying to identify which issues philosophers interested in emergent phenomena in physics view as important I…
Determinism is (roughly) the thesis that the past determines the future. But efforts to define it precisely have exposed deep methodological disagreements. Standard possible-worlds formulations of determinism presuppose an "agreement"…
The search for a consistent and empirically established quantum theory of gravity is among the biggest open problems of fundamental physics. The obstacles are of formal and of conceptual nature. Here, I address the main conceptual problems,…
Process science is a highly interdisciplinary field of research. Despite numerous proposals, process science lacks an adequate understanding of the core concepts of the field, including notions such as process, event, and system. A more…
Interpretation is not the only way to explain a theory's success, form and features, and nor is it the only way to solve problems we see with a theory. This can also be done by giving a reductive explanation of the theory, by reference to a…
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…
This article describes the various experimental bounds on the variation of the fundamental constants of nature. After a discussion on the role of fundamental constants, of their definition and link with metrology, the various constraints on…
Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…
A review of some basic facts of classical dynamics shows that time, or precisely duration, is redundant as a fundamental concept. Duration and the behaviour of clocks emerge from a timeless law that governs change.