Related papers: Law without law or "just" limit theorems?
In this essay I develop quantum contextuality as a potential candidate for Wheeler's universal regulating principle, arguing -- \textit{contrary} to Wheeler -- that this ultimately implies that `bit' comes from `it.' In the process I…
The law of likelihood underlies a general framework, known as the likelihood paradigm, for representing and interpreting statistical evidence. As stated, the law applies only to simple hypotheses, and there have been reservations about…
The experience from Quantum Information has lead us to look at Quantum Theory (QT) and the whole Physics from a different angle. The information-theoretical paradigm---"It from Bit'---prophesied by John Archibald Wheeler is relentlessly…
We present an impossibility result, called a theorem about facts and words, which pertains to a general communication system. The theorem states that the number of distinct words used in a finite text is roughly greater than the number of…
Zero-one laws state that probabilistic events of a certain type must occur with probability either $0$ or $1$, and nothing in between. We formulate a syntactic zero-one law, which enjoys good logical properties while being broadly…
When teaching an elementary logic course to students who have a general scientific background but have never been exposed to logic, we have to face the problem that the notions of deduction rule and of derivation are completely new to them,…
In 1972, at a symposium celebrating the 70th birthday of Paul Dirac, John Wheeler proclaimed that "the framework falls down for everything that one has ever called a law of physics". Responsible for this "breakage [...] among the laws of…
This article provides a concise overview of the main mathematical theory of Benford's law in a form accessible to scientists and students who have had first courses in calculus and probability. In particular, one of the main objectives here…
This paper is a non-technical, informal presentation of our theory of the second law of thermodynamics as a law that is independent of statistical mechanics and that is derivable solely from certain simple assumptions about adiabatic…
In his famous 1989 It from Bit essay, John Wheeler contends that the stuff of the physical universe, or it, arises from information or bits, encoded in yes or no answers. Wheeler's question and assumptions are reexamined from a post Aspect…
This article is an attempt for a new vision of the basics of Physics, and of Relativity, in particular. A new generalized principle of inertia is proposed, as an universal principle, based on universality of the conservation laws, not…
Mathematicians manipulate sets with confidence almost every day, rarely making mistakes. Few of us, however, could accurately quote what are often referred to as "the" axioms of set theory. This suggests that we all carry around with us,…
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…
Proceeding like Newton with a discrete time approach of motion and a geometrical representation of velocity and acceleration, we obtain Kepler's laws without solving differential equations. The difficult part of Newton's work, when it calls…
Plausible reasoning concerns situations whose inherent lack of precision is not quantified; that is, there are no degrees or levels of precision, and hence no use of numbers like probabilities. A hopefully comprehensive set of principles…
Scientists have long aimed to discover meaningful formulae which accurately describe experimental data. A common approach is to manually create mathematical models of natural phenomena using domain knowledge, and then fit these models to…
These lectures deal with the problem of inductive inference, that is, the problem of reasoning under conditions of incomplete information. Is there a general method for handling uncertainty? Or, at least, are there rules that could in…
The principle which allows to construct new physical theories on the basis of classical mechanics by reduction of the number of its axiom without engaging new postulates is formulated. The arising incompleteness of theory manifests itself…
The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the…
The nature of a physical law is examined, and it is suggested that there may not be any fundamental dynamical laws. This explains the intrinsic indeterminism of quantum theory. The probabilities for transition from a given initial state to…