Related papers: Max Weinstein: Physics, Philosophy, Pandeism
At the time it celebrates one century of existence, general relativity---Einstein's theory for gravitation---is given a companion theory: the so-called teleparallel gravity, or teleparallelism for short. This new theory is fully equivalent…
Paul A. M. Dirac has been undoubtedly one of the central figures of the last century physics, contributing in several and remarkable ways to the development of Quantum Mechanics (QM); he was also at the centre of an active community of…
The von Neumann attitude on such a deep interpretational question as the role of a human observer in order for the quantum description of measurement to be consistent has been long misrepresented. The large majority of the subsequent…
Mach Principle presents the absolute universe. For example, when Einstein stood on the ground and relaxed, his arms fell down naturally. However, if he rotated his body then his arms were lifted up as the rotation was faster and faster.…
The picture of space-time that Minkowski created in 1907 has been followed by two important developments in physics not contained in the original picture: general relativity and quantum mechanics. We will argue that the use of concepts of…
The aim of this essay is to propose a conception of mathematics that is fully consonant with naturalism. By that I mean the hypothesis that everything that exists is part of the natural world, which makes up a unitary whole.
We address the relation between two apparently distinct problems: The quest for a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness and the search for time and space as emergent structures in the quantum mechanical world. We also advance…
In previous publications, we have argued that a form of panprotopsychism based on quantum states and events offers a solution to the combination problem. This framework explains the emergence of complex phenomenal qualities and conscious…
In QBism (or Quantum Bayesianism) a quantum state does not represent an element of physical reality but an agent's personal probability assignments, reflecting his subjective degrees of belief about the future content of his experience. In…
In glaring contrast to its indisputable century-old experimental success, the ultimate objects and meaning of quantum physics remain a matter of vigorous debate among physicists and philosophers of science. This article attempts to shed new…
After about a century since the first attempts by Bohr, the interpretation of quantum theory is still a field with many open questions. In this article a new interpretation of quantum theory is suggested, motivated by philosophical…
This essay is a discussion of Heinz von Foerster's concept of eigenform and its relationship with the foundations of physics.
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…
Though the majority of physicists would probably not support preemptive wars, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction would not exist without their contributions. Einstein's anti-militaristic position has been well-documented and the…
The idea of a moving present or `now' seems to form part of our most basic beliefs about reality. Such a present, however, is not reflected in any of our theories of the physical world. I show in this article that presentism, the doctrine…
Einstein's distinction between principle theories and constructive theories is methodological rather than metaphysical. Principle theories such as thermodynamics and relativity articulate empirically distilled constraints that delimit…
Within the framework of relativistic cosmology oscillating or cyclic models of the universe were introduced by A. Friedmann in his seminal paper of 1922. With the recognition of evolutionary cosmology in the 1930s this class of closed…
It is probably not a coincidence that two of the pioneers of thermodynamics, Helmholtz and Mayer, were physicians. Thermodynamics studies the transformations of energy, and such transformations ceaselessly take place in all living systems…
It is commonly claimed that quantum mechanics makes reference to a microscopic realm constituted by elementary particles. However, as first famously noticed by Erwin Schr\"odinger, it is not at all clear what these quantum particles really…
There are two broad opposing classes of attitudes to reality (realist vs idealist, material vs mental) with corresponding attitudes to knowledge (objective vs subjective, scientific vs romantic). I argue that these attitudes can be…