Related papers: Straddling between determinism and randomness: Cha…

Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…

The way we view the reality of nature, including ourselves, depend on consciousness.It also defines the identity of the person, since we know people in terms of their experiences. In general, consciousness defines human existence in this…

The concept of determinism for a classical system is interpreted as the requirement that the solution to the Cauchy problem for the equations of motion governing this system be unique. This requirement is generally assumed to hold for all…

I begin by examining the question of the quantum limits of knowledge by briefly presenting the constraints of the theory that derive from its mathematical structure (in particular the no-go theorems formulated by von Neumann and Kochen and…

In many situations humans have to reason with inconsistent knowledge. These inconsistencies may occur due to not fully reliable sources of information. In order to reason with inconsistent knowledge, it is not possible to view a set of…

Prigogine and Stengers (1988) have pointed to the centrality of the concepts of "time and eternity" for the cosmology contained in Newtonian physics, but they have not addressed this issue beyond the domain of physics. The construction of…

This short text summarizes the work in biology proposed in our book, Perspectives on Organisms, where we analyse the unity proper to organisms by looking at it from different viewpoints. We discuss the theoretical roles of biological time,…

Quantum theory describes our universe incredibly successfully. To our classically-inclined brains, however, it is a bizarre description that requires a re-imagining of what fundamental reality, or "ontology", could look like. This thesis…

Theories of decoherence come in two flavors---Platonic and Aristotelian. Platonists grant ontological primacy to the concepts and mathematical symbols by which we describe or comprehend the physical world. Aristotelians grant it to the…

It is considered the study of determinism in the theories of physics. Based on fundamental postulates of physics, it is proved that the evolution of the universe is univocally determined, proving ultimately that free will does not exist. In…

Recent tremendous development of quantum information theory led to a number of quantum technological projects, e.g., quantum random generators. This development stimulates a new wave of interest in quantum foundations. One of the most…

We discuss an apparent information paradox that arises in a materialist's description of the Universe if we assume that the Universe is 100% quantum. We discuss possible ways out of the paradox, including that Laws of Nature are not purely…

The suggestion that particles of the same kind may be indistinguishable in a fundamental sense, even so that challenges to traditional notions of individuality and identity may arise, has first come up in the context of classical…

The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…

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…

Quantum theory makes the most accurate empirical predictions and yet it lacks simple, comprehensible physical principles from which the theory can be uniquely derived. A broad class of probabilistic theories exist which all share some…

What do we do when cosmology raises questions it cannot answer? These include the existence of a multiverse and the universality of the laws of physics. We cannot settle any of these issues by experiment, and this is where philosophers…

The hard problem in consciousness is the problem of understanding how physical processes in the brain could give rise to subjective conscious experience. In this paper, I suggest that in order to understand the relationship between…

This is an essay in what might be called ``mathematical metaphysics.'' There is a fundamental duality that run through mathematics and the natural sciences. The duality starts as the logical level; it is represented by the Boolean logic of…

One of the presuppositions of science since the times of Galileo, Newton, Laplace, and Descartes has been the predictability of the world. This idea has strongly influenced scientific and technological models. However, in recent decades,…