Related papers: Physics, Determinism, and the Brain

This is a companion to another paper. Together they rebut two widespread philosophical doctrines about emergence. The first, and main, doctrine is that emergence is incompatible with reduction. The second is that emergence is supervenience;…

Recent cellular-level volumetric brain reconstructions have revealed high levels of anatomic complexity. Determining which structural aspects of the brain to focus on, especially when comparing with computational models and other organisms,…

We pursue research leading towards the nature of causality in the universe. We establish the equation of the universe's evolution from the universe-state function and its series expansion, in which causes and effects connect together to…

The brain is an assembly of neuronal populations interconnected by structural pathways. Brain activity is expressed on and constrained by this substrate. Therefore, statistical dependencies between functional signals in directly connected…

I offer an analysis of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and its relevancy for the scientific endeavour. I submit that the world is not, and cannot be, rational - only some brained beings are. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is not a…

Most work on physical reasoning, both in artificial intelligence and in cognitive science, has focused on closed-world reasoning, in which it is assumed that the problem specification specifies all relevant objects and substance, all their…

Emergence is a profound subject that straddles many scientific disciplines, including the formation of galaxies and how consciousness arises from the collective activity of neurons. Despite the broad interest that exists on this concept,…

Scientists who study how the brain solves problems have recently verified that, because of stringent limitations in working memory, where the brain solves problems, students must apply facts and algorithms that have previously been well…

We all are fascinated by the phenomena of intelligent behavior, as generated both by our own brains and by the brains of other animals. As physicists we would like to understand if there are some general principles that govern the structure…

David Mermin's recent paper with the same title as this one makes it clear that his claim to have found a gap in my reasoning rests on his claim that my argument violates a criterion for meaningfulness of counterfactual statements that I…

It is here proposed an analysis of symbolic and sub-symbolic models for studying cognitive processes, centered on emergence and logical openness notions.The Theory of Logical Openness connects the Physics of system/environment relationships…

Causality has been often confused with the notion of determinism. It is mandatory to separate the two notions in view of the debate about quantum foundations. Quantum theory provides an example of causal not-deterministic theory. Here we…

Although the conscious state is considered an emergent property of the underlying brain activity and thus somehow resides on brain hardware, there is a non-univocal mapping between both. Given a neural hardware, multiple conscious patterns…

Discussions on causal relations in real life often consider variables for which the definition of causality is unclear since the notion of interventions on the respective variables is obscure. Asking 'what qualifies an action for being an…

The problem of defining and locating free will (FW) in physics is studied. On basis of logical paradoxes, we argue that FW has a meta-theoretic character, like the concept of truth in Tarski's undefinability theorem. Free will exists…

The brain is a complex organ characterized by heterogeneous patterns of structural connections supporting unparalleled feats of cognition and a wide range of behaviors. New noninvasive imaging techniques now allow these patterns to be…

Why do some physical systems possess consciousness, while others do not? Is this a question of physics? Or is it a question of the theory of causation? Physics and the theory of causation serve different descriptive purposes, and in this…

In the past century many fundamental results on unpredictability, undecidability and uncertainty have compelled scientists to grapple with the idea that some questions may never be resolved within our current theories. While this…

We introduce and study a learning theory which is roughly automatic, that is, it does not require but a minimum of initial programming, and is based on the potential computational phenomenon of self-reference, (i.e. the potential ability of…

A large repertoire of spatiotemporal activity patterns in the brain is the basis for adaptive behaviour. Understanding the mechanism by which the brain's hundred billion neurons and hundred trillion synapses manage to produce such a range…