Related papers: Physics, Determinism, and the Brain
This paper presents a hypothesis that consciousness is a natural result of neurons that become connected recursively, and work synchronously between short and long term memories. Such neurons demonstrate qubit-like properties, each…
Some conscious contents disappear after access; others return repeatedly, long after their triggering conditions have ceased. We propose Canxianization as the process by which a perturbation becomes closure-resistant self-relevant…
From ancient philosophers to modern economists, biologists, and other researchers, there has been a continuous effort to unveil causal relations. The most formidable challenge lies in deducing the nature of the causal relationship: whether…
It is shown how environmental decoherence plays an essential and constructive role in a quantum mechanical theory of brain process that has significant explanatory power.
Network control theory has recently emerged as a promising approach for understanding brain function and dynamics. By operationalizing notions of control theory for brain networks, it offers a fundamental explanation for how brain dynamics…
Newton set the stage for our view of how science should be done. We remain in what I will call the `Newtonian Paradigm' in all of physics, including Newton, Einstein, and Schrodinger. As I will show shortly, Newton invented and bequeathed…
The 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics recognized an epistemology of causal inference based on the Rubin causal model (Rubin 1974), which merits broader attention in philosophy. This model, in fact, presupposes a logical principle of…
Causality never gained the status of a "law" or "principle" in physics. Some recent literature even popularized the false idea that causality is a notion that should be banned from theory. Such misconception relies on an alleged…
Although it has been notoriously difficult to pin down precisely what it is that makes life so distinctive and remarkable, there is general agreement that its informational aspect is one key property, perhaps the key property. The unique…
There are several important philosophical problems to which quantum mechanics is often said to have made significant contributions: - Determinism: quantum theory has been taken to refute determinism; -Free Will: in turn, this is thought to…
A century ago, discoveries of a serious kind of logical error made separately by several leading mathematicians led to acceptance of a sharply enhanced standard for rigor within what ultimately became the foundation for Computer Science. By…
Probability theory as a physical theory is, in a sense, the most general physics theory available, more encompassing than relativity theory and quantum mechanics, which comply with probability theory. Taking this simple fact seriously, I…
Temporal causality defines what property causes some observed temporal behavior (the effect) in a given computation, based on a counterfactual analysis of similar computations. In this paper, we study its closure properties and the…
I have two main aims. The first is general, and more philosophical (Section 2). The second is specific, and more closely related to physics (Sections 3 and 4). The first aim is to state my general views about laws and causation at different…
Concurrent systems identify systems, either software, hardware or even biological systems, that are characterized by sets of independent actions that can be executed in any order or simultaneously. Computer scientists resort to a causal…
This is a comment on both Gruber et al (2022) and Bunamano and Rovelli (2022), which discuss the relation between physical time and human time. I claim here, contrary to many views discussed there, that there is no foundational conflict…
This paper argues for the following three theses: (1) There is a clear reason to prefer physical theories with deterministic dynamical equations: such theories are maximally rich in information and usually also maximally simple. (2) There…
Various research initiatives try to utilize the operational principles of organisms and brains to develop alternative, biologically inspired computing paradigms and artificial cognitive systems. This paper reviews key features of the…
Emergent behavior that appears at a given level of organization may be characterized as arising from an organizationally lower level in such a way that it transcends a mere increase in the behavioral degree of complexity. It is therefore to…
In social sciences and economics, causal inference traditionally focuses on assessing the impact of predefined treatments (or interventions) on predefined outcomes, such as the effect of education programs on earnings. Causal discovery, in…