Related papers: What? Who? Why? Stellify
Formal modelling provides a toolkit for understanding cultural dynamics, from individual decisions to recurring patterns of change. This chapter explains what models are and why they matter. Using a precise, shared language, they aid…
Galaxies represent the visible fabric of the Universe and there has been considerable progress recently in both observational and theoretical studies. The underlying goal is to understand the present-day diversity of galaxy forms, masses…
Space settlement represents a long-term human effort that requires unprecedented coordination across successive generations. In this chapter, I develop a comparative hierarchy for the value of long-term projects based upon their benefits to…
Sundials and gnomons pointing out dates and times are a beautiful reminder of how we understand the movement of the Sun and use it to structure day and year. They also encapsulate the basic astronomical knowledge and concepts of the…
The place of an anthropic argument in the discrimination between various cosmological models is to be reconsidered following the classic criticisms of Paul C. W. Davies and Frank J. Tipler. Different versions of the anthropic argument…
Some things are impossible, but some things may be even more impossible than impossible. Levitating a feather using one's mind is impossible in our world, but fits into our intuitive theories of possible worlds, whereas levitating a feather…
A number of concepts are included in the term 'consciousness'. We choose to concentrate here on phenomenal consciousness, the process through which we are able to experience aspects of our environment or of our physical state. We probably…
Physical processes are computations only when we use them to externalize thought. Computation is the performance of one or more fixed processes within a contingent environment. We reformulate the Church-Turing thesis so that it applies to…
The field of exoplanetary science is one of the most rapidly growing areas of astrophysical research. As more planets are discovered around other stars, new techniques have been developed that have allowed astronomers to begin to…
From an anthropological point of view, the whole concept of a "path of progress" in astronomical discovery is anathema, since it implicitly downgrades other cultural perspectives, such as the many "indigenous cosmologies" that still exist…
As we enter the final year of the second extended mission of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), it is time to reflect on what the TESS mission has contributed to the advancement of astronomy. Thousands of papers based on TESS…
Context. Generative models open up the possibility to interrogate scientific data in a more data-driven way. Aims: We propose a method that uses generative models to explore hypotheses in astrophysics and other areas. We use a neural…
The outbreak of spontaneous order in matter results from symmetry breaking. How does a system change its collective organisation ? How does it break its own symmetry ? That are the questions which are answered using a metaphoric world of…
Eclipses and pulsations are the two primary ways in which the physical properties of stars can be deduced and used to improve our understanding of stellar theory. An obvious idea is to combine these two analyses into the study of pulsating…
Stellar astronomy, fueled by massive capital investments, advances in numerical modeling and theory, is resurgent and arguably is on the verge of a magnificent renaissance. Powerful time domain optical surveys, both on ground and in space,…
Culture evolves, not just in the trivial sense that cultures change over time, but also in the strong sense that such change is governed by Darwinian principles. Both biological and cultural evolution are essentially cumulative selection…
As part of the project Pathways to Habitability (http://path.univie.ac.at/), we study the properties of the stellar winds of low-mass and Sun-like stars, and their influences on the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets. For this…
Justification theory is a general framework for the definition of semantics of rule-based languages that has a high explanatory potential. Nested justification systems, first introduced by Denecker et al. (2015), allow for the composition…
We explore how questions related to developing a sustainable human civilization can be cast in terms of astrobiology. In particular we show how ongoing astrobiological studies of the coupled relationship between life, planets and their…
Images are not simply sets of objects: each image represents a web of interconnected relationships. These relationships between entities carry semantic meaning and help a viewer differentiate between instances of an entity. For example, in…