Related papers: On the Question Why There Exists Something Rather …
It is a widespread belief that results like G\"odel's incompleteness theorems or the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics represent fundamental limitations to humanity's strive for scientific knowledge. As the argument goes, there are…
The purpose of the paper is five-fold: (a) Argue that the question in the title can be presented in a meaningful manner and that it requires an answer. (b) Discuss the conventional answers and explain why they are unsatisfactory. (c)…
By using a language as accessible to a broad audience as possible, in this note we present evidence suggesting scientific caution prior to final claims that neutrinos and quarks are actual physical particles existing in our spacetime. We…
The gap between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics has an important interpretive implication: the Universe must have an irreducible fundamental level, which determines the properties of matter at higher levels of organization. We…
Lawrence et al. have presented an argument purporting to show that "relative facts do not exist" and, consequently, "Relational Quantum Mechanics is incompatible with quantum mechanics". The argument is based on a GHZ-like contradiction…
No quantitative theory describing all physical phenomena can be made if any arbitrary standard spacetime structure is assumed. This statement is a consequence of transforming the Peano arithmetic axioms into sentences with a physical…
The usual formulation of quantum theory is rather abstract. In recent work I have shown that we can, nevertheless, obtain quantum theory from five reasonable axioms. Four of these axioms are obviously consistent with both classical…
The notions of potential infinity (understood as expressing a direction) and actual infinity (expressing a quantity) are investigated. It is shown that the notion of actual infinity is inconsistent, because the set of all (finite) natural…
This paper proposes an alternative to standard first-order logic that seeks greater naturalness, generality, and semantic self-containment. The system removes the first-order restriction, avoids type hierarchies, and dispenses with external…
The paper starts with the proposal that the cause of the apparent insolubility of the free-will problem are several popular but strongly metaphysical notions and hypotheses. To reduce the metaphysics, some ideas are borrowed from physics. A…
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…
Energy is no doubt an intuitive concept. Following a previous analysis on the nature of elementary particles and associated elementary quantum fields, the peculiar status and role of energy is scrutinised further at elementary and larger…
A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified, in connection with growing debate about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the key ideas can be explained…
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…
In a room with five cosmologists there there may easily be ten theories of cosmogenesis. Cosmogenesis is a popular topic for speculation because it is philosophically deep and because such speculations are unlikely to be proven wrong in the…
This paper argues that the physics of condensed matter cannot be fully reduced to the supposedly fundamental quantum mechanical theory for all the atoms of which the system consists. In fact, there are many reasons to reject the idea that…
This paper investigates the concept of Nothing from both philosophical and mathematical perspectives, distinguishing between absolute non-being (nihil) and relational negation as a principle of difference. It explores how mathematics…
The apparent dominance of matter over antimatter in our universe is an obvious and puzzling fact which cannot be adequately explained in present physical frameworks that assume matter-antimatter symmetry at the big bang. However, our…
A long-standing, unanswered question regarding Euclid's Elements concerns the absence of a theorem for the concurrence of the altitudes of a triangle, and the possible reasons for this omission. In the centuries following Euclid, a…
Newtonian mechanics indicates that galaxies and galaxy clusters are much more massive than we would have guessed from their luminosities, with the discrepancy being generally attributed to dark matter halos. An alternative hypothesis is…