Related papers: The game of metaphysics
Data scientists are not mathematicians, but they make heavy use of mathematics in their daily work. While mathematicians can study a mathematical object which is inaccessible to our five senses, data scientists must deal with real-world…
We present a new metaphysical framework for physics that is conceptually clear, ontologically parsimonious, and empirically adequate. This framework relies on the notion of self-subsisting structure, that is, a set of fundamental physical…
We lay the groundwork for a formal framework that studies scientific theories and can serve as a unified foundation for the different theories within physics. We define a scientific theory as a set of verifiable statements, assertions that…
This article presents the most interesting philosophical issues as they arise in causal set theory. The first concerns the apparent disappearance of spacetime at the fundamental level. It shows how the looming empirical incoherence is…
Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be…
How should we interpret physical theories, and especially quantum theory, if we drop the assumption that we should treat it as an exact description of the whole Universe? I expound and develop the claim that physics is about the study of…
It is argued that the usual postulates of quantum mechanics are too strong. It is conjectured that it is possible to interpret all experiments if we maintain the formalism of quantum theory without modification, but weaken the postulates…
We present several philosophical ideas emerging from the studies of complex systems. We make a brief introduction to the basic concepts of complex systems, for then defining "abstraction levels". These are useful for representing…
Political realism aims to describe the interaction of agents involved in struggles for political power. This article formulates realism in terms of quantitative postulates that depict political power as a fluid-like substance flowing…
Physical laws are strikingly simple, yet there is no a priori reason for them to be so. I propose that nomic realists -- Humeans and non-Humeans -- should recognize simplicity as a fundamental epistemic guide for discovering and evaluating…
Some thoughts are presented on the inter-relation between beauty and truth in science in general and theoretical physics in particular. Some conjectural procedures that can be used to create new ideas, concepts and results are illustrated…
Causality is one of the most fundamental -- and yet elusive -- concepts in physics. From its intuitive role in everyday experience to its formal and often implicit role in scientific theories, causality has challenged philosophers and…
There is a question of whether de-idealization is needed for justified use of -- for 'checking' -- idealizations. We argue that the standard philosophical account of de-idealization has become too idealized, but that this does not preclude…
Astrophysical paradoxes are the paradoxes of physics. The main motivation of a formulated paradox is clearly recognized in the scientific environment because the phenomenon of a paradox itself has become interesting. There is an explanation…
In this paper, we reject commonly accepted views on fundamentality in science, either based on bottom-up construction or top-down reduction to isolate the alleged fundamental entities. We do not introduce any new scientific methodology, but…
On a scientific meta-level, it is discussed how an overall understanding of the physical universe can be built on the basis of well-proven theories, observations, and recent experiments. In the light of almost a century of struggle to make…
This article supports the epistemological claim that sound human reasoning about ultimate knowledge is either foundational or circularly justified. In particular, questions which naturally arise in theology, philosophy, and related…
This article explores the metaphor of Science as provider of sharp images of our environment, using the epistemological framework of Objective Cognitive Constructivism. These sharp images are conveyed by precise scientific hypotheses that,…
A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), ''it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the…
We discuss the nature and a general formulation of the relativity principle and we show that it can be justified starting from a strictly operational point of view. We give some remark on the connection with the spacetime symmetry groups.…