Related papers: The game of metaphysics
Modern physics is founded on two mainstays: mathematical modelling and empirical verification. These two assumptions are prerequisite for the objectivity of scientific discourse. Here we show, however, that they are contradictory, leading…
Many have wondered how mathematics, which appears to be the result of both human creativity and human discovery, can possibly exhibit the degree of success and seemingly-universal applicability to quantifying the physical world as…
Since its emergence, quantum mechanics has been a challenge for an understanding of reality which is based on our intuition in a classical world. Nevertheless, it has often been tried to impose this understanding of reality on quantum…
The paper presents a metaphysical characterization of spatiotemporal backgrounds from a realist perspective. The conceptual analysis is based on a heuristic sketch that encompasses the common formal traits of the major spacetime theories,…
Based on a clear ontology of material individuals, we analyze in detail the factual semantics of quantum theory, and argue that the basic mathematical formalism of quantum theory is just okay with (a certain form of ) realism and that it is…
In classical physics, probabilistic or statistical knowledge has been always related to ignorance or inaccurate subjective knowledge about an actual state of affairs. This idea has been extended to quantum mechanics through a completely…
The theories of pre-quantum physics are standardly seen as representing physical systems and their properties. Quantum mechanics in its standard form is a more problematic case: here, interpretational problems have led to doubts about the…
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 offer a view of mathematics as an experimental science where axioms play the role of foundational theories like general relativity and quantum mechanics in physics. Under this view, axioms are provisional and inferred from experience…
When modelling spacetime and classical physical fields, one typically assumes smoothness (infinite differentiability). But this assumption and its philosophical implications have not been sufficiently scrutinized. For example, we can appeal…
We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account for so…
Metaheuristic algorithms are methods devised to efficiently solve computationally challenging optimization problems. Researchers have taken inspiration from various natural and physical processes alike to formulate meta-heuristics that have…
Bayesian probability theory is used as a framework to develop a formalism for the scientific method based on principles of inductive reasoning. The formalism allows for precise definitions of the key concepts in theories of physics and also…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…
A well-known topic within the philosophy of physics is the problem of fine-tuning: the fact that the universal constants seem to take non-arbitrary values in order for live to thrive in our Universe. In this paper we will talk about this…
At present many of the endeavours in physics are made to recognize in quantum substance classical reality, time, subjectivity, consciousness and many other physical and nonphysical features. The purpose of these remarks is to draw attention…
Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and…
Physics is so successful today in understanding the nature of matter. What can it say about mind ? Is it possible to have a unified theory of matter and mind within the framework of modern science ? Is Consciousness an accident or is it a…
There is a contemporary trend toward geometrizing all mathematical theories, as proposed by the Langlands program, and, by extension, physical theories as well. Within this paradigm, it becomes possible to represent physical objects as…
We discuss some conceptual issues that any approach to quantum gravity has to confront. In particular, it is argued that one has to find a theory that can be interpreted in a realist manner, because theories with an instrumentalist…