Related papers: The game of metaphysics
The paper puts forward a conceptual framework in which the phenomenon of time can be presented and discussed in a proper way. We argue that change is ontologically and epistemologically a more basic phenomenon than time. Time is an abstract…
The tremendous advances of research into artificial intelligence as well as neuroscience made over the last two to three decades have given further support to a renewed interest into philosophical discussions of the mind-body problem.…
One hundred years after the creation of quantum theory, there is no consensus on the kind of reality that is described by the theory. Here, I attribute the lack of progress to the prevailing interpretative methodology, which invariably…
This article aims at applying the approaches peculiar to analytic philosophy to the question about representation of the concept of time as a symbol which can reflect the bases of the modern natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.…
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…
Most scientists would hold that science has not established that the cosmos is physically comprehensible - i.e. such that there is some as-yet undiscovered true physical theory of everything that is unified. This is an empirically…
Many physicists, following Einstein, believe that the ultimate aim of theoretical physics is to find a unified theory of all interactions which would not depend on any free dimensionless constant, i.e., a dimensionless constant that is only…
In this introductory note, I describe my particular view of the notion of ontological commitments as honest and pragmatic working hypotheses that assume the existence (out there) of certain entities represented by the symbols in our theory.…
A description of physical reality in which wholeness is the foundation is discussed along with the motivation for such an attempt. As a possible mathematical framework within which a physical theory based on wholeness may be expressed,…
Physics is formulated in terms of timeless classical mathematics. A formulation on the basis of intuitionist mathematics, built on time-evolving processes, would offer a perspective that is closer to our experience of physical reality.
Contrary to classical physics, which was strongly objective i.e. could be interpreted as a description of mind-independent reality, standard quantum mechanics (SQM) is only weakly objective, that is to say, its statements, though…
I take a pragmatist perspective on quantum theory. This is not a view of the world described by quantum theory. In this view quantum theory itself does not describe the physical world, nor our observatons, experiences or opinions of it.…
The argument from naturalness is widely employed in contemporary quantum field theory. Essentially a formalized aesthetic criterion, it received a meaning in the debate on the Higgs mechanism, which goes beyond aesthetics. We follow the…
Since I first became enthralled with physics as a teenager, I've been intrigued by the philosophical aspects of the discipline. As I approached the end of my career as an experimental physicist and observational astronomer (I'm now…
There has been a recent spate of essays defending presentism, the view in the metaphysics of time according to which all and only present events or entities exist. What is particularly striking about this resurgence is that it takes place…
Scientists often think of the world (or some part of it) as a dynamical system, a stochastic process, or a generalization of such a system. Prominent examples of systems are (i) the system of planets orbiting the sun or any other classical…
For four decades it has been argued that we need to adopt a new conception of science called aim-oriented empiricism. This has far-reaching implications and repercussions for science, the philosophy of science, academic inquiry in general,…
The nature of the existence, revealed through Human cognitive system, has been evolving since the development of the languages. Part of such revelations were the geometrical forms and the numbers, whose beauty and order, wondrous and…
This paper presents mathematics as a general science of computation in a way different from the tradition. It is based on the radical philosophical standpoint according to which the content, meaning and justification of experience lies in…
In this paper we approach the problem of superdeterminism from a novel point of view, highlighting its character as a more metaphysical than scientific proposition. First, we introduce a distinction between two types of superdeterministic…