Related papers: Reframing the Free Will Debate: The Universe is No…
In two recent papers, I have proposed a description of decision analysis that differs from the Bayesian picture painted by Savage, Jeffrey and other classic authors. Response to this view has been either overly enthusiastic or unduly…
The aim of this essay is to propose a conception of mathematics that is fully consonant with naturalism. By that I mean the hypothesis that everything that exists is part of the natural world, which makes up a unitary whole.
The study of undecidability in problems arising from physics has experienced a renewed interest, mainly in connection with quantum information problems. The goal of this review is to survey this recent development. After a historical…
Much has been discussed in the philosophy of science about how we should understand the scientific enterprise. On the one hand, scientific realists believe that empirically adequate theories can be supplemented by interpretations that can…
I will propose the notion that the universe is digital, not as a claim about what the universe is made of but rather about the way it unfolds. Central to the argument will be the concepts of symmetry breaking and algorithmic probability,…
Recently, it has been argued that quantum mechanics is complete, and that quantum states vectors are necessarily in one-to-one correspondence with the elements of reality, under the assumptions that quantum theory is correct and that…
It is argued that it is possible to give operational meaning to free will and the process of making a choice without employing metaphysics.
There are several important philosophical problems to which quantum mechanics is often said to have made significant contributions: - Determinism: quantum theory has been taken to refute determinism; -Free Will: in turn, this is thought to…
This paper explores the options available to the anti-realist to defend a Quinean empirical under-determination thesis using examples of dualities. I first explicate a version of the empirical under-determination thesis that can be brought…
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…
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…
Although various limits on the predicability of physical phenomena as well as on physical knowables are commonly established and accepted, we challenge their ultimate validity. More precisely, we claim that fundamental limits arise only…
When one takes into account gravitation, the measurement of space and time cannot be carried out with infinite accuracy. When quantum mechanics is reformulated taking into account this lack of accuracy, the resolution of the measurement…
Probability theory, epistemically interpreted, provides an excellent, if not the best available account of inductive reasoning. This is so because there are general and definite rules for the change of subjective probabilities through…
Modern fundamental physics poses new questions for philosophy, which, as it seems to us, have not yet received appropriate attention from philosophers of science. This paper formulates a number of such questions in order to present them to…
The process of doing Science in condition of uncertainty is illustrated with a toy experiment in which the inferential and the forecasting aspects are both present. The fundamental aspects of probabilistic reasoning, also relevant in real…
The present discussion concerning certain fundamental physical theories (such as string theory and multiverse cosmology) has reopened the demarcation problem between science and non-science. While parts of the physics community see the…
Difficulties over probability have often been considered fatal to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. Here I argue that the Everettian can have everything she needs from `probability' without recourse to indeterminism,…
I contrast two possible attitudes towards a given branch of physics: as inferential (i.e., as concerned with an agent's ability to make predictions given finite information), and as dynamical (i.e., as concerned with the dynamical equations…
Quantum mechanics has irked physicists ever since its conception more than 100 years ago. While some of the misgivings, such as it being unintuitive, are merely aesthetic, quantum mechanics has one serious shortcoming: it lacks a physical…