Related papers: We Have Never Been Sophisticated
It has been argued that reduction procedures are closely connected to the question about identity of proofs and that accepting certain reductions would lead to a trivialization of identity of proofs in the sense that every derivation of the…
Many theories of physical interest, which admit a Hamiltonian description, exhibit symmetries under a particular class of non - strictly canonical transformation, known as dynamical similarities. The presence of such symmetries allows a…
This article discusses the relationship between emergence and reductionism from the perspective of a condensed matter physicist. Reductionism and emergence play an intertwined role in the everyday life of the physicist, yet we rarely stop…
According to Aristotle, a philosopher in Ancient Greece, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". This observation was adopted to explain human perception by the Gestalt psychology school of thought in the twentieth century. Here,…
We describe symmetry structure of a general singular theory (theory with constraints in the Hamiltonian formulation), and, in particular, we relate the structure of gauge transformations with the constraint structure. We show that any…
The concept of an $i$-symmetrization is introduced, which provides a convenient framework for most of the familiar symmetrization processes on convex sets. Various properties of $i$-symmetrizations are introduced and the relations between…
Reductionism has dominated science and philosophy for centuries. Complexity has recently shown that interactions---which reductionism neglects---are relevant for understanding phenomena. When interactions are considered, reductionism…
We discuss the applicability of the programme of decoherence -- emergence of approximate classical behaviour through interaction with the environment -- to cases where it was suggested that the presence of symmetries would lead to exact…
Unfortunately, the Hamiltonian mechanics of degenerate Lagrangian systems is usually presented as a mere recipe of Dirac, with no explanation as to how it works. Then it comes to discussing conjectures of whether all primary constraints…
The problem of measurement is often considered as an inconsistency inside the quantum formalism. Many attempts to solve (or to dissolve) it have been made since the inception of quantum mechanics. The form of these attempts depends on the…
It is widely believed that quadratic divergences severely restrict natural constructions of particle physics models beyond the standard model (SM). Supersymmetry provides a beautiful solution, but the recent LHC experiments have excluded…
In this essay, I argue that the idea that there is a most fundamental discipline, or level of reality, is mistaken. My argument is a result of my experiences with the "science wars", a debate that raged between scientists and sociologists…
"Symmetry" was one of the most important methodological themes in 20th-century physics and is probably going to play no lesser role in physics of the 21st century. As used today, there are a variety of interpretations of this term, which…
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…
Simplicity is held by many to be the key to general intelligence. Simpler models tend to "generalise", identifying the cause or generator of data with greater sample efficiency. The implications of the correlation between simplicity and…
The development of logic has largely been through the 'deductive' paradigm: conclusions are inferred from established premisses. However, the use of logic in the context of both human and machine reasoning is typically through the dual…
Both classical and quantum mechanics assume that physical laws are invariant under changes in the way that the world is labeled. This Principle of Decompositional Equivalence is formalized, and shown to forbid finite experimental…
It is mostly agreed that Popper's criterion of falsifiability fails to provide a useful demarcation between science and pseudo-science, because ad-hoc assumptions are always able to save any theory that conflicts with the empirical data…
This paper examines the incommensurability thesis - one of the most important and controversial ideas to emerge from the simultaneous work of Kuhn and Feyerabend. In the first half, I discuss three aspects of incommensurability -…
Recent critiques of the semantic conception of scientific theories suggest that a theory is not best formulated as a collection of models satisfying some set of kinematical or dynamical conditions. Thus it has been argued that additional…