Related papers: Enlightenment, Knowledge, Ignorance, Temptation
The quest to comprehend the origins of intelligence raises intriguing questions about the evolution of learning abilities in natural systems. Why do living organisms possess an inherent drive to acquire knowledge of the unknown? Is this…
The idea of possible time or space variations of the `fundamental' constants of nature, although not new, is only now beginning to be actively considered by large numbers of researchers in the particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics…
This lecture course covers cosmology from the particle physicist perspective. Therefore, the emphasis will be on the evidence for the new physics in cosmological and astrophysical data together with minimal theoretical frameworks needed to…
This is the introductive paper to the volume "Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections", Cambridge University Press, 2003. We begin with a brief description of the historical roots and emergence of the concept of symmetry that is at…
We introduce a logic for reasoning about evidence that essentially views evidence as a function from prior beliefs (before making an observation) to posterior beliefs (after making the observation). We provide a sound and complete…
In quantum mechanics, not everything that can be observed can be observed simultaneously. Observational data exhibits \emph{contextuality} -- a generalisation of nonlocality -- if the result of an observation is necessarily dependent on…
The goal of this paper is to extend classical logic with a generalized notion of inductive definition supporting positive and negative induction, to investigate the properties of this logic, its relationships to other logics in the area of…
Universe evolution, as described by Friedmann's equations, is determined by source terms fixed by the choice of pressure $\times$ energy-density equations of state $p(\rho)$. The usual approach in Cosmology considers equations of state…
We investigate an approach to reasoning about causes through argumentation. We consider a causal model for a physical system, and look for arguments about facts. Some arguments are meant to provide explanations of facts whereas some…
This article deals with plausible reasoning from incomplete knowledge about large-scale spatial properties. The availableinformation, consisting of a set of pointwise observations,is extrapolated to neighbour points. We make use of belief…
Reasoning is fundamental to human intelligence, and critical for problem-solving, decision-making, and critical thinking. Reasoning refers to drawing new conclusions based on existing knowledge, which can support various applications like…
This chapter argues that the general philosophy of science should learn metaphilosophical lessons from the case of metaphysical underdetermination, as it occurs in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Section 2 presents the traditional…
The notions of cause and effect are widely employed in science. I discuss why and how they are rooted into thermodynamics. The entropy gradient (i) explains in which sense interventions affect the future rather than the past, and (ii)…
It is well-known that Choice and Regularity are independent of each other but have important common consequences of logical character (reflection principles, representations of classes by sets, etc.). We explain this phenomenon by isolating…
One of the innovative approaches in contemporary philosophical ontology consists in the assumption of a plurality of ontologies based on different metaphysical presuppositions. Such presuppositions involve, among others, the identification…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
In this paper, we generalize epistemic logic so that it can help reason about ways of combining common knowledge and distributed knowledge such as "common distributed knowledge", "distributed common knowledge", "distributed common…
In this paper, we make a review on the concepts of rationality across several different fields, namely in economics, psychology and evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology. We review how processes like natural selection can help us…
These notes are intended as an introductory course for experimental particle physicists interested in the recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology. I will describe the standard Big Bang theory of the evolution of the universe, with…
An overview of the cosmological models with expansion, shear and rotation is presented. Problems of the rotating models are discussed, their general kinematic properties and dynamical realizations are described. A particular attention is…