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This paper poses some basic questions about instances (hard to find) of a special problem in 3-manifold topology. "Important though the general concepts and propositions may be with the modern industrious passion for axiomatizing and…
The notions of time in the theories of Newton and Einstein are reviewed so that certain of their assumptions are clarified. These assumptions will be seen as the causes of the incompatibility between the two different ways of understanding…
In this paper dedicated to the memory of Walter Philipp, we formalize the rules of classical$\to$ quantum correspondence and perform a rigorous mathematical analysis of the assumptions in Bell's NO-GO arguments.
Theory of Probability is distinguished by several high-level philosophical attitudes, some stressed by Jeffreys, some implicit. By reviewing these we may recognize the importance in this work in the historical development of statistics.…
Moores Paradox is a test case for any formal theory of belief. In Knowledge and Belief, Hintikka developed a multimodal logic for statements that express sentences containing the epistemic notions of knowledge and belief. His account…
An ultimate universal theory -- a complete theory that accounts, via few and simple first principles, for all the phenomena already observed and that will ever be observed -- has been, and still is, the aspiration of most physicists and…
Nonmonotonic logics are usually characterized by the presence of some notion of 'conditional' that fails monotonicity. Research on nonmonotonic logics is therefore largely concerned with the defeasibility of argument forms and the…
Inspired by Zermelo's quasi-categoricity result characterizing the models of second-order Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory $\text{ZFC}_2$, we investigate when those models are fully categorical, characterized by the addition to $\text{ZFC}_2$…
Although hypothesis tests play a prominent role in Science, their interpretation can be challenging. Three issues are (i) the difficulty in making an assertive decision based on the output of an hypothesis test, (ii) the logical…
We introduce a logical framework for reasoning about "uncertain interpretations" and investigate two key applications: a new semantics for implication capturing a kind of "meaning entailment", and a conservative notion of "evidentially…
We start by surveying the history of the idea of a fundamental conservation law and briefly examine the role conservation laws play in different classical contexts. In such contexts we find conservation laws to be useful, but often not…
As we approach the centennial anniversary of modern quantum mechanics this paper revisits the foundational debates through a new poll within the research community. Inspired by the survey by Schlosshauer, Kofler, and Zeilinger at the…
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…
The apparently trifling unexpected hanging paradox has generated an enormous philosophical literature. We introduce the mathematician to this literature, paying special attention to aspects that involve nontrivial mathematics. This xxx…
In this comment, I discuss the use of statistical inference in citation analysis. In a recent paper, Williams and Bornmann argue in favor of the use of statistical inference in citation analysis. I present a critical analysis of their…
We find it absurd that Walliser [1] essentially used the same analysis and obtained identical results as reported in [3], yet arrived at different conclusions. Namely, based on an incomplete theory and using erroneous arguments, he not only…
In this paper a novel calculus system has been established based on the concept of 'werden'. The basis of logic self-contraction of the theories on current calculus was shown. Mistakes and defects in the structure and meaning of the…
Transparency is a fundamental requirement for decision making systems when these should be deployed in the real world. It is usually achieved by providing explanations of the system's behavior. A prominent and intuitive type of explanations…
The Hamiltonian description of classical gauge theories is a very well studied subject. The two best known approaches, namely the covariant and canonical Hamiltonian formalisms have received a lot of attention in the literature. However, a…
The canonical formalism of general relativity affords a particularly interesting characterisation of the infamous hole argument. It also provides a natural formalism in which to relate the hole argument to the problem of time in classical…