Related papers: Democritus as Taoist
In recent years philosophers of science have explored categorical equivalence as a promising criterion for when two (physical) theories are equivalent. On the one hand, philosophers have presented several examples of theories whose…
I aim to promote an alternative agenda for teaching modal logic chiefly inspired by the relationships between modal logic and philosophy. The guiding idea for this proposal is a reappraisal of the interest of modal logic in philosophy,…
Classical secular theory can be a powerful tool to describe the qualitative character of multi-planet systems and offer insight into their histories. The eigenmodes of the secular behavior, rather than current orbital elements, can help…
A new concept, primitive chaos, was proposed, as a concept closely related to the fundamental problems of sciences themselves such as determinism, causality, free will, predictability, and time asymmetry [{\em J. Phys. Soc. Jpn.} {\bf…
This paper asks what Brouwer might have replied to Dummett's interpretation of intuitionism. Complementing earlier literature, it treats Dummett's rejection of the ontological approach; the charge of psychologism and solipsism; indefinite…
I discuss how Alain Badiou's Logics of Worlds attempts to rephrase his material dialectic philosophical project in terms of topos theory. It turns out that his account restricts to the so called local topos theory. In particular, his claim…
In this paper we present a data visualization method together with its potential usefulness in digital humanities and philosophy of language. We compile a multilingual parallel corpus from different versions of Wittgenstein's Tractatus…
A model in which two weakly coupled systems maintain opposite running thermodynamic arrows of time is exhibited. Each experiences its own retarded electromagnetic interaction and can be seen by the other. The possibility of opposite-arrow…
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is perhaps the most solid and widly discussed argument for a caused creation of the universe. The usual objections to the argument mainly focus on the second premise. In this paper we discuss the dependency…
It is often stated that cosmology is an extreme form of archeology that deals with aeons of time extending back to thousands of millions of years. One talks, for instance, of relics of the early Universe, and phases in the history of the…
A 'process theory' is any theory of systems and processes which admits sequential and parallel composition. `Terminality' unifies normalisation of pure states, trace-preservation of CP-maps, and adding up to identity of positive operators…
We present several philosophical ideas emerging from the studies of complex systems. We make a brief introduction to the basic concepts of complex systems, for then defining "abstraction levels". These are useful for representing…
Quantum theory shares with classical probability theory many important properties. I show that this common core regards at least the following six areas, and I provide details on each of these: the logic of propositions, symmetry,…
In view of the sobering findings of science, theology and to a lesser degree metaphysics is confronted with a humiliating loss, and a need for reinterpretation, of allegories and narratives which have served as guidance to the perplexed for…
The authors discuss various objections and rejoinders in the collected responses [math.HO/9404229,math.HO/9404236] to their original article on the relationship between mathematics and theoretical physics [math.HO/9307227].
It has long been said that the theories of Galois and Tannakian categories over a field $k$ are just ``formally similar''. With this note I will argue that this is in fact not the case: not only do Tannakian categories generalize Galois…
Attempts to quantize general relativity encounter an odd problem. The Hamiltonian that normally generates time evolution vanishes in the case of general relativity as a result of diffeomorphism invariance. The theory seems to be saying that…
Many physical theories like chaos theory are fundamentally concerned with the conceptual tension between determinism and randomness. Kolmogorov complexity can express randomness in determinism and gives an approach to formulate chaotic…
In this paper I discuss the concept of time in physics. I consider the thermal time hypothesis and I claim that thermal clocks and atomic clocks measure different physical times, whereby thermal time and relativistic time are not compatible…
This article examines the subtle relationship between chaos and randomness, two concepts that, although they refer to seemingly unpredictable phenomenon, are based on fundamentally different principles. Chaos manifests in deterministic…