Related papers: Modal Interpretations and Relativity
In this paper we investigate the complexity of abduction, a fundamental and important form of non-monotonic reasoning. Given a knowledge base explaining the world's behavior it aims at finding an explanation for some observed manifestation.…
Despite the failure of the integral Hodge conjecture, we show that the rational Hodge conjecture implies an integral version (modulo torsion) of the absolute Hodge conjecture.
If quantum gravity implies a fundamental spatiotemporal discreteness, and if its ``laws of motion'' are compatible with the Lorentz transformations, then physics cannot remain local. One might expect this nonlocality to be confined to the…
According to a simple model of inertia a Machianized theory of special and general relativity named as relational relativity is presented.
After about a century since the first attempts by Bohr, the interpretation of quantum theory is still a field with many open questions. In this article a new interpretation of quantum theory is suggested, motivated by philosophical…
Our understanding about things is conceptual. By stating that we reason about objects, it is in fact not the objects but concepts referring to them that we manipulate. Now, so long just as we acknowledge infinitely extending notions such as…
In this paper we discuss contrastive explanations for formal argumentation - the question why a certain argument (the fact) can be accepted, whilst another argument (the foil) cannot be accepted under various extension-based semantics. The…
Observations of the apparent times and positions of moving clocks as predicted by both `non-local' and `local' Lorentz Transformations are considered. Only local transformations respect translational invariance. Such transformations change…
Although bulk peculiar motions are commonplace in the universe, most theoretical studies either bypass them, or take the viewpoint of the idealised Hubble-flow observers. As a result, the role of these peculiar flows remains largely…
In this paper we investigate the history of relationalism and its present use in some interpretations of quantum mechanics. In the first part of this article we will provide a conceptual analysis of the relation between substantivalism,…
One of the reasons for the heated debates around the interpretations of quantum theory is a simple confusion between the notions of formalism versus interpretation. In this note, we make a clear distinction between them and show that there…
In a recent paper we demonstrated how the simplest model for varying alpha may be interpreted as the effect of a dielectric material, generalized to be consistent with Lorentz invariance. Unlike normal dielectrics, such a medium cannot…
In a recent paper, Krawczyk proved that there are continuum many axiomatic extensions of global consequence associated with the modal system $E$ that do not admit the local deduction detachment theorem. In algebraic parlance, he showed that…
We address the relative expressiveness of defeasible logics in the framework DL. Relative expressiveness is formulated as the ability to simulate the reasoning of one logic within another logic. We show that such simulations must be…
Term modal logics (TML) are modal logics with unboundedly many modalities, with quantification over modal indices, so that we can have formulas of the form $\exists y. \forall x. (\Box_x P(x,y) \supset\Diamond_y P(y,x))$. Like First order…
Approaches to quantum gravity often involve the disappearance of space and time at the fundamental level. The metaphysical consequences of this disappearance are profound, as is illustrated with David Lewis's analysis of modality. As…
A simple theorem on proportionality of indefinite real quadratic forms is proved, and is used to clarify the proof of the invariance of the interval in Special Relativity from Einstein's postulate on the universality of the speed of light;…
The so-called principle of relativity is able to fix a general coordinate transformation which differs from the standard Lorentzian form only by an unknown speed which cannot in principle be identified with the light speed. Based on a…
Faroldi argues that deontic modals are hyperintensional and thus traditional modal logic cannot provide an appropriate formalization of deontic situations. To overcome this issue, we introduce novel justification logics as hyperintensional…
I suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as a fundamental description of nature (the "measurement problem") could derive from the use of an incorrect notion, as the unease with the Lorentz transformations before…