Related papers: Comments on Shimony's Analysis
There are three goals of this thesis. First: to present a concise yet accessible description of basic mathematical logic and model theory. Second: to develop an axiomatization of special relativity using only two undefined predicates.…
In a recent paper, Kalamidas has advanced a new proposal of faster than light communication which has not yet been proved invalid. In this paper we show that, as all previous proposals, it does not work. The mistake arises from an…
Much artificial intelligence research focuses on the problem of deducing the validity of unobservable propositions or hypotheses from observable evidence.! Many of the knowledge representation techniques designed for this problem encode the…
Though many experiments appear to have confirmed the light speed invariance postulate of special relativity theory, this postulate is actually unverified. This paper resolves this issue by first showing the manner in which an illusion of…
The notion of argumentation and the one of belief stand in a problematic relation to one another. On the one hand, argumentation is crucial for belief formation: as the outcome of a process of arguing, an agent might come to (justifiably)…
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…
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…
We elucidate how different theoretical assumptions bring about radically different interpretations of the same experimental result. We do this by analyzing special relativity as it was originally formulated. Then, we examine the…
In a recent paper, Kalamidas has advanced a new proposal of faster than light communication which has not yet been proved invalid. In this paper, by strictly sticking to the standard quantum formalism we prove that, as all previous…
General relativity lacks the notion of the speed of gravity. This is inconvenient and the present paper is aimed at filling this gap up. To that end I introduce the concept of the "alternative" and argue that its variety called the…
The question of whether it is possible or not to surpass the speed of light is already centennial. The special theory of relativity took the existence of a speed limit as a principle, the light postulate, which has proven to be enormously…
Machines are being increasingly used in decision-making processes, resulting in the realization that decisions need explanations. Unfortunately, an increasing number of these deployed models are of a 'black-box' nature where the reasoning…
Misinterpretation in the preceding Comment of my recent analysis of the past of a photon is corrected. There is nothing in this analysis which is "contrary to the usual quantum expectations" but, nevertheless, it does provide "further…
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…
In a recent note Ellis criticizes varying speed of light theories on the grounds of a number of foundational issues. His reflections provide us with an opportunity to clarify some fundamental matters pertaining to these theories.
Our approach is basically a coherence approach, but we avoid the well-known pitfalls of coherence theories of truth. Consistency is replaced by reliability, which expresses support and attack, and, in principle, every theory (or agent,…
The article demonstrates that logic is not necessarily singleton and does not always have the standard interpretation of negation. Appropriate generalizations of logic are suggested. Positive logic and multivalued negation operations are…
To determine whether the Shapiro time delay of light passing near a moving object depends on the ``speed of gravity'' or the ``speed of light,'' one must analyze observations in a bimetric framework in which these two speeds can be…
I study how past and future choices are linked in the framework of attention. Attention cannot be observed but past choices are necessarily considered in future decisions. This link connects two types of rationality violations,…
With the increasing deployment of machine learning systems in practice, transparency and explainability have become serious issues. Contrastive explanations are considered to be useful and intuitive, in particular when it comes to…