相关论文: A Complete Theory of Everything (will be subjectiv…
Consider the scenario, in which human civilization undergoes periodic eras of progression and regression, and consequently, changes in cosmological knowledge are cyclic. There exist solutions of general theory of relativity, such as the…
A crucial step in the history of General Relativity was Einstein's adoption of the principle of general covariance which demands a coordinate independent formulation for our spacetime theories. General covariance helps us to disentangle a…
Since its inception, many physicists have seen in quantum mechanics the possibility, if not the necessity, of bringing cognitive aspects into the play, which were instead absent, or unnoticed, in the previous classical theories. In this…
Most traditional artificial intelligence (AI) systems of the past 50 years are either very limited, or based on heuristics, or both. The new millennium, however, has brought substantial progress in the field of theoretically optimal and…
Scientific theories need to be testable by observations, say using Bayes' theorem. A complete theory needs at least the three parts of dynamical laws for specified physical variables, the correct solution of the dynamical laws (boundary…
A general theory of innovation and progress in human society is outlined, based on the combat between two opposite forces (conservatism/inertia and speculative herding "bubble" behavior). We contend that human affairs are characterized by…
We argue that progress toward AGI is theory limited rather than data or scale limited. Building on the critical rationalism of Popper and Deutsch, we challenge the Platonic Representation Hypothesis. Observationally equivalent worlds can…
Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a nonzero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like…
Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. A central issue is what defines a 'good' model. When addressing global properties of the…
Selection effects in cosmology are often invoked to "explain" why some of the fundamental constant of Nature, and in particular the cosmological constant, take on the value they do in our Universe. We briefly review this probabilistic…
Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human traits to technology, is an automatic and unconscious response that occurs even in those with advanced technical expertise. In this position paper, we analyze hundreds of thousands of research…
Measurement outcomes provide data for a physical theory. Unless they are objective they support no objective scientific knowledge. So the outcome of a quantum measurement must be an objective physical fact. But recent arguments purport to…
While it remains the staple of virtually all cosmological teaching, the concept of expanding space in explaining the increasing separation of galaxies has recently come under fire as a dangerous idea whose application leads to the…
This paper evaluates some important aspects of the multiverse concept. Firstly, the most realistic opportunity for it which is the spacetime variability of the physical constants and may deliver worlds with different physics, hopefully…
We revisit anthropic arguments purporting to explain the measured value of the cosmological constant. We argue that different ways of assigning probabilities to candidate universes lead to totally different anthropic predictions. As an…
The measurement problem and the role of observers have plagued quantum mechanics since its conception. Attempts to resolve these have introduced anthropomorphic or non-realist notions into physics. A shift of perspective based upon process…
Many cosmological models assume or imply that the total size of the universe is very large, perhaps even infinite. Here we argue instead that the universe might be comparatively small, in fact not much larger than the currently observed…
No quantitative theory describing all physical phenomena can be made if any arbitrary standard spacetime structure is assumed. This statement is a consequence of transforming the Peano arithmetic axioms into sentences with a physical…
Turing machines and spin models share a notion of universality according to which some simulate all others. Is there a theory of universality that captures this notion? We set up a categorical framework for universality which includes as…
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…