相关论文: Life, the universe, and everything - 42 fundamenta…

We present a list of open questions in mathematical physics. After a historical introduction, a number of problems in a variety of different fields are discussed, with the intention of giving an overall impression of the current status of…

Intelligence is a fundamental part of all living things, as well as the foundation for Artificial Intelligence. In this primer we explore the ideas associated with intelligence and, by doing so, understand the implications and constraints…

Where does it all come from? Where are we going? Are we alone in the universe? What is good and what is evil? The scientific narrative of cosmic evolution demands that we tackle such big questions with a cosmological perspective. I tackle…

The National Academy of Sciences USA has posed eleven important questions about the Cosmos. This paper answers most of the questions based on the new concepts about "What is Time - A New Mathematico Physical And Information Theoretic…

Many believe that the deep question of "why is there something rather than nothing?" is unanswerable. The universe just is and no further explanation for its existence is possible. In this paper I explain why this question must have an…

Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…

The Universe contains everything that exists, including life. And all that exists, including life, obeys universal physical laws. Do those laws then give adequate foundations for a complete explanation of biological phenomena? We discuss…

While purely philosophical in the early times, and still very speculative at the beginning of the twentieth century, Cosmology has gradually entered into the realm of experimental science over the past eighty years. It has raised some…

The origins of life stands among the great open scientific questions of our time. While a number of proposals exist for possible starting points in the pathway from non-living to living matter, these have so far not achieved states of…

As humanity embarks on an age of exploration, the question of whether we are alone in the universe remains unanswered. This comprehensive review reflects on the paradoxical nature of our existence in a seemingly lifeless cosmos, delving…

In the last few decades, reading the literature, we realized that we Astronomers have a strong preference to undertake very ambitious projects, and search for answers to the most fundamental questions in the history of the entire Universe.…

Before the universe there was nothing, absolute nothing. That is the starting point because it is the only starting point that requires no cause, no explanation nor justification of its existence. But, that starting point has two…

What are the important unanswered questions in cosmology? The choice as to which are the most important is somewhat personal. In the view of the author, the ten topics chosen here for discussion must be included among the most fundamental.…

Did time begin at a Big Bang? Will the present expansion of the universe last for a finite or infinite time? These questions sound philosophical but are becoming, now in the twenty-first century, central to the scientific study of…

Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…

This book is a philosopher's introduction to the idea that our universe is just one of many universes. I present and assess three versions of the idea: one version from philosophy, and two from physics. In short, they are: all the logically…

Our knowledge about the universe has increased tremendously in the last three decades or so --- thanks to the progress in observations --- but our understanding has improved very little. There are several fundamental questions about our…

We survey some of the philosophical challenges and pitfalls within origins research. Several of these challenges exhibit circularities, paradoxes, or anthropic biases. We present origins approaches in terms of three broad categories:…

What do we do when cosmology raises questions it cannot answer? These include the existence of a multiverse and the universality of the laws of physics. We cannot settle any of these issues by experiment, and this is where philosophers…

Exploring the Universe is one of the great unifying themes of humanity. Part of this endeavour is the search for extraterrestrial life. But how likely is it that we will find life, or that if we do it will be similar to ourselves? And…