This chapter investigates the prospects for an important position that falls under the "mere patterns" approach: what, for reasons that will emerge, the author calls"Humean reductionism" about laws of nature, a view championed perhaps most prominently by David Lewis. He reviews some of the most interesting arguments against this position from the literature, and adds some of his own that, he thinks, are more effective. The chapter considers how the best system account (BSA) would apply to the Newtonian (...) class='Hi'>particle world. The BSA has been challenged in a wide variety of ways: it violates certain intuitions; It makes a hash out of the connection between laws on the one hand, and counterfactuals, explanation, and induction on the other. The author thinks that the problem he has raised‐challenging though he hopes it is, is really an occasion for the Humean reductionist to sharpen his position still further. (shrink)

Einstein’s 1905 paper on special relativity suggests that relativistic mechanics is simply a matter of adjusting Newton’s to make it Lorentz invariant. Einstein, for instance.

In this stimulating investigation, Gideon Freudenthal has linked social history with the history of science by formulating an interesting proposal: that the supposed influence of social theory may be seen as actual through its co herence with the process of formation of physical concepts. The reinterpre tation of the development of science in the seventeenth century, now widely influential, receives at Freudenthal's hand its most persuasive statement, most significantly because of his attention to the theoretical form which is charac teristic. (...) of classical Newtonian mechanics. He pursues the sources of the parallels that may be noted between that mechanics and the dominant philosophical systems and social theories of the time; and in a fascinating development Freudenthal shows how a quite precise method - as he descriptively labels it, the 'analytic-synthetic method' - which underlay the Newtonian form of theoretical argument, was due to certain interpretive premisses concerning particle mechanics. If he is right, these depend upon a particular stage of con ceptual achievement in the theories of both society and nature; further, that the conceptual was generalized philosophically; but, strikingly, Freudenthal shows that this concept-formation itself was linked to the specific social relations of the times of Newton and Hobbes. (shrink)

This paper and its predecessor () are about the question: 'Are the events in the entire universe encoded in and predictable from any of its parts?' To approach a positive answer in classical physics, the following result is proved and commented on: in Newton's theory of gravitation, the entire trajectory of a particle can be predicted given any segment of it, regardless of how the other particles are moving-provided that there is only a finite number of particles and that (...) their speeds remain bounded. (It is this condition, together with a set of parameters characterising the motion of the other particles, which enables us to estimate the effect of the other particles on the trajectory of the given particle.) The extension of this result to other theories, in particular to special relativity, is discussed. (shrink)

The symmetrization postulates of quantum mechanics (symmetry for bosons, antisymmetry for fermions) are usually taken to entail that quantum particles of the same kind (e.g., electrons) are all in exactly the same state and therefore indistinguishable in the strongest possible sense. These symmetrization postulates possess a general validity that survives the classical limit, and the conclusion seems therefore unavoidable that even classical particles of the same kind must all be in the same state—in clear conflict with what we know about (...) classical particles. In this article we analyze the origin of this paradox. We shall argue that in the classical limit classical particles emerge, as new entities that do not correspond to the “particle indices” defined in quantum mechanics. Put differently, we show that the quantum mechanical symmetrization postulates do not pertain to particles, as we know them from classical physics, but rather to indices that have a merely formal significance. This conclusion raises the question of whether many discussions in the literature about the status of identical quantum particles have not been misguided. (shrink)

The dynamical equations of relativistic quantum mechanics prescribe the motion of wave packets for sets of events which trace out the world lines of the interacting particles. Electromagnetic theory suggests thatparticle world line densities be constructed from concatenation of event wave packets. These sequences are realized in terms of conserved probability currents. We show that these conserved currents provide a consistent particle and antiparticle interpretation for the asymptotic states in scattering processes. The relation between current conservation and (...) unitarity is used to establish relations between pair production and annihilation amplitudes and scattering. The discrete symmetriesC, T, P are studied and it is shown that no Dirac sea (for fermions where such a construction is possible, or bosons where it is not) is required for consistency of the theory. These currents, furthermore, represent the discrete symmetries in a way consistent with their interpretation as particle currents. (shrink)

Of late, evidentiality has received great attention in formal semantics. In this paper I develop ‘evidentiality-informed’ truth conditions for modal operators such as must and may . With language data drawn from Luoping Nase (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the P.R. of China and belonging to the Yi Nationality), I illustrate that epistemic modals clash with clauses articulating first-hand information. I then demonstrate that existing models such as Kratzer’s graded possible-worlds semantics fail to provide accurate truth conditions for modals tagging (...) clauses with first-hand information. As a remedy I propose a fuzzy version of possible-worlds semantics with various grades of belief and knowledge. In addition to preserving the expressive power of graded possible-worlds semantics, the fuzzy model will be shown to supply appropriate truth conditions for epistemic modals appended to evidential clauses (i.e. clauses expressing first-hand information). (shrink)

In two recent papers Perez Laraudogoitia has described a variety of supertasks involving elastic collisions in Newtonian systems containing a denumerably infinite set of particles. He maintains that these various supertasks give examples of systems in which energy is not conserved, particles at rest begin to move spontaneously, particles disappear from a system, and particles are created ex nihilo. An analysis of these supertasks suggests that they involve systems that do not satisfy the mathematical conditions required of Newtonian (...) systems at the time the supertask is due to be completed, or else they rely on the application of the time-reversal transformation to states which are not well-defined. Consequently, it is unjustified to conclude that the paradoxical results are arising from within the framework of Newtonian mechanics. In the last part of this article, we discuss various aspects of the physics of these supertasks. (shrink)

Newtonian mechanics is more than just an empirically successful theory of matter in motion: it is an account of what knowledge of the physical world should look like. But what is this account? What is distinctive about it? To answer these questions, I begin by introducing the laws of motion, the relations among them, and the spatio-temporal framework that is implicit in them. Then I turn to the question of their methodological character. This has been the locus of (...) philosophical discussion from Newton’s time to the present, and I survey the views of some of the major contributors. I show that while Newtonian mechanics motivates a number of philosophical ideas about force, mass, motion, and causality – and through this, ideas about space and time – the laws are themselves the outcome of a philosophical or critical conceptual analysis. (shrink)

The challenge of this work is to connect physics with the concept of intelligence. By intelligence we understand a capability to move from disorder to order without external resources, i.e., in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. The objective is to find such a mathematical object described by ODE that possesses such a capability. The proposed approach is based upon modification of the Madelung version of the Schrodinger equation by replacing the force following from quantum potential with non-conservative forces (...) that link to the concept of information. A mathematical formalism suggests that a hypothetical intelligent particle, besides the capability to move against the second law of thermodynamics, acquires such properties like self-image, self-awareness, self-supervision, etc. that are typical for Livings. However since this particle being a quantum-classical hybrid acquires non-Newtonian and non-quantum properties, it does not belong to the physics matter as we know it: the modern physics should be complemented with the concept of the information force that represents a bridge to intelligent particle. As a follow-up of the proposed concept, the following question is addressed: can artificial intelligence system composed only of physical components compete with a human? The answer is proven to be negative if the AI system is based only on simulations, and positive if digital devices are included. It has been demonstrated that there exists such a quantum neural net that performs simulations combined with digital punctuations. The universality of this quantum-classical hybrid is in capability to violate the second law of thermodynamics by moving from disorder to order without external resources. This advanced capability is illustrated by examples. In conclusion, a mathematical machinery of the perception that is the fundamental part of a cognition process as well as intelligence is introduced and discussed. (shrink)

The foundations of Statistical Mechanics can be recovered almost in their entirety from the principle of maximum entropy. In this work we show that its non-equilibrium generalization, the principle of maximum caliber (Jaynes, Phys Rev 106:620–630, 1957), when applied to the unknown trajectory followed by a particle, leads to Newton’s second law under two quite intuitive assumptions (both the expected square displacement in one step and the spatial probability distribution of the particle are known at all times). Our (...) derivation explicitly highlights the role of mass as an emergent measure of the fluctuations in velocity (inertia) and the origin of potential energy as a manifestation of spatial correlations. According to our findings, the application of Newton’s equations is not limited to mechanical systems, and therefore could be used in modelling ecological, financial and biological systems, among others. (shrink)

Quantum theory is our deepest theory of the nature of matter. It is a theory that, notoriously, produces results which challenge the laws of classical logic and suggests that the physical world is illogical. This book gives a critical review of work on the foundations of quantum mechanics at a level accessible to non-experts. Assuming his readers have some background in mathematics and physics, Peter Gibbins focuses on the questions of whether the results of quantum theory require us to (...) abandon classical logic and whether quantum logic can resolve the paradoxes produced by quantum mechanics. He argues that quantum logic does not dispose of the problems faced by classical logic, that no reasonable interpretation of quantum mechanics in terms of 'hidden variables' can be found, and that after all these years quantum mechanics remains a mystery to us. Particles and Paradoxes provides a much-needed and valuable introduction to the philosophy of quantum mechanics and, at the same time, an example of just what it is to do the philosophy of physics. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of physically impossible idealizations in model-based explanation. We do this by examining the explanation of gravitational waves from distant stellar objects using models that contain point-particle idealizations. Like infinite idealizations in thermodynamics, biology and economics, the point-particle idealization in general relativity is physically impossible. What makes this case interesting is that there are two very different kinds of models used for predicting the same gravitational wave phenomena, post-Newtonian models and effective field theory (...) models. The paper contends that post-Newtonian models are explanatory while effective field theory models are not, because only in the former can we eliminate the physically impossible point-particle idealization. This suggests that, in some areas of science at least, models invoking ineliminable infinite idealizations cannot have explanatory power. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of physically impossible idealizations in model-based explanation. We do this by examining the explanation of gravitational waves from distant stellar objects using models that contain point-particle idealizations. Like infinite idealizations in thermodynamics, biology and economics, the point-particle idealization in general relativity is physically impossible. What makes this case interesting is that there are two very different kinds of models used for predicting the same gravitational wave phenomena, post-Newtonian models and effective field theory (...) models. The paper contends that post-Newtonian models are explanatory while effective field theory models are not, because only in the former can we eliminate the physically impossible point-particle idealization. This suggests that, in some areas of science at least, models invoking ineliminable infinite idealizations cannot have explanatory power. (shrink)

If the force on a particle fails to satisfy a Lipschitz condition at a point, it relaxes one of the conditions necessary for a locally unique solution to the particle’s equation of motion. I examine the most discussed example of this failure of determinism in classical mechanics—that of Norton’s dome—and the range of current objections against it. Finding there are many different conceptions of classical mechanics appropriate and useful for different purposes, I argue that no single conception is (...) preferred. Instead of arguing for or against determinism, I stress the wide variety of pragmatic considerations that, in a specific context, may lead one usefully and legitimately to adopt one conception over another in which determinism may or may not hold. (shrink)

The traditional analysis of the basic version of the double-slit experiment leads to the conclusion that wave-particle duality is a fundamental fact of nature. However, such a conclusion means to imply that we are not only required to have two contradictory pictures of reality but also compelled to abandon the objectiveness of the truth values, “true” and “false”. Yet, even if we could accept wave-like behavior of quantum particles as the best explanation for the build-up of an interference pattern (...) in the double-slit experiment, without the objectivity of the truth values we would never have certainty regarding any statement about the world. The present paper discusses ways to reconcile the correct description of the double-slit experiment with the objectiveness of “true” and “false”. (shrink)

The extremely successful _Standard Model of Particle Physics_ allows one to define the so-called _Elementary Particles_. From another point of view, how can we think of them? What kind of a status can be attributed to Elementary Particles and their associated quantised fields? Beyond the unprecedented efficiency and reach of quantum field theories, the current paper attempts at understanding the nature of what these theories describe, the enigmatic reality of the quantum world.

The ArgumentJacob de Castro Sarmento was a descendent of New Christians in Portugal who made his way to London in the early eighteenth century. There he professed Judaism openly, but he also advanced his scientific and medical pursuits, becoming particularly enamored of the Newtonian world view. This paper argues that Sarmento's attachment to Judaism was essentially a function of his personal relationship with Hakham David Nieto, and that Sarmento's Judaism was never really the full synthesis of scientific outlook (...) and Jewish theology toward which Nieto pushed him. Rather, after Nieto's death Sarmento identified himself with scientific Newtonianism increasingly openly, while his religious identitly waned. Apparently he found science a more useful outlook in approaching the world, as did many Newtonians of that generation. (shrink)

The practice of describing multiparticle quantum systems in terms of labeled particles indicates that we think of quantum entities as individuatable. The labels, together with particle indistinguishability, create the need for symmetrization or antisymmetrization (or, in principle, higher-order symmetries), which in turn results in “surplus formal structure” in the formalism, formal structure which corresponds to nothing in the real world. We argue that these facts show quanta to be unindividuatable entities, things in principle incapable of supporting labels, and (...) so things which support no factual difference_if two of them are thought of as being switched. When thinking of the metaphysics of quanta, we should eschew the misleading labels of the tensor product Hilbert space formalism and prefer the ontologically more faithful description of the Fock space formalism. This conception eliminates puzzles about the quantum statistics of bosons. (shrink)

The renowned philosopher John Searle reveals the fundamental nature of social reality. What kinds of things are money, property, governments, nations, marriages, cocktail parties, and football games? Searle explains the key role played by language in the creation, constitution, and maintenance of social reality. We make statements about social facts that are completely objective, for example: Barack Obama is President of the United States, the piece of paper in my hand is a twenty-dollar bill, I got married in London, etc. (...) And yet these facts only exist because we think they exist. How is it possible that we can have factual objective knowledge of a reality that is created by subjective opinions? This is part of a much larger question: How can we give an account of ourselves, with our peculiar human traits DS mind, reason, freedom, society - in a world that we know independently consists of mindless, meaningless particles? How can we account for our social and mental existence in a realm of brute physical facts? In answering this question, Searle avoids postulating different realms of being, a mental and a physical, or worse yet, a mental, a physical, and a social. There is just one reality: Searle shows how the human reality fits into that one reality. Mind, language, and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how language creates and maintains the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle shows how this account illuminates human rationality, free will, political power, and human rights. Our social world is a world created and maintained by language. (shrink)

In Bohmian mechanics elementary particles exist objectively, as point particles moving according to a law determined by a wavefunction. In this context, questions as to whether the particles of a certain species are real---questions such as, Do photons exist? Electrons? Or just the quarks?---have a clear meaning. We explain that, whatever the answer, there is a corresponding Bohm-type theory, and no experiment can ever decide between these theories. Another question that has a clear meaning is whether particles are intrinsically distinguishable, (...) i.e., whether particle world lines have labels indicating the species. We discuss the intriguing possibility that the answer is no, and particles are points---just points. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the curved spacetime formulation of Newtonian gravity known as Newton–Cartan gravity and compare it with flat spacetime formulations. Two versions of Newton–Cartan gravity can be identified in the physics literature—a ‘‘weak’’ version and a ‘‘strong’’ version. The strong version has a constrained Hamiltonian formulation and consequently a well-defined gauge structure, whereas the weak version does not (with some qualifications). Moreover, the strong version is best compared with the structure of what Earman (World enough (...) and spacetime. Cambridge: MIT Press) has dubbed Maxwellian spacetime. This suggests that there are also two versions of Newtonian gravity in flat spacetime—a ‘‘weak’’ version in Maxwellian spacetime, and a ‘‘strong’’ version in Neo-Newtonian spacetime. I conclude by indicating how these alternative formulations of Newtonian gravity impact the notion of empirical indistinguishability and the debate over scientific realism. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Often William Blake and Isaac Newton are positioned as “opposites”: Newton the great systematizer, Blake the visionary artist. (Blake himself, in fact, seemed to have set up this direct opposition.) However, this opposition is perhaps too simple and overlooks the intricacies of each thinker's work. Further, this straightforward “opposition” fails to account for the pressure that scholarship itself, always occurring from a particular subjective position, applies to shape its objects of study; that is, it creates a useful “Newton” and a (...) useful “Blake” with which to work. Here I employ spatial theorist Henri Lefebvre's technique of “critical thirding” (as Edward Soja has called it), or accounting for “an-Other” position in the dialectic of “Blake” and “Newton”. I consider where Blake and Newton were perhaps more similar than has been suggested in the scholarly literature, and, more crucially, how scholarship itself mobilizes (or indeed “creates”) its own, subjectively useful, “Blake” and “Newton” in order to make particular arguments. (shrink)

Dispositional monists believe that all properties are essentially causal. Recently, an overdetermination argument has been proposed by Trenton Merricks to support nihilism about ordinary objects. I argue that this argument can be extended to target both nihilism about ordinary objects and nihilism about physical particles when dispositional monism is assumed. It implies that a philosopher who both endorses dispositional monism and takes seriously the overdetermination argument should not believe in the existence of physical particles. I end up by discussing possible (...) objections. I suggest, then, that if we live in a world that is inhabited by causal properties but not by chairs and tables, then we also live in a world without electrons and quarks, a world of dispositional properties, that is, a world of causal fields. (shrink)

We put forward a possible new interpretation and explanatory framework for quantum theory. The basic hypothesis underlying this new framework is that quantum particles are conceptual entities. More concretely, we propose that quantum particles interact with ordinary matter, nuclei, atoms, molecules, macroscopic material entities, measuring apparatuses, in a similar way to how human concepts interact with memory structures, human minds or artificial memories. We analyze the most characteristic aspects of quantum theory, i.e. entanglement and non-locality, interference and superposition, identity and (...) individuality in the light of this new interpretation, and we put forward a specific explanation and understanding of these aspects. The basic hypothesis of our framework gives rise in a natural way to a Heisenberg uncertainty principle which introduces an understanding of the general situation of ‘the one and the many’ in quantum physics. A specific view on macro and micro different from the common one follows from the basic hypothesis and leads to an analysis of Schrödinger’s Cat paradox and the measurement problem different from the existing ones. We reflect about the influence of this new quantum interpretation and explanatory framework on the global nature and evolutionary aspects of the world and human worldviews, and point out potential explanations for specific situations, such as the generation problem in particle physics, the confinement of quarks and the existence of dark matter. (shrink)

Newtonian gravity is modified minimally to obtain a Lorentz covariant theory of gravity in a background flat space. Gravity is assumed to appear as a potential. Constraint Hamiltonian dynamics is used to determine particle trajectories in a manifestly covariant fashion. The resulting theory is significantly different from the general theory of relativity. However, all known experimental results (precession of planetary orbits, bending of the path of light near the sun, and gravitational spectral shift) are still explained by this (...) theory. (shrink)

can prevent non-contact interactions in Newtonian collision mechanics. The proposal is weakened by the apparent arbitrariness of what will be shown as the requirement of only an odd number of sets of some ex nihilo-created self-exciting particles. There is, however, an initial condition such that, without the ex nihilo self-exciting particles, either there is a contradictory outcome, or there is a non-contact configuration law, or there are odds versus evens indeterminacies. With the various odds versus evens arbitrarinesses and other (...) such difficulties, there seems to be an ontological unsatisfactoriness in the speed-unbounded Newtonian collision system. Introduction Taking self-excitations very seriously A problematic initial condition Another alternative. (shrink)

What is a self? I will try to answer this question by developing an analogy with something much simpler, something which is nowhere near as puzzling as a self, but has some properties in common with selves. What I have in mind is the center of gravity of an object. This is a well-behaved concept in Newtonian physics. But a center of gravity is not an atom or a subatomic particle or any other physical item in the (...) class='Hi'>world. It has no mass; it has no color; it has no physical properties at all, except for spatio-temporal location. It is a fine example of what Hans Reichenbach would call an abstractum. It is a purely abstract object. It is, if you like , a theorist's fiction. It is not one of the real things in the universe in addition to the atoms. But it is a fiction that has nicely defined, well delineated and well behaved role within physics. (shrink)

According to classical physics _particles_ are basic building blocks of the world. These classical particles are distinguishable objects, individuated by unique combinations of physical properties. By contrast, in quantum mechanics the received view is that particles of the same kind (“identical particles”) are physically indistinguishable from each other and lack identity. This doctrine rests on the quantum mechanical (anti)symmetrization postulates together with the “factorist” assumption that each single particle is represented in exactly one factor space of the tensor (...) product Hilbert space of a many-particle system. Even though standard in theoretical physics and the philosophy of physics, the assumption of factorism and the ensuing indistinguishability of particles are problematic. Particle indistinguishability is irreconcilable with the everyday meaning of “particle”, and also with how this term is used in the practice of physics. Moreover, it is a consequence of the standard view that identical quantum particles remain indistinguishable even in the classical limit, which makes a smooth transition to the classical particle concept impossible. Lubberdink (1998; 2009) and Dieks and Lubberdink (2011) have proposed an alternative conception of quantum particles that does not rely on factorism and avoids these difficulties. We further explain and discuss this alternative framework here. One of its key consequences is that particles in quantum theory are not fundamental but _emergent_; another that once they have emerged, quantum particles are always physically distinguishable and thus possess a physically grounded identity. (shrink)

Most "art and science" books focus on the science of perspective or the psychology of perception. Hidden Harmony does not. Instead, the book addresses the surprising common ground between physics and art from a novel and personal perspective. Viewing the two disciplines as creative processes, J. R. Leibowitz supplements existing and original research with illustrations to demonstrate that physics and art share guiding aesthetics and compositional demands and to show how each speaks meaningfully to the other. Leibowitz widens our experience (...) and understanding of both domains by exploring how concepts such as balance and re-balance, coherence and unity, and symmetry and "broken" symmetry affect and are affected by artistic vision and scientific principle. He reveals shared themes and understandings in each field and adroitly illustrates the parallels between the dabs of color and layers of images in a work of art and the particles of matter and packets of energy that compose the observable, physical world. Featuring examples of art images and complementary examples of physics concepts, this contemplative work helps us see art and physics as artists and physicists do. (shrink)

Textbooks present classical particle and field physics as theories of physical systems situated in Newtonian absolute space. This absolute space has an influence on the evolution of physical processes, and can therefore be seen as a physical system itself; it is substantival. It turns out to be possible, however, to interpret the classical theories in another way. According to this rival interpretation, spatiotemporal position is a property of physical systems, and there is no substantival spacetime. The traditional objection (...) that such a relationist view could not cope with the existence of inertial effects and other manifestations of the causal efficacy of spacetime can be answered successfully. According to the new point of view, the spacetime manifold of classical physics is a purely representational device. It represents possible locations of physical objects or events; but these locations are physical properties inherent in the physical objects or events themselves and having no existence independently of them. In relativistic quantum field theory the physical meaning of the spacetime manifold becomes even less tangible. Not only does the manifold lose its status as a substantival container, but also its function as a representation of spacetime properties possessed by physical systems becomes problematic. 'Space and time' become ordering parameters in the web of properties of physical systems. They seem to regain their traditional meaning only in the non-relativistic limit in which the classical particle concept becomes approximately applicable. (shrink)

According to classical physics particles are basic building blocks of the world. These classical particles are distinguishable objects, individuated by unique combinations of physical properties. By contrast, in quantum mechanics the received view is that particles of the same kind are physically indistinguishable from each other and lack identity. This doctrine rests on the quantum mechanical symmetrization postulates together with the “factorist” assumption that each single particle is represented in exactly one factor space of the tensor product Hilbert (...) space of a many-particle system. Even though standard in theoretical physics and the philosophy of physics, the assumption of factorism and the ensuing indistinguishability of particles are problematic. Particle indistinguishability is irreconcilable with the everyday meaning of “particle”, and also with how this term is used in the practice of physics. Moreover, it is a consequence of the standard view that identical quantum particles remain indistinguishable even in the classical limit, which makes a smooth transition to the classical particle concept impossible. Lubberdink and Dieks and Lubberdink have proposed an alternative conception of quantum particles that does not rely on factorism and avoids these difficulties. We further explain and discuss this alternative framework here. One of its key consequences is that particles in quantum theory are not fundamental but emergent; another that once they have emerged, quantum particles are always physically distinguishable and thus possess a physically grounded identity. (shrink)

The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more (...) fact-oriented and less theoretical than physics. However, the key leverageable idea is that careful extension of the science of living systems can be more effectively applied to some of our most vexing modern problems than the prevailing scheme, derived from abstractions in physics. While these have some universal application and demonstrate computational advantages, they are not theoretically mandated for the living. A new set of mathematical abstractions derived from biology can now be similarly extended. This is made possible by leveraging new formal tools to understand abstraction and enable computability. [The latter has a much expanded meaning in our context from the one known and used in computer science and biology today, that is "by rote algorithmic means", since it is not known if a living system is computable in this sense (Mossio et al., 2009).] Two major challenges constitute the effort. The first challenge is to design an original general system of abstractions within the biological domain. The initial issue is descriptive leading to the explanatory. There has not yet been a serious formal examination of the abstractions of the biological domain. What is used today is an amalgam; much is inherited from physics (via the bridging abstractions of chemistry) and there are many new abstractions from advances in mathematics (incentivized by the need for more capable computational analyses). Interspersed are abstractions, concepts and underlying assumptions “native” to biology and distinct from the mechanical language of physics and computation as we know them. A pressing agenda should be to single out the most concrete and at the same time the most fundamental process-units in biology and to recruit them into the descriptive domain. Therefore, the first challenge is to build a coherent formal system of abstractions and operations that is truly native to living systems. Nothing will be thrown away, but many common methods will be philosophically recast, just as in physics relativity subsumed and reinterpreted Newtonian mechanics. -/- This step is required because we need a comprehensible, formal system to apply in many domains. Emphasis should be placed on the distinction between multi-perspective analysis and synthesis and on what could be the basic terms or tools needed. The second challenge is relatively simple: the actual application of this set of biology-centric ways and means to cross-disciplinary problems. In its early stages, this will seem to be a “new science”. This White Paper sets out the case of continuing support of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transformative research in biology and information processing centered on paradigm changes in the epistemological, ontological, mathematical and computational bases of the science of living systems. Today, curiously, living systems cannot be said to be anything more than dissipative structures organized internally by genetic information. There is not anything substantially different from abiotic systems other than the empirical nature of their robustness. We believe that there are other new and unique properties and patterns comprehensible at this bio-logical level. The report lays out a fundamental set of approaches to articulate these properties and patterns, and is composed as follows. -/- Sections 1 through 4 (preamble, introduction, motivation and major biomathematical problems) are incipient. Section 5 describes the issues affecting Integral Biomathics and Section 6 -- the aspects of the Grand Challenge we face with this project. Section 7 contemplates the effort to formalize a General Theory of Living Systems (GTLS) from what we have today. The goal is to have a formal system, equivalent to that which exists in the physics community. Here we define how to perceive the role of time in biology. Section 8 describes the initial efforts to apply this general theory of living systems in many domains, with special emphasis on crossdisciplinary problems and multiple domains spanning both “hard” and “soft” sciences. The expected result is a coherent collection of integrated mathematical techniques. Section 9 discusses the first two test cases, project proposals, of our approach. They are designed to demonstrate the ability of our approach to address “wicked problems” which span across physics, chemistry, biology, societies and societal dynamics. The solutions require integrated measurable results at multiple levels known as “grand challenges” to existing methods. Finally, Section 10 adheres to an appeal for action, advocating the necessity for further long-term support of the INBIOSA program. -/- The report is concluded with preliminary non-exclusive list of challenging research themes to address, as well as required administrative actions. The efforts described in the ten sections of this White Paper will proceed concurrently. Collectively, they describe a program that can be managed and measured as it progresses. (shrink)

Dark matter is a fundamental component of the standard cosmological model, but in spite of four decades of increasingly sensitive searches, no-one has yet detected a single dark-matter particle in the laboratory. An alternative cosmological paradigm exists: MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics). Observations explained in the standard model by postulating dark matter are explained in MOND by proposing a modification of Newton's laws of motion. Both MOND and the standard model have had successes and failures – but only MOND (...) has repeatedly predicted observational facts in advance of their discovery. In this volume, David Merritt outlines why such predictions are considered by many philosophers of science to be the 'gold standard' when it comes to judging a theory's validity. In a world where the standard model receives most attention, the author applies criteria from the philosophy of science to assess, in a systematic way, the viability of this alternative cosmological paradigm. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to draw attention to a connection between rigid designation with its consequence that we are able to stipulate worlds and haecceitism, the doctrine that we have possible worlds alike in all qualitative features which nonetheless are metaphysically different, in that two individuals can have all their qualitative features swapped while remaining the same individuals. I shall argue that stipulation leads to haecceitism, which in turn depends upon commitment to haecceity ("primitive thisness"). Haecceitism is, I claim, (...) an unattractive doctrine, but there is one powerful argument for it, drawn from the desire to make sense of observed frequencies of probabilistic events in terms of possible configurations of phase spaces which may be taken to be a form of possible world. However, by paying close attention to classical and quantum statistics, we see that this argument fails. (shrink)

In the original formulation of quantum mechanics the existence of a precise border between a microscopic world, governed by quantum mechanics, and a macroscopic world, described by classical mechanics was assumed. Modern theoretical and experimental physics has moved that border several times, carefully investigating its definition and making available to observation larger and larger quantum systems. The present book examines a paradigmatic case of the transition from quantum to classical behavior: A quantum particle is revealed in a (...) tracking chamber as a trajectory obeying the laws of classical mechanics. The authors provide here a purely quantum-mechanical description of this behavior, thus helping to illuminate the nature of the border between the quantum and the classical. (shrink)

The field of developmental psychology has typically traced its history to Darwin or to changes in views about the nature of childhood. What has been generally neglected is how the core assumptions of contemporary theories were forged in the early history of modern science. In particular, the rise of Newtonian mechanics precipitated similar perspectives in geology and then biology. They all converged on a shared set of assumptions about the nature of change in the physical world. Theology also (...) played a key role in this process, serving not only as a foil, but also as a source of important insights for the emerging scientific, and developmental, world view. The field of developmental psychology is a child of this complex and often stormy relationship between science and theology that has shaped Western thought. (shrink)

This article addresses recent science fiction films about the colonization of outer worlds, or space-steading, in the context of the longer colonial history of the frontier. Paying particular attention to Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014), Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005) and The Wild Blue Yonder (Werner Herzog, 2005), I argue that colonizing outer space is not only a race to the new frontier, but that this takes place because technologies that picture space have quickened the pulse. Through its imagining of the end (...) of times as a reiteration of colonizing adventure, and the emptying of people from their place, the technology of film has itself produced the accident (Virilio, 2007) of an uninhabited earth. As suggested by the cinematically derived kinesis of wormholes, space wrinkles, and warp speeds, what might be left as a form of life is none other than film itself. The hyper-kinesis of film spectacle takes on a non-human life of its own, which, in science fiction film, constitutes a form of self-alienation, removing viewers from the places they actually inhabit and displacing the histories they unfold. In this way, I address what is truly cinematic about the film frontier traversed by the new space of uber-masculine adventurer-settlers. (shrink)