Philosophy of Physical Science, Misc

Content Introduction: The EDWs perspective, a new general framework of thinking for all physicists Chapter 1 The Epistemologically different worlds (EDWs) 1.1Principles concerning the existence and the interactions of objects 1.2 Principles Concerning the Brain/Body and the Corresponding I (the Self/Mind) 1.3 Epistemologically Different Worlds (EDWs) 1.4The history of the EDWs after many the Big Bangs (aprox. 13.78 billion years ago) and more details about the “non-existence” of the gravitational force (no ontological status and no spacetime) Chapter 2 Space and (...) time (spacetime) cannot even exist within the EDWs 2.1 Space and geometry 2.2 Space, time and EDWs Chapter 3 Einstein’ special relativity and general relativity without spacetime within the EDWs 3.1 Special relativity without “spacetime” 3.2 General relativity without spacetime Chapter 4 Quantum mechanics and the EDWs 4.1 Particles vs. fields (waves) 4.2 Young’s experiment and Wheelers’ delayed-choice experiment (1980) 4.3 The “electron spin” 4.4 Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle 4.5 Schrödinger’s cat and “decoherence” 4.6 The brain and quantum mechanics 4.7 Laser and bulb light 4.8 Completely different FRAMEWORKS for the EDWs perspective and some approaches (constructed within the unicorn world!) 4.8.1 Bohr’s “complementarity” 4.8.2 Feynman’s “sum over histories” 4.8.3 Everett’s “Many Worlds” and the “multiverse” or “parallel worlds” 4.8.4 Strocchi’s “different worlds” and Oriti’s “different ontologies” 4.8.5 Penrose’s “reductionism” 4.9. The final verdict for all approaches of quantum mechanics Chapter 5 The EDWs perspective against “Grand Unified Theory”, “Theory of Everything”, “Big Bang”, and “Inflation” Chapter 6 Dark matter, dark energy and the EDWs 6.1 Rethinking “dark matter” within the EDWs perspective 6.2 “Haloes”, “structures”, and the “flat universe” 6.3 Recent cosmological results which strongly support the being of the mega-EW 6.4 The Martian, dark matter and dark energy Chapter 7 The hyperspace (superstring theory) versus the EDWs Chapter 8 Primas and Atmanspascher’s approach under Spinoza’s “dual aspects” approach and Bohr’s “complementarity” Conclusion: EDWs, no more or less! Bibliography . (shrink)

The unreduced solution to the arbitrary interaction problem, absent in the standard theory framework, reveals many equally real and mutually incompatible system configurations, or "realizations". This is the essence of universal dynamic undecidability, or multivaluedness, and the ensuing causal randomness (unpredictability), non-computability, irreversible time flow (evolution, emergence), and dynamic complexity of every real system, object, or process. This creative undecidability of real-world dynamics provides causal explanations for "quantum mysteries", relativity postulates, cosmological problems, and the huge efficiency of high-complexity phenomena, such (...) as life, intelligence, and consciousness, giving rise to extended applications, far beyond the critical limits of usual science paradigm. (shrink)

A simple argument proposes a direct link between realism about quantum mechanics and one kind of metaphysical holism: if elementary quantum theory is at least approximately true, then there are entangled systems with intrinsic whole states for which the intrinsic properties and spatiotemporal arrangements of salient subsystem parts do not suffice. Initially, the proposal is compelling: we can find variations on such reasoning throughout influential discussions of entanglement. Upon further consideration, though, this simple argument proves a bit too simple. To (...) get such metaphysically robust consequences out, we need to put more than minimal realism in. This paper offers a diagnosis: our simple argument seems so compelling thanks to an equivocation. The predictions of textbook quantum theory already resonate with familiar holistic slogans; for realists, then, any underlying reality, conforming to such predictions, also counts as holistic in some sense or other, if only by association. Such associated holism, though, does not establish the sort of specific, robust supervenience failure claimed by our simple argument. While it may be natural to slide to this stronger conclusion, facilitating the slide is not minimal realism per se but an additional explanatory assumption about how and why reality behaves in accordance with our theory: roughly, quantum theory accurately captures patterns in the features and behaviors of physical reality because some underlying metaphysical structure constrains reality to exhibit these patterns. Along with the diagnosis comes a recommendation: we can and should understand one traditional disagreement about the metaphysics of entanglement as another manifestation of a familiar and more general conflict between reductive and non-reductive conceptions of metaphysical theorizing. Such reframing makes clearer what resources reductionists have for resisting the simple argument’s challenge from quantum holism. It also has an important moral for their opponents. Traditional focus on whole-part supervenience failure distracts from a root disagreement about metaphysical structure and its role in our theorizing. Non-reductionists fond of our simple argument would be better off tackling this root directly. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson challenges advocates of layered conceptions of reality to explain “how layers are distinguished” and “what holds them together” by “examining the world” (2014). One strategy for answering such questions is mereological, treating inter-layer relations as parthood relations, where layers exist whenever composition does, and the number of layers will be equivalent to the number of answers to Peter Van Inwagen’s Special Composition Question, while answers to his General Composition Question explain what holds the layers together (1987). Various answers (...) have been proffered for these questions, from the physicalist atomism of Richard Feynman (2015), Hilary Putnam (1958), and Kit Fine (1992) to the holism of Jonathan Schaffer (2010), the two-layer emergentism of Van Inwagen himself (1995), Tim Maudlin’s three-layered “flash ontology” (2011), and Rob Koons two-layered “thermal substances” (2019). In this PhD project, I seek to meet Thomasson’s challenge by identifying which of these proposals are compatible with plausible interpretations of quantum physics. Atomist answers may have difficulty with relativity, while holistic and emergentist models have trouble giving an account of experimental conditions. Maudlin and Koons’ views, meanwhile, may make testable predictions about the scope of entanglement. Examining the world can lead us to sharply winnow our theories about how layers are distinguished and what holds them together. (shrink)

This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and Christian Wüthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. (More information at www<dot>beyondspacetime<dot>net.) This chapter introduces causal set theory and identifies and articulates a 'problem of space' in this theory.

The unreduced many-body interaction problem solution, absent in usual science framework, reveals a new quality of emerging multiple, equally real but mutually incompatible system configurations, or “realisations”, giving rise to the universal concept of dynamic complexity and chaoticity. Their imitation by a single, “average” realisation or trajectory in usual theory (corresponding to postulated “exact” or perturbative problem solutions) is a rough simplification of reality underlying all stagnating and emerging problems of conventional (unitary) science, often in the form of missing, or (...) “dark”, entities and “hidden variables”. We show how the application of unreduced interaction problem solution and the ensuing concept of dynamic complexity provides the desired causally complete and intrinsically unified solutions to respective unitary science problems in the entire range of complexity levels, from elementary particles and cosmology to emergent consciousness and modern development crisis, implying real, essential and urgently needed progress. (shrink)

Eternalism, the view that what we regard locally as being located in the past, the present and the future equally exists, is the best ontological account of temporal existence in line with special and general relativity. However, special and general relativity are not fundamental theories and several research programs aim at finding a more fundamental theory of quantum gravity weaving together all we know from relativistic physics and quantum physics. Interestingly, some of these approaches assert that time is not fundamental. (...) If time is not fundamental, what does it entail for eternalism and the standard debate over existence in time? First, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in string theory entails standard eternalism. Second, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in loop quantum gravity entails atemporal eternalism, namely a novel position in the spirit of standard eternalism. (shrink)