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  1. How bad is the postulation of a low entropy initial state of the universe?Aldo Filomeno - 2023 - Aphex 27:141-158.
    I summarize, in this informal interview, the main approaches to the ‘Past Hypothesis’, the postulation of a low-entropy initial state of the universe. I’ve chosen this as an open problem in the philosophical foundations of physics. I hope that this brief overview helps readers in gaining perspective and in appreciating the diverse range of approaches in this fascinating unresolved debate.
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  • Levels of Description and Levels of Reality: A General Framework.Christian List - 2024 - In Katie Robertson & Alastair Wilson (eds.), Levels of Explanation. Oxford University Press.
    This expository paper presents a general framework for representing levels and inter-level relations. The framework is intended to capture both epistemic and ontological notions of levels and to clarify the sense in which levels of explanation might or might not be related to a levelled ontology. The framework also allows us to study and compare different kinds of inter-level relations, especially supervenience and reduction but also grounding and mereological constitution. This, in turn, enables us to explore questions such as whether (...)
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  • From the inside looking out: Michael Peterson and Dennis Venema: Biology, religion, and philosophy: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, 275 pp, £19.99 PB. [REVIEW]Carl Brusse - 2022 - Metascience 31 (2):273-276.
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  • Hyperdimensional Neutral Monism: A Dimensional Approach to the Mind–Body Problem.Jason Frenkel - 2022 - Philosophia 51 (1):149-184.
    This article introduces the concept of ‘hyperdimensional neutral monism’ as an elaboration and exploration of neutral monism. Neutral monism states that there is a single type of neutral, ontologically primary ultimate, which both the physical and the mental supervene on (Banks Philosophical Psychology, 23(2), 173-187, 2010). Hyperdimensional neutral monism (HNM) states that these ultimates exist in a more-than-4-dimensional realm and that the physical world of spacetime is a 4-dimensional aspect of this realm. Consciousness is the localized protrusion of spacetime into (...)
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  • The naturalistic case for free will.Christian List - 2022 - In Meir Hemmo, Stavros Ioannidis, Orly Shenker & Gal Vishne (eds.), Levels of Reality in Science and Philosophy: Re-Examining the Multi-Level Structure of Reality. Springer.
    The aim of this expository paper is to give an informal overview of a plausible naturalistic case for free will. I will describe what I take to be the main naturalistically motivated challenges for free will and respond to them by presenting an indispensability argument for free will. The argument supports the reality of free will as an emergent higher-level phenomenon. I will also explain why the resulting picture of free will does not conflict with the possibility that the fundamental (...)
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  • Special-science counterfactuals.Christian List - 2022 - The Monist 105 (2):194–213.
    On the standard analysis, a counterfactual conditional such as “If P had been the case, then Q would have been the case” is true in the actual world if, in all nearest possible worlds in which its antecedent (P) is true, its consequent (Q) is also true. Despite its elegance, this analysis faces a difficulty if the laws of nature are deterministic. Then the antecedent could not have been true, given prior conditions. So, it is unclear what the relevant “nearest (...)
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  • Quantum Indeterminism, Free Will, and Self-Causation.Marco Masi - 2023 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 30 (5-6):32–56.
    A view that emancipates free will by means of quantum indeterminism is frequently rejected based on arguments pointing out its incompatibility with what we know about quantum physics. However, if one carefully examines what classical physical causal determinism and quantum indeterminism are according to physics, it becomes clear what they really imply–and, especially, what they do not imply–for agent-causation theories. Here, we will make necessary conceptual clarifications on some aspects of physical determinism and indeterminism, review some of the major objections (...)
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  • Contemporary Darwinism as a worldview.Jamie Milton Freestone - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 90 (C):68-76.
    The most public-facing forms of contemporary Darwinism happily promote its worldview ambitions. Popular works, by the likes of Richard Dawkins, deflect associations with eugenics and social Darwinism, but also extend the reach of Darwinism beyond biology into social policy, politics, and ethics. Critics of the enterprise fall into two categories. Advocates of Intelligent Design and secular philosophers (like Mary Midgley and Thomas Nagel) recognise it as a worldview and argue against its implications. Scholars in the rhetoric of science or science (...)
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  • Pure Consciousness and Quantum Field Theory.Markus E. Schlosser - manuscript
    In the first part I argue that Buddhism and Hinduism can be unified by a Pure Consciousness thesis, which says that the nature of ultimate reality is an unconditioned and pure consciousness and that the phenomenal world is a mere appearance of pure consciousness. In the second part I argue that the Pure Consciousness thesis can be supported by an argument from quantum physics. According to our best scientific theories, the fundamental nature of reality consists of quantum fields, and it (...)
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  • Ο χάρτης πορείας ενός γενετιστή για τη λογική κατανόηση του σύμπαντος.Gilbert B. Côté - manuscript - Translated by Gilbert B. Côté.
    Translation in Greek of "A Geneticist's Roadmap to Sanity" (2019) by G.B. Côté. Μεταφράστηκε και στα Γαλλικά από τους Gilbert B. Côté και Roger Lapalme και προστέθηκε η βιβλιογραφία στις 28 του Απρίλη 2020: Pour comprendre le monde et revenir à la raison. La théorie du tout d'un généticien. Η ώθηση για τη συγγραφή ήταν η ανήθικη προεδρία του Donald J. Trump. Σε αυτό το κείμενο, θέλω να εξερευνήσω τα θεμέλια της ύπαρξής μας. Θα θίξω σύντομα την ενσυνείδηση, την ελεύθερη (...)
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  • The Quantum Field Theory on Which the Everyday World Supervenes.Sean M. Carroll - 2022 - In Meir Hemmo, Stavros Ioannidis, Orly Shenker & Gal Vishne (eds.), Levels of Reality in Science and Philosophy: Re-Examining the Multi-Level Structure of Reality. Springer. pp. 27-46.
    Effective Field Theory (EFT) is the successful paradigm underlying modern theoretical physics, including the "Core Theory" of the Standard Model of particle physics plus Einstein's general relativity. I will argue that EFT grants us a unique insight: each EFT model comes with a built-in specification of its domain of applicability. Hence, once a model is tested within some domain (of energies and interaction strengths), we can be confident that it will continue to be accurate within that domain. Currently, the Core (...)
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  • Quantum Mechanics, Metaphysics, and Bohm's Implicate Order.George Williams - 2019 - Mind and Matter 2 (17):155-186.
    The persistent interpretation problem for quantum mechanics may indicate an unwillingness to consider unpalatable assumptions that could open the way toward progress. With this in mind, I focus on the work of David Bohm, whose earlier work has been more influential than that of his later. As I’ll discuss, I believe two assumptions play a strong role in explaining the disparity: 1) that theories in physics must be grounded in mathematical structure and 2) that consciousness must supervene on material processes. (...)
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  • The Future of Value Sensitive Design.Batya Friedman, David Hendry, Steven Umbrello, Jeroen Van Den Hoven & Daisy Yoo - 2020 - Paradigm Shifts in ICT Ethics: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference ETHICOMP 2020.
    In this panel, we explore the future of value sensitive design (VSD). The stakes are high. Many in public and private sectors and in civil society are gradually realizing that taking our values seriously implies that we have to ensure that values effectively inform the design of technology which, in turn, shapes people’s lives. Value sensitive design offers a highly developed set of theory, tools, and methods to systematically do so.
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  • A Reasonable Little Question: A Formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument.Luke A. Barnes - 2019 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6.
    A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at (...)
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  • The Kalām Cosmological Argument Meets the Mentaculus.Dan Linford - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:axaa005.
    According to the orthodox interpretation of bounce cosmologies, the universe was born from an entropy-reducing phase in a previous universe. To defend the thesis that the whole of physical reality was caused to exist a finite time ago, Craig and Sinclair have argued the low-entropy interface between universes should instead be understood as the beginning of two universes. Here, I present Craig and Sinclair with a dilemma. On the one hand, if the direction of time is reducible, as friends of (...)
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  • Does my total evidence support that I’m a Boltzmann Brain?Sinan Dogramaci - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (12):3717-3723.
    A Boltzmann Brain, haphazardly formed through the unlikely but still possible random assembly of physical particles, is a conscious brain having experiences just like an ordinary person. The skeptical possibility of being a Boltzmann Brain is an especially gripping one: scientific evidence suggests our actual universe’s full history may ultimately contain countless short-lived Boltzmann Brains with experiences just like yours or mine. I propose a solution to the skeptical challenge posed by these countless actual Boltzmann Brains. My key idea is (...)
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  • Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies - Part 1.Gordana Dodig Crnkovic - 2019 - Basel, Switzerland: MDPI.
    This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue titled "Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies" - Part 1 that was published in the journal Philosophies.
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  • Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?Sean M. Carroll - 2022 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics. London, UK: Routledge.
    It seems natural to ask why the universe exists at all. Modern physics suggests that the universe can exist all by itself as a self-contained system, without anything external to create or sustain it. But there might not be an absolute answer to why it exists. I argue that any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation.
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  • A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers.Cadell Last - 2018 - International Journal of Žižek Studies 12 (4).
    The dominant forms of thought today exist as either deconstructive or metalinguistic structures. Here we attempt to situate dialectical thinking as a constructive meta-mediation of this opposition between deconstruction and metalanguage. Dialectical thinking offers us a way to think about the processual nature of reason itself as a force of thought mediating being. In this mode of understanding we attempt to think the possibility of articulating the meaning and importance of ‘metaontology’ defined as the ontology of epistemology. In a metaontology (...)
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  • Can Physics Make Us Free?Tuomas K. Pernu - 2017 - Frontiers in Physics 5.
    A thoroughly physical view on reality and our common sense view on agency and free will seem to be in a direct conflict with each other: if everything that happens is determined by prior physical events, so too are all our actions and conscious decisions; you have no choice but to do what you are destined to do. Although this way of thinking has intuitive appeal, and a long history, it has recently began to gain critical attention. A number of (...)
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  • The Role of Philosophy as a Guide in Complex Scientific and Technological Processes.Alfred Driessen - manuscript
    Probably the most challenging issue in science and advanced technology is the ever increasing complexity. The term complexity refers to the experience that the complex whole is more than the sum of the parts. Emergence of new properties is observed at all levels, from relatively simple physical systems up to high-end evolution in biology or state-of-the-art microprocessors in technology. In this study an effort is made to arrive at an understanding of the underlying ontological basis in terms of the classical (...)
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  • (1 other version)On the Carroll–Chen Model.Christopher Gregory Weaver - 2017 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 48 (1):97-124.
    I argue that the Carroll-Chen cosmogonic model does not provide a plausible scientific explanation of the past hypothesis (the thesis that our universe began in an extremely low-entropy state). I suggest that this counts as a welcomed result for those who adopt a Mill-Ramsey-Lewis best systems account of laws and maintain that the past hypothesis is a brute fact that is a non-dynamical law.
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  • (2 other versions)Time.Bradley Dowden - 2023 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Time is what clocks are used to measure. Information about time tells the durations of events and when they occur and which events happen before which others, so time plays a very significant role in the universe’s structure, including the structure of our personal lives. But carefully describing time’s properties has led to many unresolved issues, both philosophical and scientific.
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  • To be a realist about quantum theory.Hans Halvorson - 2019 - In Olimpia Lombardi (ed.), Quantum Worlds: Perspectives on the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
    I look at the distinction between between realist and antirealist views of the quantum state. I argue that this binary classification should be reconceived as a continuum of different views about which properties of the quantum state are representationally significant. What's more, the extreme cases -- all or none --- are simply absurd, and should be rejected by all parties. In other words, no sane person should advocate extreme realism or antirealism about the quantum state. And if we focus on (...)
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  • Pour comprendre le monde et revenir à la raison. La théorie du tout d'un généticien.Gilbert B. Côté - manuscript
    French translation by G. B. Côté and Roger Lapalme of "A Geneticist's Roadmap to Sanity" (G. B. Côté, 2019) with added bibliography. -/- À voir le monde d’aujourd’hui, on pourrait croire que nous avons perdu la raison. Je veux explorer ici les fondements mêmes de notre existence. Je discuterai brièvement du libre arbitre, de l’éthique, de la religion, de la souffrance, du dualisme cartésien et de l’état de conscience, avec un arrière-plan promulguant l’importance de la physique quantique d’aujourd’hui et de (...)
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  • General Relativity, Mental Causation, and Energy Conservation.J. Brian Pitts - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (4):1931-1973.
    The conservation of energy and momentum have been viewed as undermining Cartesian mental causation since the 1690s. Modern discussions of the topic tend to use mid-nineteenth century physics, neglecting both locality and Noether’s theorem and its converse. The relevance of General Relativity has rarely been considered. But a few authors have proposed that the non-localizability of gravitational energy and consequent lack of physically meaningful local conservation laws answers the conservation objection to mental causation: conservation already fails in GR, so there (...)
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  • Naturalness and Emergence.David Wallace - 2019 - The Monist 102 (4):499-524.
    I develop an account of naturalness in physics which demonstrates that naturalness assumptions are not restricted to narrow cases in high-energy physics but are a ubiquitous part of how interlevel relations are derived in physics. After exploring how and to what extent we might justify such assumptions on methodological grounds or through appeal to speculative future physics, I consider the apparent failure of naturalness in cosmology and in the Standard Model. I argue that any such naturalness failure threatens to undermine (...)
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  • Can the Concepts of Energy and Psychological Energy Enrich Our Understanding of Psychosocial Adaptation to Traumatic Experiences, Chronic Illnesses and Disabilities?Hanoch Livneh - 2022 - Frontiers in Psychology 13.
    The aim of this paper is to familiarize the reader with the concept of psychological energy, and the role it plays in deepening our understanding of psychosocial adaptation to traumatic life events and, more pointedly, the onset of chronic illness and disability. In order to implement this aim, the following steps were undertaken: First, a brief historical review of the nature of energy, force and action, as traditionally conceived in the field of physics, is provided. Second, an overview of PE (...)
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  • Why can information not be defined as being purely epistemic?Roman Krzanowski - 2020 - Philosophical Problems in Science 68:37-62.
    The concept of information can be viewed from two perspectives, namely epistemic and ontological. In the epistemic view, information is associated with meaning, semantics, and knowledge, while in the ontological view, it is understood as structures and forms of objects. Information is most often perceived as epistemic information, yet a closer look at epistemic information reveals that this concept does not account for ontological information. This paper poses the following question: Should we select epistemic or ontological information as our primary (...)
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  • ‘I Can’ vs. ‘I Want’: What’s Missing from Gallagher’s Picture of Non-reductive Cognitive Science.Javier Sánchez-Cañizares, Miguel García-Valdecasas & Nathaniel F. Barrett - 2018 - Australasian Philosophical Review 2 (2):209-213.
    We support the development of non-reductive cognitive science and the naturalization of phenomenology for this purpose, and we agree that the ‘relational turn’ defended by Gallagher is a necessary step in this direction. However, we believe that certain aspects of his relational concept of nature need clarification. In particular, Gallagher does not say whether or how teleology, affect, and other value-related properties of life and mind can be naturalized within this framework. In this paper, we argue that (1) given the (...)
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  • Thermodynamical Arguments Against Evolution.Jason Rosenhouse - 2017 - Science & Education 26 (1-2):3-25.
    The argument that the second law of thermodynamics contradicts the theory of evolution has recently been revived by anti-evolutionists. In its basic form, the argument asserts that whereas evolution implies that there has been an increase in biological complexity over time, the second law, a fundamental principle of physics, shows this to be impossible. Scientists have responded primarily by noting that the second law does not rule out increases in complexity in open systems, and since the Earth receives energy from (...)
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  • Evidence or Prejudice? A Reply to Matlock. [REVIEW]Keith Augustine - 2016 - Journal of Parapsychology 80:203-231.
    Before I respond to James G. Matlock’s comments on my coedited volume, The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death (MoA), I would like to thank him for taking the time to review such a large volume—and review it conscientiously—even if we ultimately disagree about its import. I would also like to extend my thanks to Journal of Parapsychology editor John Palmer for inviting this response, as it gives me an opportunity to clarify why many secondary issues (...)
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  • The Heritability Challenge to Evolution and Materialism: An Opening for Religious Perspectives.Ted Christopher - 2018 - Open Journal of Philosophy 8 (4):355-364.
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  • The Natural Philosophy of Experiencing.Robert Prentner - 2018 - Philosophies 3 (4):35.
    A new philosophy of nature is urgently needed. The received ontological view, physicalism, is unable to account for experiential phenomena and in particular for consciousness in all its varieties. We shall outline the concept of experiencing which should figure as a new conceptual primitive in natural philosophy. Experiencing refers to a process which comprises the interaction of an agent with its world through action based on phenomenal experience. This process can be viewed under two different aspects. One regards the subjective (...)
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