The author proposes an analysis of boredom. The analysis he proposes is that boredom is an unpleasant mental state consisting of weariness, restlessness, and lack of interest, where certain causal relations exist among the components. He goes on to elaborate on and defend his analysis, concluding with some thoughts on the idea that boredom has some grand metaphysical significance.

I reconstruct from Rietdijk and Putnam’s well-known papers an argument against the applicability of the concept of becoming in Special Relativity, which I think is unaffected by some of the objections found in the literature. I then consider a line of thought found in the discussion of the possible conventionality of simultaneity in Special Relativity, beginning with Reichenbach, and apply it to the debate over becoming. We see that it immediately renders Rietdijk and Putnam’s argument unsound. I end by comparing (...) my approach to others found in the literature, primarily Stein’s. (shrink)

ArgumentEinstein's initial fame came in late 1919 with a dramatic breakthrough in his general theory of relativity. Through a remarkable confluence of events and circumstances, the mass media soon projected an image of the photogenic physicist as a bold new revolutionary thinker. With his theory of relativity Einstein had overthrown outworn ideas about space and time dating back to Newton's day, no small feat. While downplaying his reputation as a revolutionary, Einstein proved he was well cast for the role of (...) mild-mannered scientific genius. Yet fame demanded its price. Surrounded by social and economic unrest in Berlin, he was caught between two worlds, one struggling to be born, another refusing to die. Far from withdrawing, he threw himself into the political fray to become a symbol for international reconciliation during the early Weimar Republic. A decade later, his public image acquired another layer when he re-emerged as a Stoic sage and selfless humanitarian, a quasi-religious figure who saw himself as a modern-day Spinoza. Focusing on events of this period and the role of the German media in portraying them, this essay highlights the scientific and political undercurrents that drew Einstein into the public eye at a critical juncture in European history. Its broader aim is to show the import of these themes within the context of the vast literature on Einstein as well as the larger historiography of science. (shrink)

Several major breakthroughs in the history of physics have been prompted not by new empirical data but by thought experiments. James Robert Brown and John Norton have developed accounts of how thought experiments can yield such advances. Brown argues that knowledge gained via thought experiments demands a Platonic explanation; thought experiments for Brown are a window into the Platonic realm of the laws of nature. Norton argues that thought experiments are just cleverly disguised inductive or deductive arguments, so no new (...) account of their epistemology is needed. In this paper, I argue that although we do not need to invoke any Platonic insight to explain thought experimentation, Norton’s eliminativist account fails to capture the unique epistemological importance of thought experiments qua thought experiments. I then present my own account, according to which thought experiments are a particular type of inductive inference that is uniquely suited to generate new breakthroughs. (shrink)

In the interwar period there was a significant school of thought that repudiated Einstein's theory of relativity on the grounds that it contained elementary inconsistencies. Some of these critics held extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic views, and this has tended to discredit their technical objections to relativity as being scientifically shallow. This paper investigates an alternative possibility: that the critics were right and that the success of Einstein's theory in overcoming them was due to its strengths as an ideology rather than (...) as a science. The clock paradox illustrates how relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make the theory ideologically powerful. The implications of this argument are examined with respect to Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper's accounts of the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the plausibility of metaethical relativism, or more specifically, what I call “moral truth-value relativism”: the idea that the truth of a moral statement or belief depends on who utters or has it, or who assesses it. According to the most prevalent variants of this view in philosophical literature – “standard relativism” – the truth-values are relative to people’s moralities, often understood as some subset of their affective or desirelike attitudes. Standard relativism has two main contenders: absolutism – (...) the view that the truth-values of moral statements and beliefs do not vary in that way – and non-cognitivism – the view that moral judgements do not have truth-values, since they express affective or desire-like attitudes rather than beliefs. Almost the entire dissertation concerns the plausibility of standard relativism in contrast to absolutism. Part 1 examines first the two main arguments for standard relativism: that it accounts for the connection between moral judgements and motivation (chapter 2), and for the prevalence of diversity of moral opinion (chapter 3). Then the most common objection is considered: that it is inconsistent with the existence of genuine moral disagreements (chapter 4). I argue that these arguments are inconclusive. Both relativism and absolutism can account for the features discussed. Part 2 focuses on the fact that different people have different strongly held intuitions about the relative or absolute nature of morality. I argue that given a common methodological approach in philosophy and metaethics, which takes such intuitions as evidence of correct analyses, this difference in intuitions suggests that neither a relativist nor absolutist analysis can be correct for everyone’s moral judgements. I argue that this result holds both given semantic internalism (chapter 6) and given semantic externalism (chapter 7). To get one single analysis of everyone’s moral judgements we would have to abandon the intuitionbased methodology. In chapter 8, however, I argue that we can maintain this methodology if we accept analysis pluralism, the view that different analyses hold for different people’s moral judgements. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on alternative logics. It discusses a hierarchy of logical reform. It presents case studies that illustrate particular aspects of the logical revisionism discussed in the chapter. The first case study is of intuitionistic logic. The second case study turns to quantum logic, a system proposed on empirical grounds as a resolution of the antinomies of quantum mechanics. The third case study is concerned with systems of relevance logic, which have been the subject of an especially detailed reform (...) program. Finally, the fourth case study is paraconsistent logic, perhaps the most controversial of serious proposals. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explain the emergence of the logical empiricist philosophy of space and time as a collision of mathematical traditions. The historical development of the ``Riemannian'' and ``Helmholtzian'' traditions in 19th century mathematics is investigated. Whereas Helmholtz's insistence on rigid bodies in geometry was developed group theoretically by Lie and philosophically by Poincaré, Riemann's Habilitationsvotrag triggered Christoffel's and Lipschitz's work on quadratic differential forms, paving the way to Ricci's absolute differential calculus. The transition from special to general relativity (...) is briefly sketched as a process of escaping from the Helmholtzian tradition and entering the Riemannian one. Early logical empiricist conventionalism, it is argued, emerges as the failed attempt to interpret Einstein's reflections on rods and clocks in general relativity through the conceptual resources of the Helmholtzian tradition. Einstein's epistemology of geometry should, in spite of his rhetorical appeal to Helmholtz and Poincaré, be understood in the wake the Riemannian tradition and of its aftermath in the work of Levi-Civita, Weyl, Eddington, and others. (shrink)

In this paper a method is proposed for empirically determining simultaneity at a distance within the special theory of relativity. It is argued that this method is independent of Einstein's signalling method and provides a basis for denying the conventionality of distant simultaneity.

Mach repudiated Newton's argument for absolute time. He denied there is such a thing as time itself that exists independently of any external change. In doing so, Mach failed to appreciate Newton's scientific practice. Absolute time is intrinsically related to Newton's laws of motion and the method of fluxions. Commentators have noted similarities between Mach's rejection of Newtonian time and his rejection of the independent existence of atoms. In this article, it shall be argued that the juxtaposition of absolute time (...) and the atomic theory is unsound. Mach had good reasons to question the existence of substantial time, and he went on to provide an alternative, ontologically relational account. Whereas his dismissal of atoms can be seen as a questionable form of “phenomenalism” or “positivism,” this is not the case regarding his position on time. (shrink)

This article brings time and theology together constructively in response to a pressing problem for the doctrine of personal salvation. The problem arises within the physics and metaphysics of time, as these support a so-called temporal B-theory in which time does not pass and reality is comprised of a block universe. Within this static temporal metaphysic, objective change is highly problematized. Yet salvation requires an objective change from fallenness to redemption. So, how can we understand a salvation-transformation in the block (...) universe? In other words, can sinners really change? I argue that on a B-theory of time, a salvation-transformation is best understood as a form of qualitative, phenomenological, and subjective change, rather than a robust ontological change. I conclude that the individual's transformation from fallen to saved is one of mind-dependent becoming. So, sinners can change. But, in this lifetime, that change can only be subjective. (shrink)

Call an explanation in which a non-mathematical fact is explained—in part or in whole—by mathematical facts: an extra-mathematical explanation. Such explanations have attracted a great deal of interest recently in arguments over mathematical realism. In this article, a theory of extra-mathematical explanation is developed. The theory is modelled on a deductive-nomological theory of scientific explanation. A basic DN account of extra-mathematical explanation is proposed and then redeveloped in the light of two difficulties that the basic theory faces. The final view (...) appeals to relevance logic and uses resources in information theory to understand the explanatory relationship between mathematical and physical facts. 1Introduction2Anchoring3The Basic Deductive-Mathematical Account4The Genuineness Problem5Irrelevance6Relevance and Information7Objections and Replies 7.1Against relevance logic7.2Too epistemic7.3Informational containment8Conclusion. (shrink)

We argue that the notion of pure sate within Standard Quantum Mechanics is presently applied within the specialized literature in relation to two mutually inconsistent definitions. While the first provides a basis-dependent definition which makes reference to the certain prediction of measurement outcomes, the latter provides a purely abstract invariant definition which lacks operational content. In this work we derive a theorem which exposes the serious inconsistencies existent within these two incompatible definitions of purity.

Fragmentalism was first introduced by Kit Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’. According to fragmentalism, reality is an inherently perspectival place that exhibits a fragmented structure. The current paper defends the fragmentalist interpretation of the special theory of relativity, which Fine briefly considers in his paper. The fragmentalist interpretation makes room for genuine facts regarding absolute simultaneity, duration and length. One might worry that positing such variant properties is a turn for the worse in terms of theoretical virtues because such (...) properties are not involved in physical explanations and hence theoretically redundant. It will be argued that this is not right: if variant properties are indeed instantiated, they will also be involved in straightforward physical explanations and hence not explanatorily redundant. Hofweber and Lange, in their ‘Fine’s Fragmentalist Interpretation of Special Relativity’, object that the fragmentalist interpretation is in tension with the right explanation of the Lorentz transformations. It will be argued that their objection targets an inessential aspect of the fragmentalist framework and fails to raise any serious problem for the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (shrink)

This chapter introduces a research-based conceptual framework for the study of the inner psychosocial reality of business enterprises. It is called the Inner Organizational Ecosystem Approach (IOEA). This model is systemic in nature, and it defines the basic features of small and medium-size enterprises, such as elements, structures, borders, social actors, organizational climate, processes and resources. Further, it also covers the dynamics of psychosocial reality, processes, emergent qualities and the higher-order subsystems of the overall organizational ecosystem, including the global business (...) environment, which is understood as a macro-system where all the individual organizational ecosystems co-exist. In the applied part of the chapter, cognitive changes emerging within systemic leadership training are defined. Participation in systemic training causes changes in the cognitive processing of reality, more specifically improvements in layer-based framing, relativistic contextual orientation, temporality drift and meaning generation. All of these changes are components of the systemic mind, which is a concept newly proposed and defined by the present study. The systemic mind is a living matrix that is extremely open to acquiring new skills and new patterns of thinking, analyzing and meaning generation. It is processual and it can be considered as an ongoing process of continuous absorption of new cognitive patterns. Both the Inner Organizational Ecosystem Approach and the concept of the systemic mind provide a new theoretical background for empirical investigation in the fields of systemic and systems psychology, complexity psychology, organizational psychology, economic anthropology and the social anthropology of work. (shrink)

We put forward a new view of relativity theory that makes the existence of a flow of time compatible with the four-dimensional block universe. To this end, we apply the creation-discovery view elaborated for quantum mechanics to relativity theory and in such a way that time and space become creations instead of discoveries and an underlying non temporal and non spatial reality comes into existence. We study the nature of this underlying non temporal and non spatial reality and reinterpret many (...) aspects of the theory within this new view. We show that data of relativistic measurements are sufficient to derive the three-dimensionality of physical space. The nature of light and massive entities is reconsidered, and an analogy with human cognition is worked out. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge and adjudicate between the two positions that have come to prominence in the scientific realism debate: deployment realism and structural realism. I discuss a set of cases from the history of celestial mechanics, including some of the most important successes in the history of science. To the surprise of the deployment realist, these are novel predictive successes toward which theoretical constituents that are now seen to be patently false were genuinely deployed. Exploring the implications for (...) structural realism, I show that the need to accommodate these cases forces our notion of “structure” toward a dramatic depletion of logical content, threatening to render it explanatorily vacuous: the better structuralism fares against these historical examples, in terms of retention, the worse it fares in content and explanatory strength. I conclude by considering recent restrictions that serve to make “structure” more specific. I show however that these refinements will not suffice: the better structuralism fares in specificity and explanatory strength, the worse it fares against history. In light of these case studies, both deployment realism and structural realism are significantly threatened by the very historical challenge they were introduced to answer. (shrink)

In light of the Special Theory of Relativity and the Minkowski creation of ‘spacetime’, the universe is taken to be a four-dimensional entity which postulates bodies as existing within a temporally extended reality. The Special Theory of Relativity’s implications liken the nature of the universe to a ‘block’ within which all events coexist equally in spacetime. Such a view strikes against the very essence of presentism, which holds that all that exists is the instantaneous state of objects in the present (...) moment. With respect to the present moment, events have a clear division into the past or future, however such regions do not exist in reality and the universe is a three-dimensional entity. The consequences of a four-dimensional universe are disturbing to say the least for our everyday human experience, with once objective facts about reality becoming dependent upon an observer’s relative motion and the debate over the extent of true free will in a Block Universe. This paper will look at arguments which seek to rescue the presentist view in light of Special Relativity so such four-dimensionalist implications do not have to be accepted. Two approaches will be considered. The first accepts that presentism is incompatible with Special Relativity, and seeks to show that the theory is ultimately false. The second holds that it is the Block Universe interpretation of Special Relativity that is wrong, and a version of presentism can be reconciled with Special Relativity. The paper will expound and critically examine both of these approaches to review whether the case for the three-dimensionalist and a fundamental passage of time can be made. (shrink)

This philosophical anthropology tries to explore the basic categories of man’s being in the worlds using a special quantum meta-ontology that is introduced in the book. Quantum understanding of space and time, consciousness, or empirical/nonempirical reality elicits new questions relating to philosophical concerns such as subjectivity, free will, mind, perception, experience, dialectic, or agency. The authors have developed an inspiring theoretical framework transcending the boundaries of particular disciplines, e.g. quantum philosophy, metaphysics of consciousness, philosophy of mind, phenomenology of space and (...) time, and ontological relativity. (shrink)

Relativity theory is often said to support something called ‘the four-dimensional view of reality’. But there are at least three different views that sometimes go by this name. One is ‘spacetime unitism’, according to which there is a spacetime manifold, and if there are such things as points of space or instants of time, these are just spacetime regions of different sorts: thus space and time are not separate manifolds. A second is the B-theory of time, according to which the (...) past, present, and future are all equally real and there is nothing metaphysically special about the present. A third is perdurantism, according to which persisting material objects are made up of different temporal parts located at different times. We sketch routes from relativity to unitism and to the B-theory. We then discuss some routes to perdurantism, via the B-theory and via unitism. (shrink)

I offer an explanation of why inertial and gravitational mass are equal in Newtonian gravitation. I then argue that this is an example of a kind of explanation that is not captured by standard philosophical accounts of scientific explanation. Moreover, this form of explanation is particularly important, at least in physics, because demands for this kind of explanation are used to motivate and shape research into the next generation of physical theories. I suggest that explanations of the sort I describe (...) reveal something important about one way in which physical theories may be related diachronically. (shrink)

The Reichenbach-Grunbaum thesis of the conventionality of simultaneity is clarified and defended by developing the consequences of the Special Theory when assumptions are not made concerning the one-way speed of light. It is first shown that the conventionality of simultaneity leads immediately to the conventionality of all relative speeds. From this result, the general-length-contraction and time-dilation relations are then derived. Next, the place of time-dilation and length-contraction effects within the Special Theory is examined in the light of the conventionality thesis. (...) The slow-transport method of synchrony is then examined in the light of these results and is shown not to provide an adequate method of uniquely determining the one-way speed of light. Finally, the general ε -Lorentz transformations for events along the x-axis are derived from three principles: the round-trip light principle, the principle of equal passage times, and the linearity principle. These principles are shown to be independent of one-way velocity assumptions, and thus may form the basis of a Special Theory of Relativity without simultaneity assumptions. (shrink)

The atom bomb that annihilated Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, proved Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Mass became energy and the classic Western dialectic of three-dimensional space and linear time was displaced by the integrated concept of spacetime. On that day, modern physics also collided with the traditional Japanese understanding that space and time are interdependent phenomena. This collision speaks to conceptual parallels relating Buddhist thought, modern Japanese philosophy, phenomenology, and the physics of spacetime. The thirteenth-century Zen Buddhist monk (...) Dōgen said that all phenomena are made possible by the universal principle of emptiness and that our existence arises with each moment in what he termed Being-Time, where past, present, and future co-exist. The Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō, along with Tanabe Hajime and Watsuji Tetsurō, saw reality as a multi-dimensional field of space-in-time where the individual subject no longer stood apart from the objective world but instead arose dynamically as contingent activities rather than an autonomous thing. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger rejected the rational binary of subject and object in Western thought and grounded our “being” in phenomena that came from their temporal being-in-the-world rather than representing some preexisting objective reality. The physicist Albert Einstein radically rethought the dialectic of three-dimensional space and linear time, used to schematize the physical world in the West since antiquity, and theorized the relativity of spacetime, in which all phenomena occur in space in relation to their place in time. Interwoven, these intellectual threads stripped the bombing of Hiroshima of its historical inevitability. The story of human experience lost its customary sense of going somewhere predetermined and was revealed instead to be an endlessly discrete accumulation of moments that could go anywhere at every transient and directionless moment in time. (shrink)

By deriving the Lorentz transformation from the absolute speed of light, Einstein demonstrated the relativistic variability of space and time, enabling him to explain length contraction and time dilation without recourse to a "luminiferous ether" or preferred frame of reference. He also showed that clocks synchronized at a distance via light signals are not synchronized in a frame of reference differing from that of the clocks. However, by mislabeling the relativity of synchrony the "relativity of simultaneity," Einstein implied that this (...) effect concerns an actual difference in times from one frame to another rather than merely a failure of clock synchronization across frames. As a theory of length contraction and time dilation on the basis of relative motion in the context of the absolute speed of light, special relativity is the definitive interpretation of the Lorentz transformation and the correct explanation of relativistic phenomena. The relativity of simultaneity, as I demonstrate, plays no role in this explanation but instead provides apparent justification for a view of time in which the present moment is frame-dependent. In contrast to its legitimate application, special relativity fails as a theory of time on the basis of the relativity of simultaneity. (shrink)

This article provides a non-technical overview of the conflict between the special theory of relativity and the dynamic theories of time. The chief argument against dynamic theories of time from relativistic mechanics is presented. The space of current responses to that argument is subsequently mapped.

In this paper I present and critically discuss the main strategies that Bohr used and could have used to fend off the charge that his interpretation does not provide a clear-cut distinction between the classical and the quantum domain. In particular, in the first part of the paper I reassess the main arguments used by Bohr to advocate the indispensability of a classical framework to refer to quantum phenomena. In this respect, by using a distinction coming from an apparently unrelated (...) philosophical corner, we could say that Bohr is not a revisionist philosopher of physics but rather a descriptivist one in the sense of Strawson. I will then go on discussing the nature of the holistic link between classical measurement apparatuses and observed system that he also advocated. The oft-repeated conclusion that Bohr’s interpretation of the quantum formalism is untenable can only be established by giving his arguments as much force as possible, which is what I will try to do in the following by remaining as faithful as possible to his published work. (shrink)

The space-time expansion has a new perspective on the universe phenomena. In this article, the key features of the Space-Time Expansion Theory are summarized and discussed, with three postulates incorporating different insights into the behavior of space-time expansion, gravity, space-time curvature, and time itself. Gravity is not an attraction; it is a push. Inertia, free fall, the principles of the theory of relativity and some other phenomena support the author’s assertions. The expansion of space-time is universal, occurs everywhere, and produces (...) gravity instead of counteracting it. Being immersed in the same space-time acceleration, we only perceive the disturbance caused by the matter, which is the massive objects push. This study aims to offer scientists an alternative investigation. “Gravitation is not attraction; it’s a push.” All in accordance with hydrodynamic gravitation and expanding Universe. (shrink)

What should a Quinean naturalist say about moral and mathematical truth? If Quine’s naturalism is understood as the view that we should look to natural science as the ultimate ‘arbiter of truth’, this leads rather quickly to what Huw Price has called ‘placement problems’ of placing moral and mathematical truth in an empirical scientific world-view. Against this understanding of the demands of naturalism, I argue that a proper understanding of the reasons Quine gives for privileging ‘natural science’ as authoritative when (...) it comes to questions of truth and existence also apply to other stable and considered elements of our inherited world-view, including, arguably, our firmly held mathematical and moral beliefs. If so, then the ‘thin’ mathematical and moral realisms of Penelope Maddy and T. M. Scanlon, respectively, are vindicated. We do not need to shoehorn mathematical and moral truths into the pushings and pullings of our empirical scientific world-view; for the busy sailor adrift on Neurath’s boat, mathematical and moral truths already have their place. (shrink)

I examine two claims that arise in Brown’s account of inertial motion. Brown claims there is something objectionable about the way in which the motions of free particles in Newtonian theory and special relativity are coordinated. Brown also claims that since a geodesic principle can be derived in Einsteinian gravitation, the objectionable feature is explained away. I argue that there is nothing objectionable about inertia and that while the theorems that motivate Brown’s second claim can be said to figure in (...) a deductive-nomological explanation, their main contribution lies in their explication rather than their explanation of inertial motion. (shrink)

This essay sets forth the decisive notions and postulates of process philosophy in Process Philosophy and Social Thought, edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. and W. Widick Schroeder. After commenting on the circumstances in which process philosophy came to be a major option among philosophical theologians, I provide some amplification of those notions and postulates. Then, selecting material from the eighteen articles in the volume, I offer several critical assessments of the process viewpoint and its relation to science and to (...) the contemporary call for liberation. (shrink)

This paper discusses the controversy between philosophers of science (e.g. Grünbaum) and historians of science (e.g. Holton) regarding Einstein's discovery of STR. Although Holton is surely correct on the historical point that experimental results (especially the Michelson-Morley experiment) had little influence on Einstein's development of STR, this fact is not sufficient to establish his (and Polanyi's) claim that major scientific discoveries are primarily matters of private, nonspecifiable insights into physical reality. It is possible that Einstein's work was based primarily on (...) non-empirical but nonetheless publicly discussable, objective considerations. And a more comprehensive survey of the discovery of STR shows that this was indeed the case and thus excludes STR as a supporting instance of Holton's and Polanyi's assertions of the primacy of "private science.". (shrink)

How can we explain the strange behavior of quantum and relativistic entities? Why do they behave in ways that defy our intuition about how physical entities should behave, considering our ordinary experience of the world around us? In this article, we address these questions by showing that the comportment of quantum and relativistic entities is not that strange after all, if we only consider what their nature might possibly be: not an objectual one, but a conceptual one. This not in (...) the sense that quantum and relativistic entities would be human concepts, but in the sense that they would share with the latter a same conceptual nature, similarly to how electromagnetic and sound waves, although very different entities, can share a same undulatory nature. When this hypothesis is adopted, i.e., when a conceptuality interpretation about the deep nature of physical entities is taken seriously, many of the interpretational difficulties disappear and our physical world is back making sense, though our view of it becomes radically different from what our classical prejudice made us believe in the first place. (shrink)

An omnipresent, non-local/non-analytical energy that pervades everything enters the Universe through all infinitesimal points. Without determining its origin, our approach is to explain our gravity theory based on Einstein’s relativity theory and the behavior of space-time flow. This influx occurs continuously throughout all of space-time, making the universe expand. Our theory presents two kinds of expansion: (PUE) space-time primary universal expansion and the (VME) virtual matter expansion that occurs with the interaction of space-time with the matter. The internal space-time in (...) atoms produces a virtual slight broadening of the matter’s atoms. From our frame of reference, we can only distinguish the perturbation that occurs to the (PUE) primary universal expansion if it encounters matter. This perturbation finally is restored by a Gaussian distribution at the spherical environment. We call it the (STD) Space-time accelerated displacement. It is the inertial-gravity field. Thus, matter expands by the superposition of atoms (molecules). The accelerated expansion increases proportionally to the number of atoms that radially constitute matter. The effect is manifested immensely increased in the surface of the stellar objects. Then the surface of the massive stellar objects pushes and displaces the object’s external surrounding space-time. The acceleration of the (STD) space-time displacement decreases with the radius squared from the center of mass as it is distributed concentrically. The acceleration we feel at the Earth’s surface is permanently fixed, because when space expands, time also proportionally expands. The associated speed (ds/dt) is immersed in the accelerated expansion of space-time; the time base is the same as the acceleration of the PUE (space-time primary universal expansion) (d2s/dt2). Otherwise, in a short time, this acceleration and its associated velocity would reach the speed of light. Our theory introduces a different concept: “repulsion instead of attraction”. The expansion of space-time produces gravity instead of counteracting it. Finally, we explain using this gravity theory: Earth’s oceans, creating tidal bulges on opposite sides of the planet. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that scientific thought experiments and works of science fiction are highly suitable tools for facilitating and increasing understanding of science. After comparing one of Einstein’s most famous thought experiments with the science fiction novel “The Forever War”, I shall argue that both proceed similarly in making some of the more outlandish consequences of special relativity theory intelligible. However, as I will also point out, understanding in thought experiments and understanding in science fiction (...) differ in one important respect: While the former aim at what I shall call “physical understanding”, science fiction novels typically have “existential understanding” as their target. (shrink)

Drawing on Earman’s definition of determinism and Lewis’ best systems account of laws, in What Makes Time Special? Craig Callender develops an account of time as ‘the strongest thing’. The characterisation of this account apparently assumes no action at a temporal distance, an assumption that also underlies Earman’s account of determinism. In this paper I show that there is a way to define determinism that allows worlds with action at a temporal distance to count as deterministic, that action at a (...) temporal distance is possible on a best systems account of laws, and hence that Callender need not make this assumption. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn 1960, Eugene P. Wigner shared his observation of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in formulating regularities in nature. Later, Jean Piaget recognized the functioning of the...

Modal Platonism utilizes "weak" logical possibility, such that it is logically possible there are abstract entities, and logically possible there are none. Modal Platonism also utilizes a non-indexical actuality operator. Modal Platonism is the EASY WAY, neither reductionist nor eliminativist, but embracing the Platonistic language of abstract entities while eliminating ontological commitment to them. Statement of Modal Platonism. Any consistent statement B ontologically committed to abstract entities may be replaced by an empirically equivalent modalization, MOD(B), not so ontologically committed. This (...) equivalence is provable using Modal/Actuality Logic S5@. Let MAX be a strong set theory with individuals. Then the following Schematic Bombshell Result (SBR) can be shown: MAX logically yields [T is true if and only if MOD(T) is true], for scientific theories T. The proof utilizes Stephen Neale's clever model-theoretic interpretation of Quantified Lewis S5, which I extend to S5@. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the difficult question of the truth of mature scientific theories by tackling the problem of the truth of laws. After introducing the main philosophical positions in the field of scientific realism, I discuss and then counter the two main arguments against realism, namely the pessimistic metainduction and the abstract and idealized character of scientific laws. I conclude by defending the view that well-confirmed physical theories are true only relatively to certain values of the variables that (...) appear in the laws. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze two episodes from an inquiry-based didactical research; the complete analysis of our research data is still ongoing. By taking into consideration various developments from the history of the geometry of space-time, our general aim is to explore high school students’ conceptions about measurement of length and time in relatively moving systems, and lead the students to reconsider these conceptions in an attempt of constructing a new metric for space-time. The episodes are extracted from long interviews (...) with two couples of students, based on a carefully designed fictional scenario. Two main strategies have been identified and are analyzed in the paper: one of them relies on imagination and intuition; the other one makes use of preexisting school mathematical knowledge, in arriving to a simplified formula of a Minkowskian metric. (shrink)

I state and prove, in the context of a space having only the metrical structure imposed by the geometrized version of Newtonian gravitational theory, a theorem analagous to that of Weyl's in a Lorentzian space. The theorem, loosely speaking, says that a projective structure and a suitably defined compatible conformal structure on such a space jointly suffice for fixing the metrical structure of a Newtonian spacetime model up to constant factors. It allows one to give a natural, physically compelling interpretation (...) of the spatiotemporal geometry of a geometrized Newtonian gravity spacetime manifold, in close analogy with the way Weyl's Theorem allows one to do in general relativity. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show how the degree of experimental validity of scientific procedures is crucially involved in determining two typical pragmatic modes in science, namely, the preservation of useful procedures and the disposal of useless ideas. The term 'pragmatic' will here be used following Schurz's characterisation of being internally pragmatic, as referring to that which proves useful for scientific or epistemic goals. The first part of the paper consists in a characterisation of the notion of experimental (...) validity. The second part is focused on several historical examples illustrating how the above pragmatic modes relate to the question of experimental validity. The Michelson-Morley experiment is presented as a case of a highly valid and useful experiment preserved through the development of different theories (like, on the one hand, the ether theory, upheld by Fitzgerald and Lorentz, and, on the other hand, Einstein's special theory of relativity). The concept of caloric will be discussed as an example of an idea that was discarded once it became useless, after heat was understood as a form of energy within the new frame provided by the kinetic theory of heat towards the middle of the 19th century. (shrink)

One of the three consequences of Einstein’s theory of general relativity was the curvature of light passing near a massive body. In 1911, he published a first value of the angle of deflection of light, then a second value in 1915, equal twice the first. In the early 1920s, when he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, a violent controversy broke out over this result. It was then disclosed that the first value he had obtained in 1911 had been calculated (...) more than a century before by a German astronomer named Johann von Soldner. The aim of this article is therefore to compare the methods used by Soldner and then by Einstein leading to this first value and to explain the importance of the doubling of this value in the framework of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Such a consequence of this theory lies at the intersection of several scientific fields such as Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy and Philosophy. (shrink)

I present an argument against a relational theory of spacetime that regards spacetime as a ‘structural quality of the field’. The argument takes the form of a trilemma. To make the argument, I focus on relativistic worlds in which there exist just two fields, an electromagnetic field and a gravitational field. Then there are three options: either spacetime is a structural quality of each field separately, both fields together, or one field but not the other. I argue that the first (...) option founders on a problem of geometric coordination and that the second and third options collapse into substantivalism. In particular, on the third option it becomes clear that the relationalist’s path to Leibniz equivalence is no simpler or more straightforward than the substantivalist’s. 1Introduction 2Background 2.1Relational theories of spacetime 2.2Brief remarks on general relativity 3First Horn: Geometric Coordination 4Second Horn: Problems of Coincidence 5Third Horn: General Relativity and Gauge 5.1Preventing collapse 5.2The revised shift argument 6Conclusion. (shrink)

Mathematics is a critical part of much scientific research. Physics in particular weaves math extensively into its instruction beginning in high school. Despite much research on the learning of both physics and math, the problem of how to effectively include math in physics in a way that reaches most students remains unsolved. In this paper, we suggest that a fundamental issue has received insufficient exploration: the fact that in science, we don’t just use math, we make meaning with it in (...) a different way than mathematicians do. In this reflective essay, we explore math as a language and consider the language of math in physics through the lens of cognitive linguistics. We begin by offering a number of examples that show how the use of math in physics differs from the use of math as typically found in math classes. We then explore basic concepts in cognitive semantics to show how humans make meaning with language in general. The critical elements are the roles of embodied cognition and interpretation in context. Then, we show how a theoretical framework commonly used in physics education research, resources, is coherent with and extends the ideas of cognitive semantics by connecting embodiment to phenomenological primitives and contextual interpretation to the dynamics of meaning-making with conceptual resources, epistemological resources, and affect. We present these ideas with illustrative case studies of students working on physics problems with math and demonstrate the dynamical nature of student reasoning with math in physics. We conclude with some thoughts about the implications for instruction. (shrink)

Ignoring primitive terms leads to an infinite regress. The alternative is to account for an intuitive understanding into the meaning of such terms. The current investigation proceeds on the basis of an idea of the structure of the various modes of being within which concrete entities function. Examples of primtive terms are given from disciplines such as mathematics, physics and logic and they are related to the general idea of a modal aspect. It is argued that primitive terms are not (...) isolated but reveal their meaning only through their interconnections with other primitive terms that are embedded in other modal aspects. However, although primitive terms are found within the various aspects, the meaning of an aspect only comes to expression through its coherence with other aspects, evinced in modal analogies that are qualified by the core meaning of an aspect. There appears to be two options, either reduce what is irreducible or merely provide synonymous terms for given primitives. The former happens when other unique terms are used to define a specific one and the latter when the attempted ‘definitions’ revert to terms with which the original terms could be meaningfully replaced. It is been pointed out that the coherence between primitives invites every academic discipline to account for the meaning attached to the analogies of primitive terms it is employing, without exploring this additional theme any further. (shrink)

I present a systematic interpretation of the foundational purpose of constructions in ancient Greek geometry. I argue that Greek geometers were committed to an operationalist foundational program, according to which all of mathematics—including its entire ontology and epistemology—is based entirely on concrete physical constructions. On this reading, key foundational aspects of Greek geometry are analogous to core tenets of 20th-century operationalist/positivist/constructivist/intuitionist philosophy of science and mathematics. Operationalism provides coherent answers to a range of traditional philosophical problems regarding classical mathematics, such (...) as the epistemic warrant and generality of diagrammatic reasoning, superposition, and the relation between constructivism and proof by contradiction. Alleged logical flaws in Euclid can be interpreted as sound operationalist reasoning. Operationalism also provides a compelling philosophical motivation for the otherwise inexplicable Greek obsession with cube duplication, angle trisection, and circle quadrature. Operationalism makes coherent sense of numerous specific choices made in this tradition, and suggests new interpretations of several solutions to these problems. In particular, I argue that: Archytas’s cube duplication was originally a single-motion machine; Diocles’s cissoid was originally traced by a linkage device; Greek conic section theory was thoroughly constructive, based on the conic compass; in a few cases, string-based constructions of conic sections were used instead; pointwise constructions of curves were rejected in foundational contexts by Greek mathematicians, with good reason. Operationalism enables us to view the classical geometrical tradition as a more unified and philosophically aware enterprise than has hitherto been recognised. (shrink)

We address the problem of observables in generally invariant spacetime theories such as Einstein’s general relativity. Using the refined notion of an event as a “point-coincidence” between scalar fields that completely characterise a spacetime model, we propose a generalisation of the relational local observables that does not require the existence of four everywhere invertible scalar fields. The collection of all point-coincidences forms in generic situations a four-dimensional manifold, that is naturally identified with the physical spacetime.