Results for 'Maxwell Gatyas'

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  1. Assessing abstract thought and its relation to language with a new nonverbal paradigm: Evidence from aphasia.Peter Langland-Hassan, Frank R. Faries, Maxwell Gatyas, Aimee Dietz & Michael J. Richardson - 2021 - Cognition 211 (C):104622.
    In recent years, language has been shown to play a number of important cognitive roles over and above the communication of thoughts. One hypothesis gaining support is that language facilitates thought about abstract categories, such as democracy or prediction. To test this proposal, a novel set of semantic memory task trials, designed for assessing abstract thought non-linguistically, were normed for levels of abstractness. The trials were rated as more or less abstract to the degree that answering them required the participant (...)
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  2.  74
    Is Bad Philosophy Responsible for the Climate Crisis?Nicholas Maxwell - 2024 - Hps and St Newsletter.
    I have recently published a book to which I gave the title: Is Bad Philosophy Responsible for the Climate Crisis? But this proved to be too inflammatory for Palgrave Macmillan, and they changed it to the anodyne The Philosophy of Inquiry and Global Problems: The Intellectual Revolution Needed to Create a Better World. In the book I argue that academic philosophy has a certain responsibility for the failure of humanity to put a stop to the climate and nature crises, in (...)
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  3. Brief Account of How Nicholas Maxwell Came to Argue for the Urgent Need for a Revolution in Universities.Nicholas Maxwell - manuscript
    We need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that they take their fundamental task to be, not to acquire and apply knowledge, but rather to help humanity learn how to resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that we may make progress towards a good, genuinely civilized, wise world. The pursuit of knowledge would be a vital but subsidiary task. I have argued for the urgent need for (...)
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  4. Our Fundamental Problem: A Revolutionary Approach to Philosophy.Nicholas Maxwell - 2020 - Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.
    How can the world we live in and see, touch, hear, and smell, the world of living things, people, consciousness, free will, meaning, and value - how can all of this exist and flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe, made up of nothing but physical entities such as electrons and quarks? How can anything be of value if everything in the universe is, ultimately, just physics? In Our Fundamental Problem Nicholas Maxwell argues that this problem of (...)
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  5. Science, reason, knowledge, and wisdom: A critique of specialism.Nicholas Maxwell - 1980 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 23 (1):19 – 81.
    In this paper I argue for a kind of intellectual inquiry which has, as its basic aim, to help all of us to resolve rationally the most important problems that we encounter in our lives, problems that arise as we seek to discover and achieve that which is of value in life. Rational problem-solving involves articulating our problems, proposing and criticizing possible solutions. It also involves breaking problems up into subordinate problems, creating a tradition of specialized problem-solving - specialized scientific, (...)
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  6. What Lakatos Overlooked: A Metaphysical “Hard Core” of Unity for Science.Nicholas Maxwell - unknown
    Lakatos held that science proceeds by means of competing research programme, each with its own “hard core” or paradigm. He intended this view to reconcile the competing views of Kuhn and Popper. But what Lakatos overlooked is that science needs to be construed to be one gigantic research programme with, as its “hard core”, a metaphysical thesis that asserts that the universe is such that there is an inherent unity in the laws that govern the way physical phenomena occur. The (...)
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  7. We Need to Recreate Natural Philosophy.Nicholas Maxwell - 2018 - Philosophies 3 (4):28.
    Modern science began as natural philosophy, an admixture of philosophy and science. It was then killed off by Newton, as a result of his claim to have derived his law of gravitation from the phenomena by induction. But this post-Newtonian conception of science, which holds that theories are accepted on the basis of evidence, is untenable, as the long-standing insolubility of the problem of induction indicates. Persistent acceptance of unified theories only in physics, when endless equally empirically successful disunified rivals (...)
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  8. Methodological problems of neuroscience.Nicholas Maxwell - 1985 - In David Rose & Vernon G. Dobson (eds.), Models of the Visual Cortex. New York: Wiley.
    In this paper I argue that neuroscience has been harmed by the widespread adoption of seriously inadequate methodologies or philosophies of science - most notably inductivism and falsificationism. I argue that neuroscience, in seeking to understand the human brain and mind, needs to follow in the footsteps of evolution.
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  9. Science and the environment: A new enlightenment.Nicholas Maxwell - 1997 - Science and Public Affairs (Spring 1997):50-56.
    Nicholas Maxwell believes that while we have developed an excellent way of learning about the nature of the universe, we have so far failed in our attempts to apply this method to create a civilized world.
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  10. The enlightenment, Popper and Einstein.Nicholas Maxwell - 2007 - In Yong Shi, David L. Olson & Antonie Stam (eds.), Knowledge and Wisdom: Advances in Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Human Systems Management,. IOS Press.
    In this paper I discuss four versions of the basic idea of the French Enlightenment of the 18th century, namely: To learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world. These four versions are: 1. The Traditional Enlightenment Programme. 2. The Popperian Version of the Enlightenment Programme. 3. The Improved Popperian Enlightenment Programme. 4. The New Enlightenment Programme. The Traditional Enlightenment Programme is the version of the idea upheld by the philosophes of the French Enlightenment. It (...)
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  11. The Comprehensibility of the Universe: A New Conception of Science.Nicholas Maxwell - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. According to the orthodox conception, scientific theories are accepted and rejected impartially with respect to evidence, no permanent assumption being made about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this orthodox view is untenable. He urges that in its place a new orthodoxy is needed, which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these (...)
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  12. Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism.Nicholas Maxwell - 2017 - St. Paul, USA: Paragon House.
    "Understanding Scientific Progress constitutes a potentially enormous and revolutionary advancement in philosophy of science. It deserves to be read and studied by everyone with any interest in or connection with physics or the theory of science. Maxwell cites the work of Hume, Kant, J.S. Mill, Ludwig Bolzmann, Pierre Duhem, Einstein, Henri Poincaré, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Russell, Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and numerous others. He lauds Popper for advancing (...)
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  13. How Wisdom Can Help Solve Global Problems.Nicholas Maxwell - 2019 - In R. Sternberg, H. Nusbaum & J. Glueck (eds.), Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 337-380.
    Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and about ourselves and other living things as a part of the universe, and learning how to become civilized. The first problem was solved, in essence, in the 17th century, with the creation of modern science. But the second problem has not yet been solved. Solving the first problem without also solving the second puts us in a situation of great danger. All our current global problems (...)
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  14. From knowledge to wisdom: a revolution in the aims and methods of science.Nicholas Maxwell - 1984 - Oxford: Blackwell.
    This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...)
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  15. How Universities have Betrayed Reason and Humanity – And What’s to be Done About It.Nicholas Maxwell - 2021 - Frontiers 631.
    In 1984 the author published From Knowledge to Wisdom, a book that argued that a revolution in academia is urgently needed, so that problems of living, including global problems, are put at the heart of the enterprise, and the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom, and not just acquire knowledge. Every discipline and aspect of academia needs to change, and the whole way in which academia is related to the rest of the social world. Universities devoted to the (...)
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  16. Does orthodox quantum theory undermine, or support, scientific realism?Nicholas Maxwell - 1994 - Philosophical Quarterly 44 (171):139-157.
    It is usually taken for granted that orthodox quantum theory poses a serious problem for scientific realism, in that the theory is empirically extraordinarily successful, and yet has instrumentalism built into it. This paper stand this view on its head. I argue that orthodox quantum theory suffers from a number of serious (if not always noticed) defects precisely because of its inbuilt instrumentalism. This defective character of orthdoox quantum theory thus undermines instrumentalism, and supports scientific realism. I go on to (...)
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  17. In Praise of Natural Philosophy: A Revolution for Thought and Life.Nicholas Maxwell - 2017 - Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.
    The central thesis of this book is that we need to reform philosophy and join it to science to recreate a modern version of natural philosophy; we need to do this in the interests of rigour, intellectual honesty, and so that science may serve the best interests of humanity. Modern science began as natural philosophy. In the time of Newton, what we call science and philosophy today – the disparate endeavours – formed one mutually interacting, integrated endeavour of natural philosophy: (...)
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  18. Science and Enlightenment: Two Great Problems of Learning.Nicholas Maxwell - 2019 - Cham, Switzerland: Springer Verlag.
    Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and about ourselves and other living things as a part of the universe, and learning how to become civilized or enlightened. The first problem was solved, in essence, in the 17th century, with the creation of modern science. But the second problem has not yet been solved. Solving the first problem without also solving the second puts us in a situation of great danger. All our current (...)
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  19. Our Fundamental Problem: A Revolution for Philosophy and the World.Nicholas Maxwell - 2021 - Humanities, Arts, and Society Magazine 3.
    How can our human world – the world we experience and live in – exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? That is Our Fundamental Problem. It encompasses all others of science, thought and life. It is the proper task of philosophy to try to improve our conjectures as to how aspects of Our Fundamental Problem are to be solved, and to encourage everyone to think, imaginatively and critically, now and again, about the problem. We (...)
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  20. Can Humanity Learn to become Civilized? The Crisis of Science without Civilization.Nicholas Maxwell - 2000 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 17 (1):29-44.
    Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and our place in it, and learning how to become civilized. The first problem was solved, in essence, in the 17th century, with the creation of modern science. But the second problem has not yet been solved. Solving the first problem without also solving the second puts us in a situation of great danger. All our current global problems have arisen as a result. What we need (...)
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  21. The key to the solution of the world crisis we face.Nicholas Maxwell - 2021 - Human Affairs 31 (1):21-39.
    Humanity faces two fundamental problems of learning: learning about the universe, and learning to become civilized. We have solved the first problem, but not the second one, and that puts us in a situation of great danger. Almost all of our global problems have arisen as a result. It has become a matter of extreme urgency to solve the second problem. The key to this is to learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second one. (...)
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  22. From Knowledge to Wisdom: The Need for an Academic Revolution.Nicholas Maxwell - 2007 - London Review of Education 5:97-115.
    At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this type is damagingly irrational. Three of four of the most elementary rules of rational problem-solving are violated. A revolution in the aims and methods (...)
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  23. Are probabilism and special relativity incompatible?Nicholas Maxwell - 1985 - Philosophy of Science 52 (1):23-43.
    In this paper I expound an argument which seems to establish that probabilism and special relativity are incompatible. I examine the argument critically, and consider its implications for interpretative problems of quantum theory, and for theoretical physics as a whole.
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  24. The Metaphysics of Science and Aim-Oriented Empiricism: A Revolution for Science and Philosophy.Nicholas Maxwell - 2018 - Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.
    This book gives an account of work that I have done over a period of decades that sets out to solve two fundamental problems of philosophy: the mind-body problem and the problem of induction. Remarkably, these revolutionary contributions to philosophy turn out to have dramatic implications for a wide range of issues outside philosophy itself, most notably for the capacity of humanity to resolve current grave global problems and make progress towards a better, wiser world. A key element of the (...)
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  25. Cutting God in Half - And Putting the Pieces Together Again: A New Approach to Philosophy.Nicholas Maxwell - 2010 - Pentire Press.
    Cutting God in Half argues that, in order to tackle climate change, world poverty, extinction of species and our other global problems rather better than we are doing at present we need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more generally. We need to put our problems of living – personal, social, global – at the heart of the academic enterprise. How our human world, imbued with meaning and value, can exist and best flourish embedded in the (...)
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  26. Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Aim-Oriented Empiricism.Nicholas Maxwell - 2005 - Philosophia 32 (1-4):181-239.
    In this paper I argue that aim-oriented empiricism (AOE), a conception of natural science that I have defended at some length elsewhere[1], is a kind of synthesis of the views of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos, but is also an improvement over the views of all three. Whereas Popper's falsificationism protects metaphysical assumptions implicitly made by science from criticism, AOE exposes all such assumptions to sustained criticism, and furthermore focuses criticism on those assumptions most likely to need revision if science is (...)
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  27. Learning to Live a Life of Value.Nicholas Maxwell - 2006 - In Jason A. Merchey (ed.), Living a Life of Value: A Unique Anthology of Essays on Values & Ethics by Contemporary Writers. Values of the Wise Press. pp. 383--395.
    Much of my working life has been devoted to trying to get across the point that we urgently need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry, so that the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom rather than just acquire knowledge.
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  28. How universities can help create a wiser world.Nicholas Maxwell - 2014 - Times Higher Education , No. 21 P. 30 (2136):30.
    The crisis of our times is that we have science without wisdom. Modern science and technology lead to modern industry and agriculture which in turn lead to all the great benefits of the modern world and to the global crises we face, from population growth to climate change. The fault lies, not with science, but with science dissociated from a more fundamental concern with problems of living. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in academia so that the fundamental (...)
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  29. Does probabilism solve the great quantum mystery?Nicholas Maxwell - 2010 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 19 (3):321-336.
    I put forward a micro realistic, probabilistic version of quantum theory, which specifies the precise nature of quantum entities thus solving the quantum wave/particle dilemma, and which both reproduces the empirical success of orthodox quantum theory, and yields predictions that differ from orthodox quantum theory for as yet unperformed experiments.
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  30. The Need for a Revolution in the Philosophy of Science.Nicholas Maxwell - 2002 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 33 (2):381-408.
    There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline, and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity, unity (...)
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  31. Towards a Micro Realistic Version of Quantum Mechanics, Part I.Nicholas Maxwell - 1976 - Foundations of Physics 6 (3):275-292.
    This paper investigates the possibiity of developing a fully micro realistic version of elementary quantum mechanics. I argue that it is highly desirable to develop such a version of quantum mechanics, and that the failure of all current versions and interpretations of quantum mechanics to constitute micro realistic theories is at the root of many of the interpretative problems associated with quantum mechanics, in particular the problem of measurement. I put forward a propensity micro realistic version of quantum mechanics, and (...)
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  32. Improve Popper and procure a perfect simulacrum of verification indistinguishable from the real thing.Nicholas Maxwell - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science.
    According to Karl Popper, science cannot verify its theories empirically, but it can falsify them, and that suffices to account for scientific progress. For Popper, a law or theory remains a pure conjecture, probability equal to zero, however massively corroborated empirically it may be. But it does just seem to be the case that science does verify empirically laws and theories. We trust our lives to such verifications when we fly in aeroplanes, cross bridges and take modern medicines. We can (...)
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  33. Comprehensibility rather than beauty.Nicholas Maxwell - 2001 - Philsci Archive.
    Most scientists and philosophers of science recognize that, when it comes to accepting and rejecting theories in science, considerations that have to do with simplicity, unity, symmetry, elegance, beauty or explanatory power have an important role to play, in addition to empirical considerations. Until recently, however, no one has been able to give a satisfactory account of what simplicity (etc.) is, or how giving preference to simple theories is to be justified. But in the last few years, two different but (...)
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  34. Can Scientific Method Help Us Create a Wiser World?Nicholas Maxwell - 2016 - In Nikunj Dalal, Ali Intezari & Marty Heitz (eds.), Practical wisdom in the age of technology: insights, issues, and questions for a new millennium. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 147-161.
    Two great problems of learning confront humanity: (1) learning about the universe, and about ourselves as a part of the universe, and (2) learning how to make progress towards as good a world as possible. We solved the first problem when we created modern science in the 17th century, but we have not yet solved the second problem. This puts us in a situation of unprecedented danger. Modern science and technology enormously increase our power to act, but not our power (...)
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  35. Aim-Oriented Empiricism and the Metaphysics of Science.Nicholas Maxwell - 2019 - Philosophia 48 (1):347–364.
    Over 40 years ago, I put forward a new philosophy of science based on the argument that physics, in only ever accepting unified theories, thereby makes a substantial metaphysical presupposition about the universe, to the effect it possesses an underlying unity. I argued that a new conception of scientific method is required to subject this problematic presupposition to critical attention so that it may be improved as science proceeds. This view has implications for the study of the metaphysics of science. (...)
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  36. A critique of Popper's views on scientific method.Nicholas Maxwell - 1972 - Philosophy of Science 39 (2):131-152.
    This paper considers objections to Popper's views on scientific method. It is argued that criticism of Popper's views, developed by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos, are not too damaging, although they do require that Popper's views be modified somewhat. It is argued that a much more serious criticism is that Popper has failed to provide us with any reason for holding that the methodological rules he advocates give us a better hope of realizing the aims of science than any other set (...)
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  37. Can there be necessary connections between successive events?Nicholas Maxwell - 1968 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 19 (1):1-25.
    THE aim of this paper is to refute Hume's contention that there cannot be logically necessary connections between successive events. I intend to establish, in other words, not 'Logically necessary connections do exist between successive events', but instead the rather more modest proposition: 'It may be, it is possible, as far as we can ever know for certain, that logically necessary connections do exist between successive events.' Towards the end of the paper I shall say something about the implications of (...)
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  38. Quantum propensiton theory: A testable resolution of the wave/particle dilemma.Nicholas Maxwell - 1988 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (1):1-50.
    In this paper I put forward a new micro realistic, fundamentally probabilistic, propensiton version of quantum theory. According to this theory, the entities of the quantum domain - electrons, photons, atoms - are neither particles nor fields, but a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the propensiton - entities which interact with one another probabilistically. This version of quantum theory leaves the Schroedinger equation unchanged, but reinterprets it to specify how propensitons evolve when no probabilistic transitions occur. Probabilisitic transitions occur (...)
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  39. How Can Life of Value Best Flourish in the Real World?Nicholas Maxwell (ed.) - 2009
    1. The Urgent Need for an Intellectual Revolution 2. Two Fundamental Problems 3. Autobiographical Remarks 4. What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Life of Value to Flourish? 5. How is Life of Value Possible in the Physical Universe? 6. Connections between the Two Problems .
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  40. Arguing for wisdom in the university: an intellectual autobiography.Nicholas Maxwell - 2012 - Philosophia 40 (4):663-704.
    For forty years I have argued that we urgently need to bring about a revolution in academia so that the basic task becomes to seek and promote wisdom. How did I come to argue for such a preposterously gigantic intellectual revolution? It goes back to my childhood. From an early age, I desired passionately to understand the physical universe. Then, around adolescence, my passion became to understand the heart and soul of people via the novel. But I never discovered how (...)
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  41. Particle Creation as the Quantum Condition for Probabilistic Events to Occur.Nicholas Maxwell - 1994 - Physics Letters A 187 (2 May 1994):351-355.
    A new version of quantum theory is proposed, according to which probabilistic events occur whenever new statioinary or bound states are created as a result of inelastic collisions. The new theory recovers the experimental success of orthodox quantum theory, but differs form the orthodox theory for as yet unperformed experiments.
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  42. Global Philosophy: What Philosophy Ought to Be.Nicholas Maxwell - 2014 - Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
    These essays are about education, learning, rational inquiry, philosophy, science studies, problem solving, academic inquiry, global problems, wisdom and, above all, the urgent need for an academic revolution. Despite this range and diversity of topics, there is a common underlying theme. Education ought to be devoted, much more than it is, to the exploration real-life, open problems; it ought not to be restricted to learning up solutions to already solved problems - especially if nothing is said about the problems that (...)
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  43. (1 other version)A New Task for the Philosophy of Science.Nicholas Maxwell - 2019 - Metaphilosophy (3):316-338.
    We philosophers of science have before us an important new task that we need urgently to take up. It is to convince the scientific community to adopt and implement a new philosophy of science that does better justice to the deeply problematic basic intellectual aims of science than that which we have at present. Problematic aims evolve with evolving knowledge, that part of philosophy of science concerned with aims and methods thus becoming an integral part of science itself. The outcome (...)
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  44. (2 other versions)Are probabilism and special relativity compatible?Nicholas Maxwell - 1988 - Philosophy of Science 55 (4):640-645.
    Are special relativity and probabilism compatible? Dieks argues that they are. But the possible universe he specifies, designed to exemplify both probabilism and special relativity, either incorporates a universal "now" (and is thus incompatible with special relativity), or amounts to a many world universe (which I have discussed, and rejected as too ad hoc to be taken seriously), or fails to have any one definite overall Minkowskian-type space-time structure (and thus differs drastically from special relativity as ordinarily understood). Probabilism and (...)
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  45. How Universities Can Best Respond to the Climate Crisis and Other Global Problems.Nicholas Maxwell - 2021 - Philosophies 1 (1):1.
    The world is in a state of crisis. Global problems that threaten our future include: the climate crisis; the destruction of natural habitats, catastrophic loss of wild life, and mass extinction of species; lethal modern war; the spread of modern armaments; the menace of nuclear weapons; pollution of earth, sea and air; rapid rise in the human population; increasing antibiotic resistance; the degradation of democratic politics, brought about in part by the internet. It is not just that universities around the (...)
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  46. Steven Pinker defends a damagingly irrational conception of reason: Steven, Pinker. 2021. Rationality: What it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters. London: Allen Lane, 2021, xvii + 412pp, £25 HB, ISBN: 978-0-241-38027-7.Nicholas Maxwell - 2022 - Metascience 31 (1):49-52.
    In the Preface to Rationality, Steven Pinker remarks that “we are smart enough to have … articulated the rules of reason that we so often flout” (p. xiv). Unfortunately, Pinker does not get the rules of reason right in this book. Pinker defends a damagingly irrational conception of reason. But despite this rather drastic failure, there is much of interest in this book, even if at a rather elementary level.
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  47. Has science established that the universe is physically comprehensible?Nicholas Maxwell - 2013 - In Anderson Travena & Brady Soren (eds.), Recent Advances in Cosmology. Nova Science. pp. 1-56.
    Most scientists would hold that science has not established that the cosmos is physically comprehensible – i.e. such that there is some as-yet undiscovered true physical theory of everything that is unified. This is an empirically untestable, or metaphysical thesis. It thus lies beyond the scope of science. Only when physics has formulated a testable unified theory of everything which has been amply corroborated empirically will science be in a position to declare that it has established that the cosmos is (...)
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  48.  75
    A priori conjectural knowledge in physics.N. Maxwell - 2011 - In Michael J. Shaffer & Michael L. Veber (eds.), What Place for the A Priori? Open Court. pp. 211-240.
    The history of western philosophy is split to its core by a long-standing, fundamental dispute. On the one hand there are the so-called empiricists, like Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Russell, the logical positivists, A. J. Ayer, Karl Popper and most scientists, who hold empirical considerations alone can be appealed to in justifying, or providing a rationale for, claims to factual knowledge, there being no such thing as a priori knowledge – items of factual knowledge that are accepted on grounds other (...)
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  49. A New Look at the Quantum Mechanical Problem of Measurement.Nicholas Maxwell - 1972 - American Journal of Physics 40:1431-5..
    According to orthodox quantum mechanics, state vectors change in two incompatible ways: "deterministically" in accordance with Schroedinger's time-dependent equation, and probabilistically if and only if a measurement is made. It is argued here that the problem of measurement arises because the precise mutually exclusive conditions for these two types of transitions to occur are not specified within orthodox quantum mechanics. Fundamentally, this is due to an inevitable ambiguity in the notion of "meawurement" itself. Hence, if the problem of measurement is (...)
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  50. The World Crisis and the Key to Its Resolution.Nicholas Maxwell - forthcoming - In Leading under Pressure. Ottawa, ON, Canada:
    Humanity faces two basic problems of learning: learning about the universe, and learning how to become civilized. We have solved the first problem, but not the second, and that puts us in a situation of great danger. Almost all our global problems have arisen as a result. It has become a matter of extreme urgency to solve the second problem. The key to that is to learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second one. This (...)
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