Wigner's quantum-mechanical classification of particle-types in terms of irreducible representations of the Poincaré group has a classical analogue, which we extend in this paper. We study the compactness properties of the resulting phase spaces at fixed energy, and show that in order for a classical massless particle to be physically sensible, its phase space must feature a classical-particle counterpart of electromagnetic gauge invariance. By examining the connection between massless and massive particles in the massless limit, we also derive a (...) classical-particle version of the Higgs mechanism. (shrink)

Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. We review the most well-known application of this kind, known as the 'gauge argument' or 'gauge principle', discuss its difficulties, and (...) then reconstruct the gauge argument as a valid theorem in quantum theory. We then present what we take to be a better and more general gauge argument, based on Noether's second theorem in classical Lagrangian field theory, and argue that this provides a more appropriate framework for understanding how gauge symmetry helps to constrain the dynamics of physical theories. (shrink)

In this paper, we review a general technique for converting the standard Lagrangian description of a classical system into a formulation that puts time on an equal footing with the system's degrees of freedom. We show how the resulting framework anticipates key features of special relativity, including the signature of the Minkowski metric tensor and the special role played by theories that are invariant under a generalized notion of Lorentz transformations. We then use this technique to revisit a classification of (...) classical particle-types that mirrors Wigner's classification of quantum particle-types in terms of irreducible representations of the Poincaré group, including the cases of massive particles, massless particles, and tachyons. Along the way, we see gauge invariance naturally emerge in the context of classical massless particles with nonzero spin, as well as study the massless limit of a massive particle and derive a classical-particle version of the Higgs mechanism. (shrink)

Mathematically, gauge theories are extraordinarily rich --- so rich, in fact, that it can become all too easy to lose track of the connections between results, and become lost in a mass of beautiful theorems and properties: indeterminism, constraints, Noether identities, local and global symmetries, and so on. -/- One purpose of this short article is to provide some sort of a guide through the mathematics, to the conceptual core of what is actually going on. Its focus is on (...) the Lagrangian, variational-problem description of classical mechanics, from which the link between gauge symmetry and the apparent violation of determinism is easy to understand; only towards the end will the Hamiltonian description be considered. -/- The other purpose is to warn against adopting too unified a perspective on gauge theories. It will be argued that the meaning of the gauge freedom in a theory like general relativity is (at least from the Lagrangian viewpoint) significantly different from its meaning in theories like electromagnetism. The Hamiltonian framework blurs this distinction, and orthodox methods of quantization obliterate it; this may, in fact, be genuine progress, but it is dangerous to be guided by mathematics into conflating two conceptually distinct notions without appreciating the physical consequences. (shrink)

Symposium review of Richard Healey, Gauging What’s Real: The Conceptual Foundations of Contemporary Gauge Theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. 297. $99.00 HB.

The present paper intends to report two results. It is shown that the formula P(x)=∀y∀z[¬G(x, y)→¬M(z)] provides the logic underlying gauge symmetry, where M denotes the predicate of being massive. For the logic of spontaneous symmetry breaking, by Higgs mechanism, we have P(x)=∀y∀z[G(x, y)→M(z)]. Notice that the above two formulas are not logically equivalent. The results are obtained by integrating four components, namely, gauge symmetry and Higgs mechanism in quantum field theory, and Gödel's incompleteness theorem and Tarski's (...) indefinability theorem in mathematical logic. Gödel numbering is the key for arithmetic modeling applied in this paper. (shrink)

Much recent philosophy of physics has investigated the process of symmetry breaking. Here, I critically assess the alleged symmetry restoration at the fundamental scale. I draw attention to the contingency that gauge symmetries exhibit, that is, the fact that they have been chosen from an infinite space of possibilities. I appeal to this feature of group theory to argue that any metaphysical account of fundamental laws that expects symmetry restoration up to the fundamental level is not fully satisfactory. (...) This is a symmetry argument in line with Curie’s first principle. Further, I argue that this same feature of group theory helps to explain the ‘unreasonable’ effectiveness of mathematics in physics, and that it reduces the philosophical significance that has been attributed to the objectivity of gauge symmetries. (shrink)

It presents the basics of the “Relativistic theory of gravitation”, with the inclusion of original texts, from various papers, published between 1987 and 2009, by theirs authors: S. S Gershtein, A. A. Logunov, Yu. M. Loskutov and M. A. Mestvirishvili, additionally, together with the introductions, summaries and conclusions of the author of this paper. The “Relativistic theory of gravitation” is a gauge theory, compatible with the theories of quantum physics of the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces, (...) which defines gravity as the fourth force existing in nature, as a static field equipped with the transmitter particles of the virtual gravitons of spins 2 and 0, within the spirit of Galilei's principle of relativity, in his generalization of Poincaré's Special Relativity that allowed the authors to universalize that the physical laws of nature are complied with regardless of the frames of reference where they apply, integrated into the Grossmann-Einstein Entwurf theory, in its further development, by those authors, therefore, this theory preserves the conservation laws of energy-impulse and angular impulse of the gravitational field jointly to the other material fields existing in nature, in the Riemann's effective spacetime, through its identity with Minkowski's pseudo Euclidean spacetime. (shrink)

It presents the basics of the “Relativistic theory of gravitation”, with the inclusion of original texts, from various papers, published between 1987 and 2009, by theirs authors: S. S Gershtein, A. A. Logunov, Yu. M. Loskutov and M. A. Mestvirishvili, additionally, together with the introductions, summaries and conclusions of the author of this paper. The “Relativistic theory of gravitation” is a gauge theory, compatible with the theories of quantum physics of the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces, (...) which defines gravity as the fourth force existing in nature, as a static field equipped with the transmitter particles of the virtual gravitons of spins 2 and 0, within the spirit of Galilei's principle of relativity, in his generalization of Poincaré's Special Relativity that allowed the authors to universalize that the physical laws of nature are complied with regardless of the frames of reference where they apply, integrated into the Grossmann-Einstein Entwurf theory, in its further development, by those authors, therefore, this theory preserves the conservation laws of energy-impulse and angular impulse of the gravitational field jointly to the other material fields existing in nature, in the Riemann's effective spacetime, through its identity with Minkowski's pseudo Euclidean spacetime. (shrink)

Since string theory has not been able to explain phenomena to date, it may seem that this confirms Feyerabend's view that there is no "method" of science. And yet, string theory is still the most active research program for quantum gravity. But, compared to other non-falsifiable theories, this has something extra, especially mathematical language, with a clear logic of deductions. Up to a point it can reproduce classical gauge theories and general relativity. And there is hope that (...) in the not too distant future experiments can be developed to test the theory. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28892.33920. (shrink)

The Higgs mechanism is an essential but elusive component of the Standard Model of particle physics. Without it Yang‐Mills gauge theories would have been little more than a warm‐up exercise in the attempt to quantize gravity rather than serving as the basis for the Standard Model. This article focuses on two problems related to the Higgs mechanism clearly posed in Earman’s recent papers (Earman 2003, 2004a, 2004b): what is the gauge‐invariant content of the Higgs mechanism, and what does (...) it mean to break a local gauge symmetry? (shrink)

Observable consequences of the hypothesis that the observed universe is a numerical simulation performed on a cubic space-time lattice or grid are explored. The simulation scenario is first motivated by extrapolating current trends in computational resource requirements for lattice QCD into the future. Using the historical development of lattice gauge theory technology as a guide, we assume that our universe is an early numerical simulation with unimproved Wilson fermion discretization and investigate potentially-observable consequences. Among the observables that are (...) considered are the muon g-2 and the current differences between determinations of alpha, but the most stringent bound on the inverse lattice spacing of the universe, b−1 > ~ 10^11 GeV, is derived from the high-energy cut off of the cosmic ray spectrum. The numerical simulation scenario could reveal itself in the distributions of the highest energy cosmic rays exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry breaking that reflects the structure of the underlying lattice. (shrink)

Recently, Dewar (2019) has suggested that one can apply the strategy of 'sophistication' - as exemplified by sophisticated substantivalism as a response to the diffeomorphism invariance of General Relativity - to gauge theories such as electrodynamics. This requires a shift to the formalism of fibre bundles. In this paper, I develop and defend this suggestion. Where my approach differs from previous discussions is that I focus on the metaphysical picture underlying the fibre bundle formalism. In particular, I aim to (...) affirm the physical reality of gauge properties. I argue that this allows for a local and separable explanation of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Its puzzling features are explained by a form of holism inherent to fibre bundles. (shrink)

We discuss the fate of the correspondence principle beyond quantum mechanics, specifically in quantum field theory and quantum gravity, in connection with the intrinsic limitations of the human ability to observe the external world. We conclude that the best correspondence principle is made of unitarity, locality, proper renormalizability (a refinement of strict renormalizability), combined with fundamental local symmetries and the requirement of having a finite number of fields. Quantum gravity is identified in an essentially unique way. The gauge (...) interactions are uniquely identified in form. Instead, the matter sector remains basically unrestricted. The major prediction is the violation of causality at small distances. (shrink)

Standard lore holds that magnetic forces are incapable of doing mechanical work. More precisely, the claim is that whenever it appears that a magnetic force is doing work, the work is actually being done by another force, with the magnetic force serving only as an indirect mediator. However, the most familiar instances of magnetic forces acting in everyday life, such as when bar magnets lift other bar magnets, appear to present manifest evidence of magnetic forces doing work. These sorts of (...) counterexamples are often dismissed as arising from quantum effects that lie outside the classical regime. In this paper, we show that quantum theory is not needed to account for these phenomena, and that classical electromagnetism admits a model of elementary magnetic dipoles on which magnetic forces can indeed do work. In order to develop this model, we revisit the foundational principles of the classical theory of electromagnetism, showcase the importance of constraints from relativity, examine the structure of the multipole expansion, and study the connection between the Lorentz force law and conservation of energy and momentum. (shrink)

We address a long-standing debate over whether classical magnetic forces can do work, ultimately answering the question in the affirmative. In detail, we couple a classical particle with intrinsic spin and elementary dipole moments to the electromagnetic field, derive the appropriate generalization of the Lorentz force law, show that the particle's dipole moments must be collinear with its spin axis, and argue that the magnetic field does mechanical work on the particle's elementary magnetic dipole moment. As consistency checks, we calculate (...) the overall system's energy-momentum and angular momentum, and show that their local conservation equations lead to the same force law and therefore the same conclusions about magnetic forces and work. We also compute the system's Belinfante-Rosenfeld energy-momentum tensor. (shrink)

The way, in which quantum information can unify quantum mechanics (and therefore the standard model) and general relativity, is investigated. Quantum information is defined as the generalization of the concept of information as to the choice among infinite sets of alternatives. Relevantly, the axiom of choice is necessary in general. The unit of quantum information, a qubit is interpreted as a relevant elementary choice among an infinite set of alternatives generalizing that of a bit. The invariance to the axiom of (...) choice shared by quantum mechanics is introduced: It constitutes quantum information as the relation of any state unorderable in principle (e.g. any coherent quantum state before measurement) and the same state already well-ordered (e.g. the well-ordered statistical ensemble of the measurement of the quantum system at issue). This allows of equating the classical and quantum time correspondingly as the well-ordering of any physical quantity or quantities and their coherent superposition. That equating is interpretable as the isomorphism of Minkowski space and Hilbert space. Quantum information is the structure interpretable in both ways and thus underlying their unification. Its deformation is representable correspondingly as gravitation in the deformed pseudo-Riemannian space of general relativity and the entanglement of two or more quantum systems. The standard model studies a single quantum system and thus privileges a single reference frame turning out to be inertial for the generalized symmetry [U(1)]X[SU(2)]X[SU(3)] “gauging” the standard model. As the standard model refers to a single quantum system, it is necessarily linear and thus the corresponding privileged reference frame is necessary inertial. The Higgs mechanism U(1) → [U(1)]X[SU(2)] confirmed enough already experimentally describes exactly the choice of the initial position of a privileged reference frame as the corresponding breaking of the symmetry. The standard model defines ‘mass at rest’ linearly and absolutely, but general relativity non-linearly and relatively. The “Big Bang” hypothesis is additional interpreting that position as that of the “Big Bang”. It serves also in order to reconcile the linear standard model in the singularity of the “Big Bang” with the observed nonlinearity of the further expansion of the universe described very well by general relativity. Quantum information links the standard model and general relativity in another way by mediation of entanglement. The linearity and absoluteness of the former and the nonlinearity and relativeness of the latter can be considered as the relation of a whole and the same whole divided into parts entangled in general. (shrink)

The Argument from Temporary Intrinsics is one of the canonical arguments against endurantism. I show that the two standard ways of presenting the argument have limited force. I then present a new version of the argument, which provides a more promising articulation of the underlying objection to endurantism. However, the premises of this argument conflict with the gauge theories of particle physics, and so this version of the argument is no more successful than its predecessors. I conclude that no (...) version of the Argument from Temporary Intrinsics gives us a compelling reason to favor one theory of persistence over another. (shrink)

The naive idea of a mimesis between theory and experiments, a concept still lasing in many epistemologies, is here substituted by a more sophisticated mathematical methexis where theoretical physics is a system of production of formal structures under strong mathematical constraints, such as global and local symmetries. Instead of an ultimate “everything theory”, the image of physical theories here proposed is a totality of interconnected structures establishing the very conditions of its “thinkability” and the relations with the experimental (...) domain. (shrink)

It is now well-known that Newton–Cartan theory is the correct geometrical setting for modelling the quantum Hall effect. In addition, in recent years edge modes for the Newton–Cartan quantum Hall effect have been derived. However, the existence of these edge modes has, as of yet, been derived using only orthodox methodologies involving the breaking of gauge-invariance; it would be preferable to derive the existence of such edge modes in a gauge-invariant manner. In this article, we employ recent (...) work by Donnelly and Freidel in order to accomplish exactly this task. Our results agree with known physics, but afford greater conceptual insight into the existence of these edge modes: in particular, they connect them to subtle aspects of Newton–Cartan geometry and pave the way for further applications of Newton–Cartan theory in condensed matter physics. (shrink)

There is a large gap between the specialized knowledge of scientists and laypeople’s understanding of the sciences. The novice-expert problem arises when non-experts are confronted with (real or apparent) scientific disagreement, and when they don’t know whom to trust. Because they are not able to gauge the content of expert testimony, they rely on imperfect heuristics to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientists. This paper investigates why some bodies of scientific knowledge become polarized along political fault lines. Laypeople navigate conflicting (...) epistemic and social demands in their acceptance of scientific testimony; this might explain their deference to scientific fringe theories, which often goes together with denying established scientific theories. I evaluate three approaches to mitigate denialism: improving the message, improving the messenger, and improving the environment in which the message is conveyed. (shrink)

Philosophers in the field of analytic metaphysics have begun gradually to come to terms with the fact that there are entities in a range of categories not dreamt of in the set-theory and predicate-logic-based ontologies of their forefathers. Examples of such “entia minora” would include: boundaries, places, events, states holes, shadows, individual colour- and tone-instances (tropes), together with combinations of these and associated simple and complex universal species or essences, states of affairs, judgment-contents, and myriad abstract structures of the (...) sorts which are studied by the mathematical sciences. How, as hunter-gatherer ontologists, are we to bring order into this vast array? How are we to gauge the ontological merits of given candidate entities, and how are we to understand their relation to entities of more humdrum sorts? Meinong, it turns out, offers a very simple answer to all of these questions. (shrink)

The correspondence principle made of unitarity, locality and renormalizability has been very successful in quantum field theory. Among the other things, it helped us build the standard model. However, it also showed important limitations. For example, it failed to restrict the gauge group and the matter sector in a powerful way. After discussing its effectiveness, we upgrade it to make room for quantum gravity. The unitarity assumption is better understood, since it allows for the presence of physical particles (...) as well as fake particles (fakeons). The locality assumption is applied to an interim classical action, since the true classical action is nonlocal and emerges from the quantization and a later process of classicization. The renormalizability assumption is refined to single out the special role of the gauge couplings. We show that the upgraded principle leads to an essentially unique theory of quantum gravity. In particular, in four dimensions, a fakeon of spin 2, together with a scalar field, is able to make the theory renormalizable while preserving unitarity. We offer an overview of quantum field theories of particles and fakeons in various dimensions, with and without gravity. (shrink)

As is well known, Einstein was dissatisfied with the foundation of quantum theory and sought to find a basis for it that would have satisfied his need for a causal explanation. In this paper this abandoned idea is investigated. It is found that it is mathematically not dead at all. More in particular: a quantum mechanical U(1) gauge invariant Dirac equation can be derived from Einstein's gravity field equations. We ask ourselves what it means for physics, the history (...) of physics and for the actual discussion on foundations. (shrink)

I critically examine the assumption that the theoretical structure that varies under theoretical symmetries is redundant and should be eliminated from a metaphysical picture of the universe, following a ‘symmetry to reality’ inference. I do so by analysing the status of coordinate change symmetries taking a pragmatic approach. I argue that coordinate systems function as indexical devices, and play an important pragmatic role for representing concrete physical systems. I examine the implications of considering this pragmatic role seriously, taking what I (...) call a perspectivist stance. My conclusion is that under a perspectivist stance, all symmetries (including local gauge symmetries) potentially have a direct empirical status: they point to dynamical aspects that are invariant under changes of operationalisation, and they constitute a guide not to reality, but to nomology and kinship. (shrink)

REVIEW OF: Automated Development of Fundamental Mathematical Theories by Art Quaife. (1992: Kluwer Academic Publishers) 271pp. Using the theorem prover OTTER Art Quaife has proved four hundred theorems of von Neumann-Bernays-Gödel set theory; twelve hundred theorems and definitions of elementary number theory; dozens of Euclidean geometry theorems; and Gödel's incompleteness theorems. It is an impressive achievement. To gauge its significance and to see what prospects it offers this review looks closely at the book and the proofs it (...) presents. (shrink)

The properties of angular momentum and its connection to magnetic momentum are explored, based on a reconsideration of the Stern-Gerlach experiment and gauge invariance. A possible way to solve the so called spin crisis is proposed. The separation of angular momentum of a quan- tum system of particles into orbital angular momentum plus intrinsic angular momentum is reconsidered, within the limits of the Schrodinger theory. A proof is given that, for systems of more than two particles, un- less (...) all of them have the same mass, the possibility of having eigenvalues of the form (n + 1/2)h is not excluded. (shrink)

The properties of angular momentum and its connection to magnetic momentum are explored, based on a reconsideration of the Stern-Gerlach experiment and gauge invariance. A possible way to solve the so called spin crisis is proposed. The separation of angular momentum of a quantum system of particles into orbital angular momentum plus intrinsic angular momentum is reconsidered, within the limits of the Schr\"odinger theory. A proof is given that, for systems of more than two particles, unless all of (...) them have the same mass, the possibility of having eigenvalues of the form $(n+1/2)\hbar$ is not excluded. (shrink)

The force law of Maxwell’s classical electrodynamics does not agree with Newton’s third law of motion (N3LM), in case of open circuit magnetostatics. Initially, a generalized magnetostatics theory is presented that includes two additional physical fields B_Φ and B_l, defined by scalar functions. The scalar magnetic field B_l mediates a longitudinal Ampère force that balances the transverse Ampère force (aka the magnetic field force), such that the sum of the two forces agrees with N3LM for all stationary current distributions. (...) Secondary field induction laws are derived; a secondary curl free electric field E_l is induced by a time varying scalar magnetic field B_l, which isn’t described by Maxwell’s electrodynamics. The Helmholtz’ decomposition is applied to exclude E_l from the total electric field E, resulting into a more simple Maxwell theory. Decoupled inhomogeneous potential equations and its solutions follow directly from this theory, without having to apply a gauge condition. Field expressions are derived from the potential functions that are simpler and far field consistent with respect to the Jefimenko fields. However, our simple version of Maxwell’s theory does not satisfy N3LM. Therefore we combine the generalized magnetostatics with the simple version of Maxwell’s electrodynamics, via the generalization of Maxwell’s speculative displacement current. The resulting electrodynamics describes three types of vacuum waves: the Φ wave, the longitudinal electromagnetic (LEM) wave and the transverse electromagnetic (TEM) wave, with phase velocities respectively a, b and c. Power- and force theorems are derived, and the force law agrees with Newton’s third law only if the phase velocities satisfy the following condition: a >> b and b = c. The retarded potential functions can be found without gauge conditions, and four retarded field expressions are derived that have three near field terms and six far field terms. All six far field terms are explained as the mutual induction of two free fields. Our theory supports Rutherford’s solution of the 4/3 problem of electromagnetic mass, which requires an extra longitudinal electromagnetic momentum. Our generalized classical electrodynamics might spawn new physics experiments and electrical engineering, such as new photoelectric effects based on Φ- or LEM radiation, and the conversion of natural Φ- or LEM radiation into useful electricity, in the footsteps of dr. N. Tesla and dr. T.H. Moray. (shrink)

Presentamos lo básico de la teoría relativista de la gravitación, con la inclusión de textos originales, de varios papeles, publicados entre 1987 y 2009, por sus autores: S. S Gershtein, A. A Logunov, Yu. M Loskutov y M. A Mestvirishvili junto con las introducciones, resúmenes y conclusiones elaborados por el autor de este papel. Esta es una teoría gauge, compatible con las teorías de la física cuántica de las fuerzas electromagnética, débil y fuerte, que define la gravedad como la (...) cuarta fuerza existente en la naturaleza, como campo estático dotada de la partícula transmisora del gravitón virtual de espines 2 y 0, dentro del espíritu del principio de relatividad de Galilei, en su generalización de la relatividad especial de Poincaré que le permitió a los autores la universalización de que las leyes físicas de la naturaleza se cumplen con independencia de los marcos de referencia donde se apliquen. No obstante, integrada a la teoría Entwurf de Grossmann-Einstein, en su desarrollo ulterior, por parte de estos autores, por lo tanto, preserva las leyes de conservación de la energía-impulso y del impulso angular conjuntamente del campo gravitacional y los demás campos materiales existentes en la naturaleza, en el espaciotiempo efectivo de Riemann, mediante su identidad con el espaciotiempo pseudo Euclídeo de Minkowski. (shrink)

A discussion, in Spanish, on blogs as a discursive and literary genre. The first section of this paper explores an analogy between the generic characteristics of essay-writing and those of blogging, as modes of tentative, processual textual practice. Blogs open up a new age for essay-writing, in a medium well suited to develop some characteristics of the genre. The second section of the paper puts forward some parameters to gauge a number of dimensions of originality and relevance in blog (...) posts, some of them specific and some non-specific to the medium. (shrink)

This paper develops a normative framework for both conceptualizing and assessing various institutional possibilities for democratic modes of constitutional change, with special attention to the recent ferment of constitutional experimentation. The paper’s basic methodological orientation is interdisciplinary, combining research in comparative constitutionalism, political science and normative political philosophy. In particular, it employs a form of normative reconstruction: attempting to glean out of recent institutional innovations the deep political ideals such institutions embody or attempt to realize. Starting from the assumption that (...) contemporary constitutional democracies are attempting to realize the broader ideals of deliberative democratic constitution (ideals outlined briefly in the first section), the paper proposes an evaluative framework, comprised of six criteria, for assessing various mechanisms of constitutional change. It argues that democratic forms of constitutional change embody six distinct ideals—operationalizability, structural independence, democratic co-authorship, political equality, inclusive sensitivity, and reasons-responsiveness—and that these ideals can be used to gauge the normative worth of different mechanisms for carrying out such change. The framework is developed with reference to recent constitutional developments (e.g., in Venezuela, South Africa, Columbia, Bolivia, and Iceland) highlighting distinct criteria and showing how they appear to capture the general direction of institutional innovation. The paper conjectures that the set of six criteria yield the best normative reconstruction of the crucial ideals embodied in the constitutional change mechanisms of contemporary constitutional democracies, and so, ought to be used for purposes of evaluating institutional design proposals. (shrink)

Going by the assumption that technology is not created for its own sake, this paper gauges the peculiar role that of spin-off, and private companies play in the process of technology creation and transfer at a University of Technology (UoT) in South Africa, using academic entrepreneurs as the lens. Structured questions were electronically administered to the 52 participants purposively drawn for the study. The sample was drawn from a database composed using UoT X’s in-house research records. Included in the database, (...) were active and non-active academics in terms of technology creation and transfer. It was noted that most active researchers and innovators were involved in one form of university–industry collaboration or another. Furthermore, it was observed that the private companies had a vital role to play as far as the process of technology transfer and commercialization is concerned. This is notably relevant given that the overwhelming majority of the participants (91.7%) reiterated the importance of university–industry partnerships in the transfer and commercialization of inventions. Moreover, highlighting the importance of private companies, a slight majority (52.8%) of the participants indicated that they were surely motivated to bring forth innovative products by private companies in the last five years. (shrink)

When you type the word “serendipity” in a word-processor application such as Microsoft Word, the autocorrection engine suggests you choose other words like “luck” or “fate”. This correcting act turns out to be incorrect. However, it points to the reality that serendipity is not a familiar English word and can be misunderstood easily. Serendipity is a very much scientific concept as it has been found useful in numerous scientific discoveries, pharmaceutical innovations, and numerous humankind’s technical and technological advances. Therefore, there (...) have been many books written around the concept. So why do we need this additional book? This is not just another book about serendipity. It has evolved from the Editor’s question lingering for a decade after finishing his widely cited article (coauthored with Prof. Nancy K. Napier of Boise State University, ID, USA) “Serendipity as a strategic advantage?” in T. Wilkinson’s edited volume Strategic Management in the 21st Century, published by Praeger. The Editor and contributing authors have tried to achieve the following in this title. Demystifying the Serendipity Myth The phenomenon of serendipity has always been thought of as a “miracle”. It is the mystery of human innovation and one of the ultimate secrets of our society. But serendipity is not just a lucky coincidence nor any hidden conspiracy. This book explores the science of the information process behind this seemingly miraculous phenomenon. It connects human society with nature, going back to the root of our existence and looking at the flame of survival to discover the harmony in making creativity. Presenting the nuts and bolts of being an adventurer of science The authors present their conceptual investigations into serendipity’s nature and its mechanism by examining interesting real events and stories. The content is thought-provoking, and readers are led to question and explore their own life stories and problems along the journey of reading this book. Catching an elusive high-value target requires great strategies and efforts. But there are no dark secrets here because this is the “way of nature” – how we humans have always strived for innovation without realizing the blueprints behind such processes. Unlike other books on serendipity, this book will show you that a powerful “secret” is closer than you think. Delivering practical uses for different audiences By understanding the conditionality and survival drivers of serendipity, individuals or organizations can make better decisions on creating the right environment to facilitate the encounter and attainment of this valuable phenomenon. For scientists: With clear explanations of the information processes underlying serendipity, flexible theoretical frameworks of mindsponge and the 3D principle of creativity, researchers are provided with the tools they need to dig deeper into their own fields of study and find practical applications, be it psychology, economics, sociology, or anything that involves innovation (which is, in fact, every scientific discipline). For curious casual readers: Everybody needs innovation to make breakthroughs or spice up one’s life. If you think great ideas come to people randomly from an unknown fairy place, this book will convince you otherwise without taking away that awe and wonder. But above all, you will know how to become more creative, scientifically and straightforwardly, with no snake oil and no weird tricks. For ambitious business people: The flame that brought about great successes throughout human history is within you. But you can only use it if you understand it. While others wait for serendipity to come, you will be able to actively hunt for those precious moments. As it has always been: the best hunters triumph, not the passive wanderers. And in this age of information chaos, finding the golden fruits is not easy. Those from information technology know this problem well, and this book is the treasure map that they have been seeking to navigate that stormy ocean looking for jewels. Like a kingfisher tracking its prey through the water, waiting to gracefully strike, with serendipity, a person seizes the prize of creativity amid the chaos of life. ¤ ¤ ¤ Official introduction: The book explores the nature, underlying causes, and the information processing mechanism of serendipity. It proposes that natural or social survival demands drive serendipity, and serendipity is conditional on the environment and the mindset, on both individual and collective levels. From Darwin's evolution theory to Sun Tzu's war tactics, major innovations throughout human history are unified by this key concept. In the rapidly changing world, information is abundant but rather chaotic. The adaptive power of serendipity allows people to notice treasures within this wild sea, but only for those who understand how it works. To increase the probability of encountering and attaining serendipity, one should employ the mindsponge mechanism and the 3D process of creativity, for without these frameworks, serendipity is truly an elusive target. The book also discusses methods to build environments and cultures rich in navigational and useful information to maximize the chance of finding and capitalizing on serendipity. As a skill, serendipity has a resemblance to how kingfishers observe and hunt their prey. (shrink)

A uniform theory of conditionals is one which compositionally captures the behavior of both indicative and subjunctive conditionals without positing ambiguities. This paper raises new problems for the closest thing to a uniform analysis in the literature (Stalnaker, Philosophia, 5, 269–286 (1975)) and develops a new theory which solves them. I also show that this new analysis provides an improved treatment of three phenomena (the import-export equivalence, reverse Sobel-sequences and disjunctive antecedents). While these results concern central issues in (...) the study of conditionals, broader themes in the philosophy of language and formal semantics are also engaged here. This new analysis exploits a dynamic conception of meaning where the meaning of a symbol is its potential to change an agent’s mental state (or the state of a conversation) rather than being the symbol’s content (e.g. the proposition it expresses). The analysis of conditionals is also built on the idea that the contrast between subjunctive and indicative conditionals parallels a contrast between revising and consistently extending some body of information. (shrink)

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and (...) exact form of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

This article synthesizes the current theoretical attempts to understand human-machine interactions and introduces seven premises to understand our emerging dynamics with increasingly competent, pervasive, and instantly accessible algorithms. The hope that these seven premises can build toward a social theory of human-AI cocreation. The focus on human-AI cocreation is intended to emphasize two factors. First, is the fact that our machine learning systems are socialized. Second, is the coevolving nature of human mind and AI systems as smart devices form (...) an indispensable part of our cognitive scaffolds, thus, shaping how we perceive the world and ourselves. The seven premises include: primacy of social structures; human’s desire for freedom and autonomy; AI systems will form inseparable parts of our cognitive/affective scaffolds and can change our self-understanding; philosophy and humanistic foundations on human flourishing as a guide to human-AI interaction; mindsponge information-filtering process; acculturative process of how values change and emerge from human-AI interaction; overlapping Venn diagram of the human-human, human-nature, and human-machine interactions. This article concludes with a discussion on human agency in our entanglements with socialized machines and the illusoriness of the Cartesian agent view of the mind. (shrink)

There are three major reasons that ideas associated with ubuntu are often deemed to be an inappropriate basis for a public morality. One is that they are too vague, a second is that they fail to acknowledge the value of individual freedom, and a third is that they a fit traditional, small-scale culture more than a modern, industrial society. In this article, I provide a philosophical interpretation of ubuntu that is not vulnerable to these three objections. Specifically, I construct a (...) moral theory grounded on southern African worldviews, one that suggests a promising new conception of human dignity. According to this conception, typical human beings have a dignity in virtue of their capacity for community, understood as the combination of identifying with others and exhibiting solidarity with them, where human rights violations are egregious degradations of this capacity. I argue that this account of human rights violations straightforwardly entails and explains many different elements of South Africa’s Bill of Rights and naturally suggests certain ways of resolving contemporary moral dilemmas in South Africa and elsewhere relating to land reform, political power and deadly force. (shrink)

It is conventional wisdom among political philosophers that ideal principles of justice must guide our attempts to design institutions to avert actual injustice. Call this the ideal guidance approach. I argue that this view is misguided— ideal principles of justice are not appropriate "guiding principles" that actual institutions must aim to realize, even if only approximately. Fortunately, the conventional wisdom is also avoidable. In this paper, I develop an alternative approach to institutional design, which I call institutional failure analysis. The (...) basic intuition of this approach is that our moral assessment of institutional proposals is most effective when we proceed from a detailed understanding of the causal processes generating problematic social outcomes. Failure analysis takes the institutional primary design task to be obviating or averting institutional failures. Consequently, failure analysis enables theorists to prescribe more effective solutions to actual injustice because its focuses on understanding the injustice, rather than specifying an ideal of justice. (shrink)

According to the perceptual theory of introspection, introspection is a kind of perception of our mental life. To evaluate the perceptual theory’s plausibility, we obviously need to know what entitles a mental phenomenon to the qualification “perceptual.” I start by arguing that this task is complicated by the fact that we really have two notions of the perceptual: a functional notion and a phenomenological notion. The heart of the chapter is an argument that even if we have no (...) reason to think that introspection is a kind of perception in the functional sense, we do have strong reasons to think it is a kind of perception in the phenomenological sense. In the phenomenological sense, I argue, two features are central to a phenomenon’s status as perceptual: its involving direct awareness of the perceived, and its taking a distinctively perceptual attitude toward it. The bulk of the chapter consists in (i) an argument from inference to the best explanation for the thesis that introspection involves direct awareness of the introspected, and (ii) a more direct argument that introspection involves an attitude almost identical to the attitude distinctive of sensory perception. The chapter then closes with responses to some of the standard objections to the perceptual theory. (shrink)

I argue that the rarely discussed Antichrist can serve as perhaps the best guide to Nietzsche’s mature ethical theory. Commentators often argue or assume that while Nietzsche makes many critical points about traditional morality, he cannot be offering a positive ethical theory of his own. This, I argue, is a mistake. The Antichrist offers a substantive ethical theory. It explicitly articulates Nietzsche’s positive ethical principles, shows why these principles are justified, and uses them to condemn traditional Christian (...) morality. The chapter reviews and explains Nietzsche’s ethical theory. It also considers why commentators so often assume that Nietzsche cannot have an ethical theory: I argue that commentators tend to be driven by the assumption that all ethical theories embrace seven commitments. These commitments are, I suggest, definitive of Enlightenment ethical theory, but not of ethical theory as such; Nietzsche’s rejection of them in no way precludes his having a positive ethical theory of his own. (shrink)

The dominant conceptions of moral status in the English-speaking literature are either holist or individualist, neither of which accounts well for widespread judgments that: animals and humans both have moral status that is of the same kind but different in degree; even a severely mentally incapacitated human being has a greater moral status than an animal with identical internal properties; and a newborn infant has a greater moral status than a mid-to-late stage foetus. Holists accord no moral status to any (...) of these beings, assigning it only to groups to which they belong, while individualists such as welfarists grant an equal moral status to humans and many animals, and Kantians accord no moral status either to animals or severely mentally incapacitated humans. I argue that an underexplored, modal-relational perspective does a better job of accounting for degrees of moral status. According to modal-relationalism, something has moral status insofar as it capable of having a certain causal or intensional connection with another being. I articulate a novel instance of modal-relationalism grounded in salient sub-Saharan moral views, roughly according to which the greater a being's capacity to be part of a communal relationship with us, the greater its moral status. I then demonstrate that this new, African-based theory entails and plausibly explains the above judgments, among others, in a unified way. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

It is illegitimate to read any ontology about "race" off of biological theory or data. Indeed, the technical meaning of "genetic variation" is fluid, and there is no single theoretical agreed-upon criterion for defining and distinguishing populations (or groups or clusters) given a particular set of genetic variation data. Thus, by analyzing three formal senses of "genetic variation"—diversity, differentiation, and heterozygosity—we argue that the use of biological theory for making epistemic claims about "race" can only seem plausible when (...) it relies on the user’s own assumptions about race; the move from biological measures to claims about “race” inevitably amounts to a pernicious reification. We also excavate assumptions in the history of the technical discourse over the concept of "race" (e.g., Livingstone's and Dobzhansky's 1962 exchange, Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin 1972, as well as contemporary discussions of cladistic "race", and "races" as clusters). We show that claims about the existence (or non-existence) of "race" are underdetermined by biological facts, methods, and theories. Biological theory does not force the concept of "race" upon us; our social discourse, social ontology, and social expectations do. We become prisoners of our abstractions at our own hands, and at our own expense. (shrink)

Time has puzzled scientists. Some see it as just a tool and a unit of measurement, while others consider time to be a real thing and needs to be measured. There are also those who believe that time is an ancient thing that arose with the creation of the universe and the Earth, running parallel to life in them, and counting every movement, event, or speed in them. While some see it as an essential part and a major component of (...) the virtual relationship that includes life and place, there are also those who see time as a metaphysical thing that only appeared and developed in human consciousness and then mixed with the physics of life. Is duration measured by movement, or is movement measured by duration or time? Here began the dilemma of this research: How did time transform from a concept that reads and measures the flow of time forward, that is, the flow of time, according to Isaac Newton, into a physical measuring tool that calculates the movement, speed, and state of things? Then the concept turned into a tool that calculates the speed of light and tells the story of the origin and development of the universe. Scientists will not agree on a clear, direct, and frank interpretation of the concept of time, but people generally agree that time can be divided into past, present, and future. This division, according to this research, has gradually developed in human consciousness since the manifestations of knowledge appeared in the human mind and began to take its first steps. In the wondrous land where the sun rises repeatedly, the moon also rises, planets and stars appear, trees grow, rivers and seas overflow, storms and rain intensify, light appears and then darkness, and creatures wake up and sleep, mysteriously and repeatedly, until all these phenomena have become Appearances are measurable, with the development of human consciousness. In this brief research paper, we will discuss what is called “the present,” and the validity of its existence in the real time in which we live, and where its place is in human consciousness, and why scientists let it tamper with mathematical, physical, and social matter, and transformed it from a mere thing that does not exist, to a rest stop, which sometimes takes a long time., between the past and the future. (shrink)

This paper offers a general model of substantive moral principles as a kind of hedged moral principles that can (but don't have to) tolerate exceptions. I argue that the kind of principles I defend provide an account of what would make an exception to them permissible. I also argue that these principles are nonetheless robustly explanatory with respect to a variety of moral facts; that they make sense of error, uncertainty, and disagreement concerning moral principles and their implications; and that (...) one can grasp these principles without having to grasp any particular list of their permissibly exceptional instances. I conclude by pointing out various advantages that this model of principles has over several of its rivals. The bottom line is that we should find nothing peculiarly odd or problematic about the idea of exception-tolerating and yet robustly explanatory moral principles. (shrink)

According to the old feeling theory of emotion, an emotion is just a feeling: a conscious experience with a characteristic phenomenal character. This theory is widely dismissed in contemporary discussions of emotion as hopelessly naïve. In particular, it is thought to suffer from two fatal drawbacks: its inability to account for the cognitive dimension of emotion (which is thought to go beyond the phenomenal dimension), and its inability to accommodate unconscious emotions (which, of course, lack any phenomenal character). (...) In this paper, I argue that the old feeling theory is in reality only a pair of modifications removed from a highly plausible account of the nature of emotion that retains the essential connection between emotion and feeling. These modifications are, moreover, motivated by recent developments in work on phenomenal consciousness. The first development is the rising recognition of a phenomenal character proper to cognition—so-called cognitive phenomenology. The second is the gathering momentum behind various ‘connection principles’ that specify some connection that a given state must bear to phenomenally conscious states in order to qualify as mental. These developments make it possible to formulate a new feeling theory of emotion, which would overcome the two fatal drawbacks of the old feeling theory. According to the new feeling theory, an emotion is a mental state that bears the right connection to conscious experiences with the right phenomenal character (involving, among other elements, a cognitive phenomenology). (shrink)

This paper develops a question-sensitive theory of intention. We show that this theory explains some puzzling closure properties of intention. In particular, it can be used to explain why one is rationally required to intend the means to one’s ends, even though one is not rationally required to intend all the foreseen consequences of one’s intended actions. It also explains why rational intention is not always closed under logical implication, and why one can only intend outcomes that one (...) believes to be under one’s control. (shrink)

I defend the cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession, according to which a group has a right to secede only if this would promote cosmopolitan justice. I argue that the theory is preferable to other theories of secession because it is an entailment of cosmopolitanism, which is independently attractive, and because, unlike other theories of secession, it allows us to give the answers we want to give in cases like secession of the rich or secession that would make things (...) worse for minorities. I defend the view against the objections that it allows for colonialism and annexation, that it is not a distinct theory, and that it is impractical. (shrink)

This paper investigates the logic of reasons. Its aim is to provide an analysis of the sentences of the form ‘p is a reason for q’ that yields a coherent account of their logical properties. The idea that we will develop is that ‘p is a reason for q’ is acceptable just in case a suitably defined relation of incompatibility obtains between p and ¬q. As we will suggest, a theory of reasons based on this idea can solve three (...) challenging puzzles that concern, respectively, contraposing reasons, conflicting reasons, and supererogatory reasons, and opens a new perspective on some classical issues concerning non-deductive inferences. (shrink)