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22378.452301
In contemporary philosophy of physics, there has recently been a renewed interest in the theory of geometric objects—a programme developed originally by geometers such as Schouten, Veblen, and others in the 1920s and 30s. However, as yet, there has been little-to-no systematic investigation into the history of the geometric object concept. I discuss the early development of the geometric object concept, and show that geometers working on the programme in the 1920s and early 1930s had a more expansive conception of geometric objects than that which is found in later presentations— which, unlike the modern conception of geometric objects, included embedded submanifolds such as points, curves, and hypersurfaces. I reconstruct and critically evaluate their arguments for this more expansive geometric object concept, and also locate and assess the transition to the more restrictive modern geometric object concept.
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22399.452354
The concept of "information" is one of the key words that describe modern society. It is used in a variety of settings, from daily life to academic research, and it is now difficult to understand modern society without it. On the other hand, the independent use of the concept in various situations has led to the polysemous nature of the concept, and even when the same term is used, it has different meanings in different areas of usage. The fragility of these conceptual foundations is one of the central concerns in the philosophy of information. Thus, the "analysis and organization of information concepts" emerges as an important task in the philosophy of information (cf. Adriaans and van Benthem eds. 2008; Floridi 2011). The importance of this task is not limited to simply analyzing and organizing concepts, but also includes resolving the differences that arise between different domains (concerning information concepts).
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22415.452364
On 10th January 2025, I had the privilege of speaking at the launch event of the Radboud Centre for Natural Philosophy (RCNP) at Radboud University, Nijmegen, NL. The prospect was a little intimidating, not only because of the (predictably) illustrious audience, but also (more surprisingly) because my talk was scheduled immediately after a performance composed specifically for the launch event. That performance, titled ‘Big Bang variations’, wove together a story of the birth of a human being with the birth of the Universe itself, i.e. the Big Bang—and featured avant-garde guitar; it was fabulous. Sadly, there was no such guitar accompaniment to my talk. But still, I think the talk was tolerably successful; this is a paper version of it.
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22517.452371
Emilie Du Chˆ ´ atelet (1706-1749) is perhaps equally well-known for her magnum opus, the Institutions de Physique of 1740, and for her later French translation of and commentary to Newton’s Principia (first published posthumously in 1756, with the corrected edition in 1759). One of the few topics which Du Chˆatelet addresses in detail in both the Institutions de Physique (chapter 15) and the commentary to her translation is Newton’s arguments for his law of gravitation in the Principia. To date, however, no systematic comparison of the two has been undertaken (and very little has been said on either of them separately). I reconstruct and compare these two accounts. This offers a new perspective on Du Chˆatelet’s developing thinking on the justification of Newton’s law of gravitation within the Newtonian system.
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22533.452377
“AI4Science” refers to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in scientific research. As AI systems become more widely used in science, we need guidelines for when such uses are acceptable and when they are unacceptable. To that end, I propose that the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification, which comes from philosophy of science, may provide a preliminary but still useful guideline for acceptable uses of AI in science. Given that AI systems used in scientific research are black boxes, for the most part, we should use such systems in the context of discovery but not in the context of justification. The former refers to processes of idea generation, which may be unproblematically opaque whether they occur in human brains or artificial neural networks, whereas the latter refers to scientific methods by which scientific ideas are tested, confirmed, verified, and justified, which should be transparent.
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35895.452382
It is uncontroversial that definite plurals in natural language stand for pluralities and permit predicates that are inherently distributive as in (1a) as well as predicates that can apply both collectively or distributively, as in (1b): (1) a. The stones are grey. b. The stones are heavy.
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80190.452388
This paper presents a novel approach: using a digital calculation method for propositional logical reasoning. The paper demonstrates how to discover the primitive numbers and the digital calculation formulas by analyzing the truth tables. Then it illustrates how to calculate and compare the truth values of various expressions by using the digital calculation method. As an enhanced alternative to existing approaches, the proposed method transforms the statement-based or table-based reasoning into number-based reasoning. Thereby, it eliminates the need for using truth tables, and obviates the need for applying theorems, rewriting statements, and changing symbols. It provides a more streamlined solution for a single reasoning, while demonstrating more efficiency for multiple reasonings in long-term use. It is suitable for manual calculation, large-scale computation, AI and automated reasoning.
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98675.452394
In the third scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Gavin Elster asks his old college pal Scottie (Jimmy Stewart) to spy on his wife, because, Elster says, in what we later learn is a set-up, he suspects she’s been possessed by a dead woman. …
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123928.4524
How the semantic significance of numerical discourse gets determined is a metasemantic issue par excellence. At the sub-sentential level, the issue is riddled with difficulties due to the contested metaphysical status of the subject matter of numerical discourse, i.e. numbers and numerical properties and relations. I propose to set those difficulties aside and focus instead on the sentential level, specifically, on obvious affinities between whole numerical and non-numerical sentences and how their significance is determined. From such a perspective, Frege’s 1884 construction of number, while famously mathematically untenable, fares better than other approaches in the philosophy of mathematics. Despite the work’s foundational untenability, it is metasemantically superior to extant alternatives.
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195453.452405
Recently, several philosophers and physicists have increasingly noticed the hegemony of unitarity in the black hole information loss discourse and are challenging its legitimacy in the face of the measurement problem. They proclaim that embracing non-unitarity solves two paradoxes for the price of one. Though I share their distaste over the philosophical bias, I disagree with their strategy of still privileging certain interpretations of quantum theory. I argue that information-restoring solutions can be interpretation-neutral because the manifestation of non-unitarity in Hawking’s original derivation is unrelated to what’s found in collapse theories or generalized stochastic approaches, thereby decoupling the two puzzles.
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195470.45241
Theorists of probabilistic causality viewed causation as probability raising relative to particular contexts. In contrast, more recent graphical theories do not specify whether a cause raises or lowers the probability of its effect as part of the causal representation, but enable one to infer such quantitative facts from the joint probability distribution and additional causal assumptions. This difference between the accounts may seem minor, but here I argue that the emphasis among probabilistic theorists on probability raising reflected their not having an adequate theory of confounding and thus of the relationship between causal and probabilistic claims. The graphical account of confounding clarifies why causal relationships need not be identified with particular probabilistic relationships in particular populations, and thus why many of the earlier debates about probability raising in retrospect no longer appear to reflect substantive philosophical differences.
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195500.452416
This article presents a hypothesis on the C-value paradox from a dialectical materialism perspective and considers issues related to quantum chemistry. The C-value paradox arises from the divergence between the amount of DNA per haploid genome and the presupposed amount of information contained within the genes. The dialectical nature of the existing totality is proposed to establish the philosophical basis of the article’s arguments, and the limitations of sigma-additive functions and their natural generalization for counting genes in terms of the existence of non-linear dynamics underlying genetic processes are discussed. By considering eight key aspects of the underlying molecular development process involved in the formation of the genetic structure, a solution to the paradox is proposed that can be experimentally verified or refuted. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of a dialectical approach to understanding the C-value paradox and the current computational limitations for exploring the proposed hypothesis.
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195548.452421
The so-called Geometric Trinity of Gravity includes General Relativity (GR), based on spacetime curvature; the Teleparallel Equivalent of GR (TEGR), which relies on spacetime torsion; and the Symmetric Teleparallel Equivalent of GR (STEGR), grounded in nonmetricity. Recent studies demonstrate that GR, TEGR, and STEGR are dynamically equivalent, raising questions about the fundamental structure of spacetime, the under-determination of these theories, and whether empirical distinctions among them are possible. The aim of this work is to show that they are equivalent in many features but not exactly in everything. In particular, their relationship with the Equivalence Principle (EP) is different.
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210522.452427
In a number of papers, I argued against using hyperreal-valued probabilities to account for zero probability but nonetheless possible events, such as a randomly thrown dart hitting the exact center of the target, by assigning such phenomena non-zero but infinitesimal probability. …
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232068.452432
My response to Gabriele Gava’s Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (2023) focuses on Kant’s conception of the role of critique in the Critique of Pure Reason. On my account, Gava’s emphasis on the constructive elements of the Critique downplays the critique of former metaphysics elaborated in all three parts of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. After some comments on Kant’s conception of the Critique as a doctrine of method, I support this view by discussing the relation between transcendental philosophy and transcendental critique, Kant’s analysis of the faculties, and his transcendental deduction of space.
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234478.452441
I’m doing a bunch of events over the next month, with most open to the public. I’m also happy to do multiple meet-ups if there’s demand. In chronological order:
On January 21, a day after Trump’s inauguration, I’ll be part of a Reason Speakeasy on immigration in New York City. …
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301862.452446
Apparently Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, opined on an analyst call this week that quantum computing was plausibly still twenty years away from being practical. As a direct result, a bunch of publicly-traded quantum computing companies (including IonQ, Rigetti, and D-Wave) fell 40% or more in value, and even Google/Alphabet stock fell on the news. …
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303350.452451
“Sing, Muse, the rage of Achilles,” the Iliad says at its start. And what enraged Achilles? The fact that Agamemnon took from him a young woman he had captured in battle, who was originally given to him as part of his prize. The disputes at the start of the Iliad aren’t about whether you can take goods and people captured in battle—nobody doubts that. The question is who among the victors gets what. The English language still has more than one word for these goods, including “booty” and “spoils.” Then there’s predation, which comes from the Latin word for these spoils: praeda. The Greeks had the verb ἁρπάζω (harpadzo); in German, the noun is Kriegsbeute.
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308778.452457
A correspondent yesterday reminded me of a classic objection to the “inductive” approach to the causal principle that all contingent things have causes in the context of cosmological arguments. As I understand the objection, it goes like this:
- Granted, we have good reason to think that all the contingent things we observe do have causes. …
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308779.452463
[Part of: “Let Those Flatter Who Fear”: American Independence in Verse. This poem begins part 2, “Occupation and Massacre.”]
My Dear Countrymen: New duties have been laid on certain goods We’re bound by law to buy from England: glass, Paper, lead, paint, and tea. …
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310912.452468
Relational quantum mechanics (RQM) explains the world in terms of an ontology of systems and events, where an event consists of a variable of a system taking a value relative to another system. Two strands of RQM may be distinguished depending on whether events are taken to be absolute or relative. The arguments in this paper apply to both. I argue that, in order to solve the problem of measurement, RQM needs to offer a specification of the circumstances in which events occur. Current formulations of RQM claim that events occur whenever interactions occur, without further defining what is meant by ‘interaction’. I develop the most plausible ways of understanding the notion of interaction, but I show that they fail to provide a satisfactory specification for the occurrence of events. In light of these failed constructive efforts, I conclude that the prospects for formulating a version of RQM which both satisfies its aims and solves the problem of measurement are dim. Key words: Relational Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Measurement Problem.
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310935.452475
Discussions of theoretical equivalence typically only concern a theory’s dynamically possible models. Recently, however, March (2024) has shown that a theory’s kinematically possible models are also relevant to questions of theoretical equivalence. We apply March’s notion of kinematic equivalence to the difference between reduced and sophisticated theories introduced by Dewar (2019). Although Dewar claims that these are equivalent, Jacobs (2024) has argued that only sophisticated theories can explain what are otherwise ‘cosmic conspiracies’. We show that this is a consequence of reduced and sophisticated theories’ kinematical inequivalence. Furthermore, we use Caulton’s (2024) ‘downwards Hume’s dictum’ to show that kinematically inequivalent are also ontologically inequivalent.
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310957.452481
Pursuing a scientific idea is often justified by the promise associated with it. Philosophers of science have proposed a variety of approaches to such promise, including more specific indicators. Economic models in particular emphasise the trade-off between an idea’s benefits and its costs. Taking up this Peirce-inspired idea, we spell out the metaphor of such a cost-benefit analysis of scientific ideas. We show that it fruitfully urges a set of salient meta-methodological questions that accounts of scientific pursuit-worthiness ought to address. In line with such a meta-methodological framework, we articulate and explore an appealing and auspicious concretisation—what we shall dub “the virtue-economic account of pursuit-worthiness”: cognitive benefits and costs of an idea, we suggest, should be characterised in terms of an idea’s theoretical virtues, such as empirical adequacy, explanatory power, or coherence. Assessments of pursuit-worthiness are deliberative judgements in which scientifically competent evaluators weigh and compare the prospects of such virtues, subject to certain rationality constraints that ensure historical and contemporary scientific circumspection, coherence and systematicity. The virtue-economic account, we show, sheds new light on the normativity of scientific pursuit, methodological pluralism in science, and the rationality of historical science.
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310983.452488
Discussion of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), the hypothesis that an extraterrestrial civilization (ETC) is active on Earth today, is taboo in academia, but the assumptions behind this taboo are faulty. Advances in biology have rendered the notion that complex life is rare in our Galaxy improbable. The objection that no ETC would come to Earth to hide from us does not consider all possible alien motives or means. For an advanced ETC, the convergent instrumental goals of all rational agents – self-preservation and the acquisition of resources – would support the objectives of removing existential threats and gathering strategic and non-strategic information. It could advance these objectives by proactively gathering information about and from inhabited planets, concealing itself while doing so, and terminating potential rivals before they become too d angerous. Other hypotheses of ETC behavior, including the zoo/interdict hypothesis and the dark forest hypothesis also undercut the objection that the ETH is highly improbable. The ETH does not require support from extraordinary evidence because the presence of an ETC on Earth is not highly unlikely and would overturn none of our well-tested scientific knowledge. The fact that most reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) have natural or human explanations does not count against it. Inference to the best explanation offers a way to find evidence for this hypothesis , and some evidence for it exists, some of it taking the form of reliable witness reports. The most plausible alternative explanation for some UAP reports declines in probability over time. A hypothesis that is not highly improbable, does not contradict any well-established facts or theories, and explains otherwise unexplained evidence is a rational hypothesis. Since the ETH is a rational hypothesis, investigation of it should not be taboo.
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321552.452493
In November, I chided Austrian economists for neglecting the John Haltiwanger’s empirical work on creative destruction:
Around 2000, I discovered that John Haltiwanger, a very mainstream economist, had a pile of empirical evidence vindicating the importance of Schumpeterian creative destruction. …
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324860.452498
This paper delves into the character concept as applied to reproduction. Our argument is that the prevailing functional-adaptationist perspective falls short in explaining the evolution of reproductive traits, and we propose an alternative organismal-relational approach that incorporates the developmental and interactive aspects of reproduction. To begin, we define the functional individuation of reproductive traits as evolutionary strategies aimed at enhancing fitness, and we demonstrate how this perspective influences the classification of reproductive characters and modes, the comprehension of shared traits as resulting from conflicts of evolutionary interest between individuals, and the explanation of reproductive diversity. After outlining the shortcomings of this framework, we introduce an organismal-relational approach grounded in evolutionary developmental studies of reproduction. This view provides a revised classification for reproductive characters and modes and offers a new understanding of interorganismal traits that takes into account their inherently relational nature. Lastly, we present the research agenda that emerges from this approach, which addresses the core explanatory gaps left by the adaptationist perspective, including the explanation of reproductive homologies and homoplasies, the developmental constraints associated with the evolution of reproductive modes, and the evolvability of reproductive characters.
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325462.452503
The other day on LinkedIn the following message (written by a political philosopher whose identity is irrelevant here) came into my feed:
It caught my attention because it indirectly relates to a key question that all societies, especially liberal societies, have to answer: up to which point are we not accountable to others for what we do? …
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328030.452508
Introduction: Cotard delusion—the delusional belief “I am dead”—is named after the French psychiatrist who first described it: Jules Cotard (1880, 1882). Ramachandran and Blakeslee (1998) proposed that the idea “I am dead” comes to mind when a neuropathological condition has resulted in complete abolition of emotional responsivity to the world. The idea would arise as a putative explanation: if “I am dead” were true, there would be no emotional responsivity to the world.
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328096.452515
Introduction: People admitted to hospital as inpatients following head injury or stroke sometimes form the delusional belief that they are located somewhere else—often, near or in their home. This delusion was first described by Pick (1903), who named it “reduplicative paramnesia”; we argue instead for the term “location delusion”.
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368649.452522
Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founding fathers of quantum theory, remained throughout his life a critic of the “statistical” interpretation of quantum mechanics championed by Born, Heisenberg, and Bohr and accepted by almost all of his contemporaries. In particular, his coinage of the term “entanglement” and his famous cat paradox in [Schrödinger, 1935b] were intended to bring out what he saw as fundamental problems of the mainstream position. Together with the paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen (EPR) of 1935 [Einstein et al., 1935], which used an entangled state to argue that quantum mechanics cannot be a complete description of physical reality, it has become the foundation of a flourishing field of research in the nature and applications of quantum mechanical entanglement, such as quantum information theory and quantum computation. However, Schrödinger’s worries about entanglement and its implications for the interpretation of quantum theory did not start in 1935. Using his extensive research notes, we will discuss how the emergence of his worries can be dated all the way back to 1926, when quantum theory was first developed. Also based on his research notes and correspondence, we can show that in contrast to the received view among historians and philosophers of quantum theory, that Schrödinger’s 1935 paper was merely responding to the EPR publication, he actually struggled with the essential content of this argument four years earlier.