for applied philosophical questions about the study of science, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the scientific method
3
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1answer
78 views
Quantum Mechanics and Logic
I heard several times that the results of quantum mechanics (double-slit experiment for instance ) challenge our logic. One example of that is the famous physicist Lawrence Krauss.
He keeps ...
-6
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1answer
33 views
Why do adult humans play popular sport as a profession? [closed]
Why do adult humans play popular sport as a profession? Why won't everyone play it as a recreation?
Technological innovation has brought us to the modern world. Leadership and politics have shaped the ...
-1
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1answer
41 views
What is our knowledge of the universe dependent on? By what method do we gain more knowledge? [closed]
Is our knowledge of the universe based on measurements and observations being used to approximate natural (physical) law or is it the other way around, where we have a physical law and try to get ...
-1
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0answers
18 views
What is necessary in life? [closed]
I feel deep within myself that everything we do here except searching for one's own reason of existence is futile. Yet, I cannot run away from this material world due of apprehension of being called a ...
2
votes
2answers
133 views
Why do we assume that we know there is a difference between something and nothing?
For example, we ask questions like: Why is there something rather than nothing? it implies that we know the characteristics of what constitutes nothing and something. What if what we perceive as ...
2
votes
1answer
66 views
Are electron fields physically real?
Although atoms had been discussed since antiquity as a theory of matter it
was only at the beginning of the 20th century that convincing evidence
was found, through brownian motion - in fact this was ...
4
votes
2answers
68 views
Are there thought experiments in the discourse of continental philosophers?
This isn't a serious question of philosophy, but more about philosophical style.
For example: Nagel's Bat and Searle's Chinese room & Frank Jacksons's Knowledge argument are all thought ...
4
votes
0answers
45 views
Must explanatory mathematical systems of the world lead to infinite regress?
Call the world as it presents itself to us world-1
The regularity & order in the world demands explanation - hence we have a mathematically consistent description of the world. Call this world-2.
...
0
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1answer
71 views
What kind of universe would there be with entirely different physical laws?
Fine-tuning of constants in the standard model is an acknowledged mainstream physical question and not an eccentric one.
Looking at this carefully what one is saying is why do the parameters of this ...
4
votes
1answer
74 views
Are simple physical laws actually simple?
This is a question about the philosophy of physics. If one takes a glance at the philosophy of mathematics its easy to see that the idea of number is filled with philosophical niceties and is a much ...
1
vote
0answers
32 views
Is the Anglo-Analytical tradition founded on rejecting the principle of sufficient reason?
In this blog-post on a criticism of Nagels book Mind & Cosmos the author makes the assertion:
This is no surprise because analytical philosophy was founded in the act of rejecting PSR. Our ...
1
vote
1answer
62 views
Is the teleological argument for God completely refuted?
Teleological arguments for the existence of God have a long history and straddle Greek Antiquity (Platos Divine Artificer), Islam (Averroes) and Christianity (Aquinas) and currently and most famously ...
0
votes
2answers
52 views
Can something exist without energy?
Einstein showed that energy is matter; for something to exist in a physical sense it must be incarnated as matter. So on the face of it - it seems that the answer should be no.
However what about ...
3
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0answers
36 views
Physics and Nozick's explanatory self-subsumption
What happened with Nozick's idea of the self-subsuming explanation after his Philosophical Explanations?
In particular and actually only, I'm interested to learn about published attempts to use or ...
2
votes
3answers
97 views
Is the conservation of energy actually a characterisation rather than an imposed or deduced law?
Historically speaking, the conservation of energy has been deduced from the quantitive physical theories from the Renaissance onwards. Gradually the importance of this law was recognised and ...
-4
votes
1answer
45 views
Can planets be subject to entanglement? [closed]
Proven in Quantum Physics when two particles become entangled, the spin of one directly correlates with the spin of the other. Is this possible on a larger scale with the spin of planets? Could ...
-2
votes
0answers
49 views
Do all humans share the same soul called god? [closed]
If the soul was ingrained in the human body, it would be removable.
One could conclude that an arm was to be lost, that person would still be himself and the soul intact. And that arm lost would ...
7
votes
5answers
423 views
What makes Humans different from a chemical computer?
Are we all robots? Is our DNA the 0's and 1's of computer code? Are we an advanced computer system, with instead of keyboard and mouse input... input from our senses. Our database being our brain ...
-3
votes
2answers
114 views
Is human consciousness encoded in DNA in an infinitely regressive way?
Human DNA contains roughly 3 Billion base-pairs. That is 1.5 Gigabytes of data. This can easily fit onto a small usb memory stick.
Can something as complex as a human consciousness be derivable from ...
0
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0answers
45 views
What is the actual process of realization?
What is the actual process of realization? What are the factors that must coexist at the same time in order to set the brain's state of realizing something?
I found that In probability and ...
0
votes
1answer
33 views
Attribution of quote “The apparent duck becomes an obvious rabbit”?
The quote
The apparent duck becomes an obvious rabbit
refers to a paradigm shift. I've only seen one paper including it, and the author uses it as if it is common. Is it used elsewhere, or with ...
2
votes
1answer
65 views
How is the idea of an explosion represented in a purely Aristotelian physics?
Given the need to explain an explosion of a flour mill, assuming a purely Aristotelian paradigm, what concepts could be used to explain the mill's destruction?
This question is to help more ...
1
vote
2answers
71 views
Is the anthropic principle in physics falsifiable?
The Anthropic Principle states that the fundamental physics of the universe must allow the possibility of conscious life in the universe - as that is an observable fact.
It's often qualified as ...
1
vote
2answers
68 views
How exactly does antireductionism undermine the scientific method?
I was reading a wikipedia article on Antireductionism. What I cannot understand is how exactly does antireductionism undermine the "scientific method" to a certain degree?
4
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5answers
285 views
Can we dispense with ontology in physics?
Is it possible to have a satisfactory physics which is content to describe everything in terms of operational (functional) properties? Could it therefore be the case that ontology is a useless concept ...
4
votes
2answers
171 views
A Popper question about corroboration
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction#Karl_Popper
The rational motivation for choosing a well-corroborated theory is
that it is simply easier to falsify: Well-corroborated means ...
7
votes
3answers
175 views
Is meditation valid to study consciousness scientifically?
In the study of consciousness, neuroscience observes mental phenomena through physical correlations, using techniques such as fMRI, PET and EEG. These are considered valid and reproductible, and can ...
1
vote
1answer
79 views
How does one explain (apparent) nonexistence?
There is quite a bit of fun in building a little web of questions and answers throughout StackExchange. (Let's call it an exercise in interdisciplinarity.)
"Molecular biologist Robin Holliday has ...
5
votes
3answers
221 views
What are the most basic assumptions one has to make in order to conduct science?
I often wondered: What are the most basic assumptions I have to make before I can even start thinking about life, universe and the rest?
So far I have boiled them down to three:
There is a world, a ...
2
votes
2answers
175 views
What does Einstein's quote “If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts” mean?
What did Einstein really mean by saying:
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
4
votes
4answers
233 views
Does Albert Einstein's interpretation of Ockham's razor violate it?
An often-quoted version of Ockham's razor (that can not be verified as being posited by Einstein himself) says "Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler."
Doesn't it violate ...
2
votes
2answers
121 views
Does everything which can be figured out through observation disqualify as philosophy?
Does a scientific question which we have not yet had the resources or time to answer scientifically classify as philosophically relevant? Or does everything which can be figured out through ...
4
votes
0answers
32 views
Suggested intro level readings for Realism vs. Anti-Realism in Philosophy of Science?
So I'll likely be teaching an undergraduate class on Realism vs. Anti-Realism in the Philosophy of Science next fall. I figured I'd fish for some suggestions on accessible and engaging literature in ...
5
votes
2answers
117 views
Was Karl Popper a “dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism”? If so, why, or how?
While reading the Wikipedia article on Karl Popper, I was surprised to find that one of the article's sources, in its lede paragraph, claims that Karl Popper was a "dedicated opponent of all forms of ...
1
vote
2answers
74 views
How susceptible is the scientific community to politics and other intrusion? [closed]
As someone who has just obtained his BSc. in Software Engineering, I'd like to think that I have seen a fair bit of both the good and bad in human tendencies. One of the bad tendencies is to be ...
2
votes
3answers
125 views
Is materialism actually material?
physicalism allows for forces such as gravity which on the face of it are not material as say the cup of tea I have to hand. So materialism literally taken seems to be wrong.
But looking at this more ...
4
votes
3answers
219 views
Is discreteness an emergent property?
The Riemann zeta function is a continuous function which encodes the properties of the primes; string theory, a proposed theory of particles, considers continuous objects; through QM discreetness of ...
5
votes
2answers
104 views
How would you describe the relationship of science and philosophy of science?
How would you describe the relationship of science and philosophy of science? Is it a worldview that sets a tone to scientific jargon? I mean that statements of eg. physics are under submission of the ...
2
votes
1answer
90 views
Can sheaf-theory help interpret Quantum Mechanics?
The Copenhagen interpretation posits a boundary in the World between the observer and the non-observer (that is the rest of the World). There is knowledge (Observables measured) associated with each ...
3
votes
1answer
79 views
Has there been any success in using modal logic to interpret Quantum Mechanics?
Quantum Mechanics rather famously has problems in interpretation - straightforward realism doesn't appear to work. Is there any work with modal logic that throws light on this question?
The SEP has ...
-3
votes
4answers
228 views
What can suffice as a scientific proof for God? to what domain can such a proof belong to? [closed]
"Scientific" theories require proof, and there are certain guidelines and standards for the proofs to be acceptable to the "scientific" community in that domain (Algebra, Computer Science, etc.). ...
5
votes
4answers
170 views
Is scientism a self defeating epistemology?
Some who have argued against the validity of scientism have argued that the view that only science can uncover truth is not a scientific discovery but rather a epistemology. Hence it has been claimed ...
1
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0answers
40 views
Is there any evidence that any philosophers in Antiquity viewed space itself as a something?
In Lucretious poem De Natura, he has
They [atoms] move through the void
In contemporary usage a vacuum is the the removal of all matter from space, it stems from Latin adjective vacuus for empty ...
4
votes
1answer
81 views
Was Kants formulation of mathematics as synthetic a priori a forerunner to the Russellian campaign to reduce mathematics to logic?
Kant showed that mathematics was synthetic a priori. For example the laws of arithmetic or of euclidean geometry, and noted that this had escaped the notice of previous thinkers, they had assumed them ...
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votes
2answers
103 views
existence of objects under the microscope
Can there be any difference between the existence of things we sense directly and things we
sense using instruments like microscope?
Along the same lines , is it possible that some objects around ...
4
votes
1answer
72 views
Is there a philosophical antecedent to the physical idea of waves in media?
In Physics there are two large themes in conceptualising the world - atoms & waves.
I'm familiar with the work of the greek atomists, is there a philosophical precursor to waves? From what I've ...
1
vote
0answers
88 views
Are social sciences currently 'real' sciences? [closed]
Examples for natural sciences: physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology
Social sciences: psychology, sociology, criminology, psychiatry
Natural science has very good mathematical laws and algorithms ...
0
votes
1answer
131 views
Anti-realistic and relativistic perspectives on science
Examples for natural sciences: physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology
Social sciences: psychology, sociology, criminology, psychiatry
Scientists construct knowledge in order to better understand ...
9
votes
3answers
321 views
What would a quantum interpretation without ontology be like?
Luboš Motl keeps insisting quantum mechanics invalidates ontology, and has made ontology obsolete, just like phlogiston. What would metaphysics without ontology look like, where words like "existence" ...
0
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1answer
89 views
Philosophically what does it mean to be committed to the existence of electrons? [closed]
In our immediate perception electrons are not seen and their existence must be inferred.
Are we in the same position as say the ancient greeks were when they were speculating that the Earth was a ...
