Questions tagged [philosophy-of-physics]
If your question is more physics and less philosophy, consider asking it on Physics.SE (possibly with the soft-question tag).
252
questions
2
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2answers
106 views
How/Why is the explanation/prediction of physical phenomena not deductive?
Why is the explanation of the triboelectric effect or the electrostatic effect(indicative examples) not deductive?
How so we have a set of premises and from them follows the conclusion which is what ...
0
votes
0answers
63 views
Axiomatic system and symbolic, formal, mathematical language
Is there any need for axiomatic systems to be in a symbolic, formal, mathematical language?
Equivalently is there any prohibition of axioms in axiomatic systems being in natural language?
In other ...
0
votes
0answers
38 views
Methodological universalities in Physics
Is there any methodological characteristic universal in Physics?
Even if some branches of Physics lose their reproducibility, their experimental testing, their deterministic predictivity isn't some ...
0
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0answers
329 views
Relation of reproducibility and the lack of contigencies with the scientific method
What is the relation of reproducibility and the lack of contigencies with the scientific method?
Quantum mechanics and Statistical physics/mechanics are vurnerable/suspectible to contigencies. We ...
3
votes
3answers
139 views
Is the idea of a causal chain physical (or even scientific)?
I am aware that the idea is venerable, going back through Lucretius to the Stoics and Epicurus, and even to Aristotle with his prime mover argument. But isn't this a pre-scientific notion? The ...
0
votes
4answers
109 views
Why Are Physical Observations Mathematical?
Why does Newton's law of gravitiation look the way it does? Why is the Gravitiational Consntant this specific value? Why do Maxwell's Equations look the way they do? Why is it that abstract quantities ...
2
votes
1answer
96 views
Would it be trivial to think the physical as those entities which are necessary for a maximally complete physics?
I've been studying physicalism for a presentation I'll be doing on Shelly Kagan's book Death. One of the slides is on its problems, and one of those problems is that we don't have a clear definition ...
1
vote
2answers
147 views
Why is it not necessary to to tell what force is?
In his book, "Science and Hypothesis" on page no. 98, Henri Poincaré write on subject of defining force:
[.....When we say force is the cause of motion, we are talking
metaphysics; and this ...
0
votes
1answer
94 views
About Wigner's view on the relation between mathematics and physics?
Physicist Eugene Wigner argued that
the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is
something bordering on the mysterious
and that
there is no rational explanation for it
...
3
votes
1answer
171 views
Did Stephen Hawking think that logic is contingent on physics?
According to this book*: Extrasensory Perception: Support, Skepticism, and Science, it says that Stephen Hawking thought that logic was contingent on physics, i.e that logic depends on the physics of ...
3
votes
3answers
148 views
Physical correlates of consciousness
The term neural correlates of consciousness is well established (~ 277,000 Google results, one Wikipedia article), but I'd like to ask for more general physical correlates of consciousness (~ 6,000 ...
-1
votes
3answers
97 views
If Newton's Principia / similar does not impose a rigid approach, then is physics rigorous?
I read from the Wikipedia site regarding the concept "paradigm" that:
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy attributes the following
description of the term to Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of ...
0
votes
0answers
310 views
How did Buddhism philosophy influence on Hideki Yukawa's thought?
Since physicist Hideki Yukawa was somewhat influenced by Oriental and Buddhist philosophy, he had some ideas about the complementarity of opposite things. In fact, when Niels Bohr published his ...
2
votes
0answers
62 views
Did physicist Erwin Schrödinger propose that reality could have contradictions?
Did Schrödinger believe that contradictory or inconsistent things could exist in reality?
Was Schrödinger some kind of dialetheist?
1
vote
0answers
77 views
What were the arguments Hawking considered naive against imaginary time?
background
So I recently I read this.
I believe that you are correct; I think an inclusion of that might
make the article a bit clearer. Hawking used that explanation to
rebuke a naive ...
0
votes
0answers
35 views
Non-demarcation between internalist and externalist accounts?
Question
Are the internalist and externalist accounts of perception such as vision possible?
Background
Philosophers distinguish internalist accounts, which assume that
perceptions of objects, ...
1
vote
1answer
147 views
What does it mean to say that physics is a 'masculine' subject (in the West) and not in Palestine? [closed]
According to Dr. Kate Shaw, a British physicist:
It is a known phenomenon in the Arab world that the number of women studying physics surpasses that of men, and in Palestine, I saw this most ...
-1
votes
2answers
208 views
Is a quantum theory that is indigenously quantum mechanical a real possibility?
The general approach to Quantum Mechanics is that one first takes a classical system and then quantise to obtain a quantum mechanical system. This holds for QM itself, and QFT such as QED and QCD and ...
0
votes
1answer
54 views
Boltzmann brain - how are the laws of physics presented?
Does the Boltzmann brain scenario also assume that the laws of physics are presented consistently for each individual brain? In other words:
1) Why do we assume that the types of brains fluctuated ...
4
votes
1answer
125 views
What kind of philosophy of the foundations of physics can there be?
I'm currently trying to read into topos foundations for theories of physics and I wonder if we are really able to give a philosophical foundation for what a possible future theory of physics should ...
2
votes
3answers
132 views
What kind of questions can science answer?
Please bear with me, as I am self-studying philosophy as a beginner.
My questions are about the limitations of empirical science.
During my reading of some books, I've come across statements of the ...
3
votes
1answer
67 views
How influential was “galvanism” on philosophy, and was it rightfully so?
I'm currently reading F. W. Schelling's "First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature". Schelling, a late 18th-early 19th century philosopher, was very well-informed about contemporary ...
3
votes
0answers
100 views
Removal of the distinction between the “initial condition” and the “laws of physics”?
Background and Question
Here's something I was wondering: The (known) laws of physics can be formulated in such a way that one say: "initial condition" + "laws of physics" gives us a "final solution."...
1
vote
5answers
206 views
A comprehensive introduction to relationship between math and experience
I am a mathematician with interest in physics and pure logic and exists one problem: the connection between math and physics.
Math concerned on pure universal truths and physics concerned on ...
2
votes
1answer
166 views
Did physicist Eugene Wigner think that every mathematical structure existed as an isolated universe?
I have read that Eugene Paul Wigner thought that all mathematical structures had physical existence.
Does that mean that he believed in a multiverse containing all mathematical structures as separate ...
3
votes
2answers
163 views
Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe
Max Tegmark believes the universe to be a mathematical structure, and he further claims any mathematical structure with self-aware substructure will perceive itself in a physical world. What exactly ...
0
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0answers
89 views
Does Barrow and Tipler's “anthropic principle-multiverse” entail the existence of all logically possible universes?
I've read several texts that indicate that the anthropic principle (applied to cosmology, and more specifically, to the multiverse) yields the existence of all logically possible universes (most like ...
3
votes
2answers
166 views
Did physicist Max Born think that mathematical structures are platonic entities?
It seems that prominent physicist Max Born (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Born) believed in some kind of Platonism.
We can infer this, for example, from the book "The Innermost Kernel" (https://...
5
votes
1answer
164 views
Inconsistency of Classical Electrodynamics
What is the status of the critique of Mathias Frisch's on the consistency of Classical Electrodynamics?
And what exactly is his claim in succinct answer?
Thanks!
4
votes
1answer
126 views
Did anyone argue against the possibility of a perfect prediction from within a system?
Did anyone offer an argument against the possibility of a perfect and complete prediction about a system from within that system along the following lines:
Let's imagine a machine (like a desktop ...
1
vote
0answers
170 views
Are Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis and Seth Lloyd's Cosmological Model compatible?
I have been interested in Seth Lloyd's cosmological model (which proposes that the universe is a some kind of quantum computer or at least similar to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
0
votes
1answer
124 views
Does the reversibility of laws of physics prove that causality doesn't exist?
Does the fact that the fundamental laws are symmetric with respect to direction of time show that causation does not exist? Since causality always requires the cause to precede the effect, but laws of ...
1
vote
1answer
182 views
Is the event of death deterministic?
It's 5 months since I lost my dad in a factory accident. His manner of death is obviously the biggest tragedy of my life, but now when I contemplate about it, the Physics of the event seem so unlikely....
0
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0answers
191 views
Is it there any direct relation between Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis and the Holographic Principle?
I would like to ask you about Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis and its relation to the holographic principle: Could we use the holographic principle as a framework to Tegmark's MUH?
I mean, ...
0
votes
4answers
275 views
Would this experiment establish whether wave function collapse is caused by consciousness?
I'm currently writing an article on the philosophy of physics. Part of the article involves an experiment which would substantiate whether or not consciousness causes wave function collapse. Many ...
1
vote
0answers
34 views
What is Quine’s reductionism?
I am especially interested in how reductionism is related to the fact that even though science broadly comprehends a number of subjects, physics is paradigmatic.
1
vote
0answers
85 views
What is the meaning of using a mathematical structure to describe physics?
I'm trying to understand the meaning of using a mathematical structure in order to do physics, what does this really mean?
My idea is that first we performs experiments on a physical system in order ...
1
vote
0answers
173 views
Multiverse and the anthropic principle?
In this paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0211048) by physicist Andrei Linde, the multiverse concept, the anthropic principle, quantum cosmology and inflationary cosmology are discussed.
In the ...
1
vote
1answer
88 views
Is it there any specific and well known continous/analog alternative to Wheeler's discrete “It from Bit”?
Physicist John A Wheeler (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler) suggested the concept of "law without law" and "it from bit" which suggested that the universe did not have any laws ...
1
vote
1answer
204 views
Examples of theories that assume the existence of an “External Reality”?
In this paper written by physicist Max Tegmark (https://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.0646.pdf) it talks about "External Reality Hypothesis". Specifically, he says:
Although many physicists subscribe to the ...
3
votes
3answers
380 views
Do forces really exist?
In physics there are 4 fundamental forces the EM force, the weak and strong forces and gravity.
Now gravity is already a bit declassified as a force by the curved spacetime theory of Einstein.
But ...
2
votes
2answers
116 views
Must the physical phenomenon of the universe be differentiable?
The use of Calculus for the analysis of real-world phenomenon depends entirely on our universe not only being continuous, but being differentiable.
By "real-world phenomenon" I mean things like the ...
2
votes
1answer
352 views
What is the relevance of applicability to the natural sciences in pure mathematics?
I think I am coming to a good, new understanding of the relationship of pure mathematics to the natural sciences. A major concern of mine is just how reliable is rigorous (characteristically "pure") ...
1
vote
0answers
45 views
About the advantages of the propensity perspective on probability
I am wandering what are the advantages of the propensity perspective on probability. Why would it be better to explain probability in physics? Except for the fact that it solves various problems of ...
1
vote
3answers
110 views
What is the relation between the propensity interpretation of probability and probability in physics?
I would like to know what physicists think about the propensity viewpoint.If this latter one is in line with physics and especially Quantum Mechanics. Otherwise, what is the most coherent ...
3
votes
1answer
233 views
If our world is mathematical، Does not this increase the probability of being complex as well?
Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis, posits that reality is a mathematical structure.
This mathematical nature of the universe, Tegmark argues, has important consequences for the way ...
3
votes
1answer
119 views
Random Emergence
In De Caelo 300b, Aristotle introduces the idea of the random emergence of the natural:
"it is possible that with this disorderly motion some of the elements might have unified in those combinations ...
5
votes
1answer
302 views
Are there examples of when verificationism doesn't hold in Physics?
Are there examples of when verificationism doesn't hold in the context of Physics?
I intend to relate this to some discussion of Einstein's use of verificationism to discard Ether in the magnet ...
2
votes
0answers
119 views
Imaginary part of the world behind the event horizon [closed]
Outside the event horizon of a black hole, quantum field theory and General Relativity are completely sufficient for understanding the physics of what occurs; that is what Hawking radiation is. But ...
4
votes
3answers
156 views
Are the Bohmian and Copenhagen interpretations of QM isomorphic?
I'm writing an essay comparing Bohmian Mechanics to the standard Copenhagen interpretation and came across the notion that Bohmian mechanics implies a fundamental epistemic uncertainty to how we can ...
