Causality and Duality in Cosmology Peter Wilson
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01. Pre-Socratic Cosmology and Plato I. Basic Issues (1) Metaphysical (A) What Do Things Consist Of? • One Substance (Monism) Socrates ("SOH-Kra-Teez") Died: 399 B.C
01. Pre-Socratic Cosmology and Plato I. Basic Issues (1) Metaphysical (a) What do things consist of? • one substance (monism) Socrates ("SOH-kra-teez") Died: 399 B.C. • many substances (pluralism) Problem of the One and the Many - How is diversity derived from unity? - How is unity derived from diversity? (b) What is the nature of change? (2) Epistemological (a) What is the nature of knowledge? (b) How is knowledge obtained? Three questions to keep in mind: 1. What counts as a "scientific" explanation of a phenomenon? • An account of the causes of the phenomenon? • An account that places the phenomenon within a larger explanatory framework? • An account of the phenomenon that indicates how it follows from basic laws of nature? 2. What counts as "scientific" knowledge? • Knowledge of causes, natural laws, and/or general physical principles? • Knowledge based on observation and inductive inference? • Knowledge that makes no appeal to supernatural causes? 3. What distinguishes a natural explanation from a supernatural explanation? • testability? • reliability? • accuracy? • repeatability? II. Pre-Socratics (~6th - 5th cent. B.C.) 1. Milesians and Monism (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes) Thales ("THAY-leez") ~585 B.C. • The Earth rests on water. • Water is the archê (source) of all things. • All things are full of gods. • The magnet has a soul. Anaximander ("Ah-NAX-ee-mander") ~550 B.C. • Monism based on "apeiron". • "apeiron" = the infinite/indeterminate/unlimited. • lacking in qualities (boundedness, determinateness, limits, etc). Possible motivation • Observable phenomena are constituted from earth, air, fire, water. • But the elements are opposed to each other. • Thus, there must be some basic neutral substratum devoid of qualities out of which everything, including the elements, is constituted. -
BY PLATO• ARISTOTLE • .AND AQUINAS I
i / REF1,l!;CTit.>NS ON ECONOMIC PROBLEMS / BY PLATO• ARISTOTLE • .AND AQUINAS ii ~FLECTIONS ON ECONO:MIC PROBLEMS 1 BY PLA'I'O, ARISTOTLE, JJJD AQUINAS, By EUGENE LAIDIBEL ,,SWEARINGEN Bachelor of Science Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Collage Stillwater, Oklahoma 1941 Submitted to the Depertmeut of Economics Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE 1948 iii f.. 'I. I ···· i·: ,\ H.: :. :· ··: ! • • ~ ' , ~ • • !·:.· : i_ ·, 1r 1i1. cr~~rJ3t L l: i{ ,\ I~ Y , '•T •)() 1 0 ,1 8 API-'HOV~D BY: .J ,.· 1.., J l.;"t .. ---- -··- - ·- ______.,.. I 7 -.. JI J ~ L / \ l v·~~ u ' ~) (;_,LA { 7 {- ' r ~ (\.7 __\ _. ...A'_ ..;f_ ../-_" ...._!)_.... ..." ___ ......._ ·;...;;; ··-----/ 1--.,i-----' ~-.._.._ :_..(__,,---- ....... Member of the Report Committee 1..j lj:,;7 (\ - . "'·- -· _ .,. ·--'--C. r, .~-}, .~- Q_ · -~ Q.- 1Head of the Department . · ~ Dean of the Graduate School 502 04 0 .~ -,. iv . r l Preface The purpose and plan of this report are set out in the Introduction. Here, I only wish to express my gratitude to Professor Russell H. Baugh who has helped me greatly in the preparation of this report by discussing the various subjects as they were in the process of being prepared. I am very much indebted to Dr. Harold D. Hantz for his commentaries on the report and for the inspiration which his classes in Philosophy have furnished me as I attempted to correlate some of the material found in these two fields, Ecor!.Omics and Philosophy. I should like also to acknowledge that I owe my first introduction into the relationships of Economics and Philosophy to Dean Raymond Thomas, and his com~ents on this report have been of great value. -
Philosophy of Science -----Paulk
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE -----PAULK. FEYERABEND----- However, it has also a quite decisive role in building the new science and in defending new theories against their well-entrenched predecessors. For example, this philosophy plays a most important part in the arguments about the Copernican system, in the development of optics, and in the Philosophy ofScience: A Subject with construction of a new and non-Aristotelian dynamics. Almost every work of Galileo is a mixture of philosophical, mathematical, and physical prin~ a Great Past ciples which collaborate intimately without giving the impression of in coherence. This is the heroic time of the scientific philosophy. The new philosophy is not content just to mirror a science that develops independ ently of it; nor is it so distant as to deal just with alternative philosophies. It plays an essential role in building up the new science that was to replace 1. While it should be possible, in a free society, to introduce, to ex the earlier doctrines.1 pound, to make propaganda for any subject, however absurd and however 3. Now it is interesting to see how this active and critical philosophy is immoral, to publish books and articles, to give lectures on any topic, it gradually replaced by a more conservative creed, how the new creed gener must also be possible to examine what is being expounded by reference, ates technical problems of its own which are in no way related to specific not to the internal standards of the subject (which may be but the method scientific problems (Hurne), and how there arises a special subject that according to which a particular madness is being pursued), but to stan codifies science without acting back on it (Kant). -
Dialectical Materialism and Subject: Monism and Dialectic
経済学論纂(中央大学)第57巻第 3 ・ 4 合併号(2017年 3 月) 243 Dialectical Materialism and Subject: Monism and Dialectic Hideki Shibata Introduction Chapter 1 Critique of Tadashi Kato Chapter 2 Sartre’s Theory of Subject Chapter 3 Language and Subject: the Social Origin of Transcendental Beings Conclusion Introduction I have translated three of Tadashi Kato’s articles (Kato 2014; Kato 2015; Kato 2016). In these articles, Kato seizes Marx’s monistic argument, but divides dialectics into the dialectic of cognition and the dialectic of objects, and finally turns to the dualism of cognition and the objective world because of Engels’ influence. Hegel’s dialectic was born as the identity of substance and subject (substance is subject) in its birthplace, the Phenomenology of Spirit, but this means the identity of being and cogni- tion.1) It does not mean that there are two kinds of dialectic. To overcome the dualism that remained after Kant was one of the principle themes of German Idealist Philosophy, and Marx also inherited this critically important issue. Marx’s monism, however, does not mean that “we must understand man as a being who produces himself and his world” (Landgrebe 1966, p. 10). Marx’s monism does not character- ize the world as the product of the constitutive operations of the human subject. Sartre un- derstood Marx’s real intention, and developed it in his articles (Cf. Omote 2014). In the con- clusion of Transcendence of the Ego, Sartre writes, “a working hypothesis as fruitful as historical materialism,” and follows it with a criticism of Engels’ materialism, which “never This paper owes much to the thoughtful and helpful comments and advices of the editor of Editage(by Cactus Communications). -
Aristotle's Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of
Aristotle’s Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University Keren Wilson Shatalov, MLitt Graduate Program in Philosophy The Ohio State University 2019 Dissertation Committee: Allan Silverman, Adviser Tamar Rudavsky Lisa Downing ii Copyright by Keren Wilson Shatalov 2019 iii Abstract In my dissertation I examine Aristotle’s concept of matter by highlighting the tools from his Organon which he uses to introduce matter in his Physics. I make use of logical concepts Aristotle develops in his work on explanation in Posterior Analytics, especially his concept of subject or ὑποκείμενον, to argue that matter, for Aristotle, must be understood not as a distinct ontological category but as a term of art denoting a part of an explanation in natural philosophy. By presenting an analysis of Aristotle’s concept of ὑποκείμενον from his logical works, I show how Aristotle uses it to spell out just what explanatory role matter plays, and what this means for what it is to be matter. I argue that when Aristotle uses the term “ὑποκείμενον” to name a principle of change in Physics A, he is employing the logical concept which he had made use of and developed in his logical works, contra prominent readings which argue instead that the term in Physics is a distinct technical term, homonymous with the logical term. Further, I offer a new reading of the concept of ὑποκείμενον in the logical works. On my reading, a genuine ὑποκείμενον is something which, just by being what it is or ὅπερ x τι, is what is presupposed by something else, y, and which grounds and partially explains the presence of that y. -
NIETZSCHE and NIHILISM Brian Gilbert a Thesis Submitted In
NIETZSCHE AND NIHILISM Brian Gilbert A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education Department of Theory and Policy Ontario hstitute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto O Copyright by Brian Gilbert (1999) National Library Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON KtA ON4 canada canada Your Me Votre reference Our Ne Notre ref6rence The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, ban, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/fïlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. NIETZSCHE AND NIHILISM Brian Howard Gilbert, Ed. D., 1999 Department of Theory and Policy Studies University of Toronto ABSTRACT The failure of Hegel's attempt at a 'grand' synthesis of Platonic and Christian thought has forced upon continental philosophy a radical rethinking and reevaluation of both metaphysics and theology -what Heidegger has called the onto-theological tradition. -
Perceived Reality, Quantum Mechanics, and Consciousness
7/28/2015 Cosmology About Contents Abstracting Processing Editorial Manuscript Submit Your Book/Journal the All & Indexing Charges Guidelines & Preparation Manuscript Sales Contact Journal Volumes Review Order from Amazon Order from Amazon Order from Amazon Order from Amazon Order from Amazon Cosmology, 2014, Vol. 18. 231-245 Cosmology.com, 2014 Perceived Reality, Quantum Mechanics, and Consciousness Subhash Kak1, Deepak Chopra2, and Menas Kafatos3 1Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078 2Chopra Foundation, 2013 Costa Del Mar Road, Carlsbad, CA 92009 3Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866 Abstract: Our sense of reality is different from its mathematical basis as given by physical theories. Although nature at its deepest level is quantum mechanical and nonlocal, it appears to our minds in everyday experience as local and classical. Since the same laws should govern all phenomena, we propose this difference in the nature of perceived reality is due to the principle of veiled nonlocality that is associated with consciousness. Veiled nonlocality allows consciousness to operate and present what we experience as objective reality. In other words, this principle allows us to consider consciousness indirectly, in terms of how consciousness operates. We consider different theoretical models commonly used in physics and neuroscience to describe veiled nonlocality. Furthermore, if consciousness as an entity leaves a physical trace, then laboratory searches for such a trace should be sought for in nonlocality, where probabilities do not conform to local expectations. Keywords: quantum physics, neuroscience, nonlocality, mental time travel, time Introduction Our perceived reality is classical, that is it consists of material objects and their fields. On the other hand, reality at the quantum level is different in as much as it is nonlocal, which implies that objects are superpositions of other entities and, therefore, their underlying structure is wave-like, that is it is smeared out. -
New Materialism and Postmodern Subject Models Fail to Explain Human Memory and Self-Awareness: a Comment on Tobias-Renstrøm and Køppe (2020)
Theory & Psychology, 2020, 31(1), 130-137 New materialism and postmodern subject models fail to explain human memory and self-awareness: A comment on Tobias-Renstrøm and Køppe (2020) Radek Trnka Prague College of Psychosocial Studies, Czech Republic ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3731-468X Abstract Tobias-Renstrøm and Køppe (2020) show the several conceptual limits that new materialism and postmodern subject models have for psychological theory and research. The present study continues in this discussion and argues that the applicability of the ideas of quantum-inspired new materialism depends on the theoretical perspectives that we consider for analysis: be it the first-person perspective referring to the subjective experience of a human subject, or the third-person perspective, in which a human subject is observed by an external observer. While the arguments of new materialism are in accordance with the analysis of the act of observation performed by an external observer, some problems arise when trying to theoretically approach the first-person subjective experience of a human subject. For example, new materialism fails to explain why human minds can maintain the awareness of a subject’s identity throughout their lives and to recall the memories about their past personal experiences. Keywords: subject models, quantum, observer effect, experience, consciousness, conscious experience, memory, self-awareness, theoretical psychology, new materialism, first-person perspective, third-person perspective, mind, body, sense of body ownership, -
Philosophy's Subjects
PARRHESIA NUMBER 3 • 2007 • 55 – 72 PHILOSOPhy’s SUBJECTS Nina Power 1. INTRODUCTION: AN INDISPENSABLE TERM? There are manifold ways of articulating the term ‘subject’ that ultimately bear upon philosophy, and simultaneously, many modes of philosophising that have implications for a conception of the subject. What is surprising, given the term’s indispensability in discussions ranging from politics to philosophy of mind, is the scant conceptual analysis usually devoted to the term. It is as if its theoretical, linguistic and practical ambivalences were acknowledged a priori to be too intricate to untangle. ‘The philosophy of the subject,’ writes Paul Ricoeur, ‘has never existed; rather, there have been a series of reflective styles, arising out of the work of redefinition which the challenge itself has imposed.’1 Adorno also discusses the resistance of ‘subject’ (and ‘object’) to definition: ‘The determination of their meanings requires reflection on the very thing the act of defining truncates for the sake of conceptual manageability.’2 We can go further and state that the question of the subject is not only a problem for ‘reflective’ styles of philosophy (Ricoeur identifies this lineage with the figures of Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Husserl),3 but for any thinking that concerns the relationship between humanity, thought and practice. ‘It goes without saying,’ writes Vincent Descombes, ‘that philosophy as such, or at least modern philosophy, was on the side of an affirmation of man as “subject”.’4 The subject haunts philosophical and political conceptualisations as both the presupposed bearer of thought (either at the level of the individual, the self, the philosopher him or herself, or at the level of the species) and as the quality of this bearing itself (for instance, as the passive substrate denoted by the Greek hypokeimenon, or an active force, as in Marx’s early conception of the proletariat as a collective subject). -
Agent, Person, Subject, Self
Agent, person, subject, self PAUL KOCKELMAN Abstract Building on ideas developed in ‘The semiotic stance’ (2005), this essay out- lines a social and semiotic theory of four seemingly human-specific and individual-centric capacities that, while essential for understanding modern social processes, are often confused and conflated. Loosely speaking, agency is a causal capacity: say, the relatively flexible wielding of means towards ends. Subjectivity is a representational capacity: say, the holding of inten- tional states such as belief and desire. Selfhood is a reflexive capacity: say, being the means and ends of one’s own actions, or being the object of one’s own beliefs and desires. And personhood is a sociopolitical capacity: say, rights and responsibilities attendant on being an agent, subject or self. 1. Why do we care? Take the words in the title of these essays: agent, person, subject, self. What do they mean? Why do they belong together? Why do we need to theorize them? And what are the stakes involved in choosing one theory over another? The short answer to all these questions is this: each of us should care deeply about the meaning of such words precisely because they attempt to capture why we care so deeply about meaning. More generally, to theorize these words is to reflexively theorize the key terms in the above questions: care, depth, choice, stakes, meaning, belong- ing, aboutness, and us. That is, with this reflexive turn we are not only try- ing to characterize the features of some object viewed through some frame — an object which is just the viewer at one degree of remove — but also the features of the frame through which the object is being viewed. -
Philosophy of Cosmology - Ellis
Philosophy of cosmology - Ellis ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF COSMOLOGY George Ellis 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 UNIQUENESS OF THE UNIVERSE 1.2 USE OF MODELS IN DESCRIPTION 1.3 USE OF MODELS IN EXPLANATION 1.4 EPISTEMOLOGY AND ONTOLOGY 1.5 PHILOSOPHY AND COSMOLOGICAL ISSUES 2. UNDERSTANDING COSMOLOGY: BASIC ISSUES 2.1 LIMITS ON OBSERVATIONS 2.2 THE BASIC PROGRAMME 2.3 MAJOR QUESTIONS 3. TESTING ALTERNATIVES 3.1 ALTERNATIVE TOPOLOGIES 3.2 ANISOTROPIC (BIANCHI) MODES 3.3 DARK MATTER AND MODIFIED GRAVITY 3.4 DARK ENERGY AND INHOMOGENEITY 4 TESTING CONSISTENCY 4.1. AGES: IS THE UNIVERSE OLDER THAN ITS CONTENTS? 4.2. CBR-MATTER DIPOLE AGREEMENT 4.3. COSMIC DISTANCE-DUALITY RELATION 4.4. CBR TEMPERATURE AT A DISTANCE 4.5. PRIMORDIAL ELEMENT ABUNDANCES WITH DISTANCE 5 THE UNIQENESS OF THE UNIVERSE 5.1 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES 5.2 LAWS AND INITIAL CONDITIONS 6 MULTIVERSES: DENYING THE UNIQUENESS OF THE UNIVERSE 6.1 FINE TUNING: THE ANTHROPIC ISSUE 6.2 TESTABILITY 6.3 CRITERIA FOR A SCIENTIFIC THEORY 6.4 JUSTIFYING UNSEEN ENTITIES 7: PHYSICAL LAWS AND THE NATURES OF EXISTENCE 7.1 PHYSICAL AND NON-PHYSICAL REALITIES 7.2 PHYSICAL LAWS AT THE FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL 7.3 THE PHYSICS HORIZON 7.4 INFINITIES 8 DEEPER ISSUES 8.1 THE SCOPE OF ENQUIRY AND LIMITS OF SCIENCE 8.2 LIMITS TO MODELS AND THE RELATION TO MATHEMATICS 8.3 PHYSICAL DETERMINISM AND LIFE TODAY 8.4 CONTEXT AND TOP DOWN CAUSATION 8.5 POSSIBILITY SPACES AND THE NATURE OF CAUSATION 8.6 ULTIMATE CAUSATION AND EXISTENCE 9 REPRISE REFERENCES 1 Philosophy of cosmology - Ellis ABSTRACT This paper is an overview of significant issues in the philosophy of cosmology, starting off by emphasizing the issue of the uniqueness of the universe and the way models are used in description and explanation. -
What Is Meant by “Christian Dualism” (Genuine Separation
Jeremy Shepherd October 15, 2004 The Friday Symposium Dallas Baptist University “Christian Enemy #1: Dualism Exposed & Destroyed” “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” - Proverbs 1:7 “Christianity is not a realm of life; it’s a way of life for every realm”1 Introduction When I came to Dallas Baptist University I had a rather violent reaction to what I thought was a profound category mistake. Coming from the public school system, I had a deeply embedded idea of how “religious” claims ought to relate, or should I say, ought not to relate, with “worldly affairs.” To use a phrase that Os Guinness frequently uses, I thought that “religion might be privately engaging but publicly irrelevant.”2 I was astonished at the unashamed integration of all these “religious” beliefs into other realms of life, even though I myself was a Christian. The key word for me was: unashamed. I thought to myself, “How could these people be so shameless in their biases?” My reaction to this Wholistic vision of life was so serious that I almost left the university to go get myself a “real” education, one where my schooling wouldn’t be polluted by all of these messy assumptions and presuppositions, even if they were Christian. My worldview lenses saw “education” as something totally separate from my “faith.” I was a model student of the American public school system, and like most other students, whether Christian or not, the separation of “church/state” and “faith/education” was only a small part of something much deeper and much more profound, the separation of my “faith” from the rest of my “life.” Our public schools are indoctrinating other students who have this same split-vision3, in which “faith” is a private thing, which is not to be integrated into the classroom.