47,126 research outputs found
Consciousness as Integrated Information: A Provisional Philosophical Critique
Giulio Tononi (2008) has offered his integrated information theory of consciousness (IITC) as a ‘provisional manifesto’. I critically examine how the approach fares. I point out some (relatively) internal concerns with the theory and then more broadly philosophical ones; finally I assess the prospects for IITC as a fundamental theory of consciousness. I argue that the IITC’s scientific promise does carry over to a significant extent to broader philosophical theorizing about qualia and consciousness, though not as directly as Tononi suggests, since the account is much more focused on the qualitative character of experience rather than on consciousness itself. I propose understanding it as ‘integrated information theory of qualia’(IITQ), rather than of consciousness
What is the point of reduction in science?
The numerous and diverse roles of theory reduction in science have been insufficiently explored in the philosophy literature on reduction. Part of the reason for this has been a lack of attention paid to reduction2 (successional reduction)---although I here argue that this sense of reduction is closer to reduction1 (explanatory reduction) than is commonly recognised, and I use an account of reduction that is neutral between the two. This paper draws attention to the utility---and incredible versatility---of theory reduction. A non-exhaustive list of various applications of reduction in science is presented, some of which are drawn from a particular case-study, being the current search for a new theory of fundamental physics. This case-study is especially interesting because it employs both senses of reduction at once, and because of the huge weight being put on reduction by the different research groups involved; additionally, it presents some unique uses for reduction---revealing, I argue, the fact that reduction can be of specialised and unexpected service in particular scientific cases. The paper makes two other general findings: that the functions of reduction that are typically assumed to characterise the different forms of the relation may instead be understood as secondary consequences of some other roles; and that most of the roles that reduction plays in science can actually also be fulfilled by a weaker relation than (the typical understanding of) reduction
On the Empirical Consequences of the AdS/CFT Duality
We provide an analysis of the empirical consequences of the AdS/CFT duality
with reference to the application of the duality in a fundamental theory,
effective theory and instrumental context. Analysis of the first two contexts
is intended to serve as a guide to the potential empirical and ontological
status of gauge/gravity dualities as descriptions of actual physics at the
Planck scale. The third context is directly connected to the use of AdS/CFT to
describe real quark-gluon plasmas. In the latter context, we find that neither
of the two duals are confirmed by the empirical data.Comment: 15 pages + abstract, references. Submitted to "Beyond Spacetime"
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Understanding analogical reasoning : viewpoints from psychology and related disciplines
Analogy and metaphor have a long history of study in linguistics, education, philosophy and psychology. Consensus over what analogy is or how analogy functions in language and thought, however, has been elusive. This paper, the first in a two part series, examines these various research traditions, attempting to bring out major lines of agreement over the role of analogy in individual human experience. As well as being a general literature review which may be helpful for newcomers to the study of analogy, this paper attempts to extract from these literatures existing theories, models and concepts which may be interesting or useful for computational studies of analogical reasoning
Dimensional flow and fuzziness in quantum gravity: emergence of stochastic spacetime
We show that the uncertainty in distance and time measurements found by the
heuristic combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity is reproduced
in a purely classical and flat multi-fractal spacetime whose geometry changes
with the probed scale (dimensional flow) and has non-zero imaginary dimension,
corresponding to a discrete scale invariance at short distances. Thus,
dimensional flow can manifest itself as an intrinsic measurement uncertainty
and, conversely, measurement-uncertainty estimates are generally valid because
they rely on this universal property of quantum geometries. These general
results affect multi-fractional theories, a recent proposal related to quantum
gravity, in two ways: they can fix two parameters previously left free (in
particular, the value of the spacetime dimension at short scales) and point
towards a reinterpretation of the ultraviolet structure of geometry as a
stochastic foam or fuzziness. This is also confirmed by a correspondence we
establish between Nottale scale relativity and the stochastic geometry of
multi-fractional models.Comment: 25 pages. v2: minor typos corrected, references adde
Global dynamics of the mixmaster model
The asymptotic behaviour of vacuum Bianchi models of class A near the initial
singularity is studied, in an effort to confirm the standard picture arising
from heuristic and numerical approaches by mathematical proofs. It is shown
that for solutions of types other than VIII and IX the singularity is velocity
dominated and that the Kretschmann scalar is unbounded there, except in the
explicitly known cases where the spacetime can be smoothly extended through a
Cauchy horizon. For types VIII and IX it is shown that there are at most two
possibilities for the evolution. When the first possibility is realized, and if
the spacetime is not one of the explicitly known solutions which can be
smoothly extended through a Cauchy horizon, then there are infinitely many
oscillations near the singularity and the Kretschmann scalar is unbounded
there. The second possibility remains mysterious and it is left open whether it
ever occurs. It is also shown that any finite sequence of distinct points
generated by iterating the Belinskii-Khalatnikov-Lifschitz mapping can be
realized approximately by a solution of the vacuum Einstein equations of
Bianchi type IX.Comment: 16 page
What are the true clusters?
Constructivist philosophy and Hasok Chang's active scientific realism are
used to argue that the idea of "truth" in cluster analysis depends on the
context and the clustering aims. Different characteristics of clusterings are
required in different situations. Researchers should be explicit about on what
requirements and what idea of "true clusters" their research is based, because
clustering becomes scientific not through uniqueness but through transparent
and open communication. The idea of "natural kinds" is a human construct, but
it highlights the human experience that the reality outside the observer's
control seems to make certain distinctions between categories inevitable.
Various desirable characteristics of clusterings and various approaches to
define a context-dependent truth are listed, and I discuss what impact these
ideas can have on the comparison of clustering methods, and the choice of a
clustering methods and related decisions in practice
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