Monism: the islands of plurality

Priority monism (hereafter, ‘monism’) is the view that there exists one fundamental entity—the world—and that all other objects that exist (a set of objects typically taken to include tables, chairs, and the whole menagerie of everyday items) are merely derivative. Jonathan Schaffer has defended monism in its current guise, across a range of papers. Each paper looks to add something to the monistic picture of the world. In this paper we argue that monism—as Schaffer describes it—is false. To do so we develop an ‘island universe’ argument against Schaffer’s monistic theory

Beyond Desartes and Newton: Recovering life and humanity

Attempts to ‘naturalize’ phenomenology challenge both traditional phenomenology and traditional approaches to cognitive science. They challenge Edmund Husserl’s rejection of naturalism and his attempt to establish phenomenology as a foundational transcendental discipline, and they challenge efforts to explain cognition through mainstream science. While appearing to be a retreat from the bold claims made for phenomenology, it is really its triumph. Naturalized phenomenology is spearheading a successful challenge to the heritage of Cartesian dualism. This converges with the reaction against Cartesian thought within science itself. Descartes divided the universe between res cogitans, thinking substances, and res extensa, the mechanical world. The latter won with Newton and we have, in most of objective science since, literally lost our mind, hence our humanity. Despite Darwin, biologists remain children of Newton, and dream of a grand theory that is epistemologically complete and would allow lawful entailment of the evolution of the biosphere. This dream is no longer tenable. We now have to recognize that science and scientists are within and part of the world we are striving to comprehend, as proponents of endophysics have argued, and that physics, biology and mathematics have to be reconceived accordingly. Interpreting quantum mechanics from this perspective is shown to both illuminate conscious experience and reveal new paths for its further development. In biology we must now justify the use of the word “function”. As we shall see, we cannot prestate the ever new biological functions that arise and constitute the very phase space of evolution. Hence, we cannot mathematize the detailed becoming of the biosphere, nor write differential equations for functional variables we do not know ahead of time, nor integrate those equations, so no laws “entail” evolution. The dream of a grand theory fails. In place of entailing laws, a post-entailing law explanatory framework is proposed in which Actuals arise in evolution that constitute new boundary conditions that are enabling constraints that create new, typically unprestatable, Adjacent Possible opportunities for further evolution, in which new Actuals arise, in a persistent becoming. Evolution flows into a typically unprestatable succession of Adjacent Possibles. Given the concept of function, the concept of functional closure of an organism making a living in its world, becomes central. Implications for patterns in evolution include historical reconstruction, and statistical laws such as the distribution of extinction events, or species per genus, and the use of formal cause, not efficient cause, laws

Uncertainty relations for multiple measurements with applications

Uncertainty relations express the fundamental incompatibility of certain observables in quantum mechanics. Far from just being puzzling constraints on our ability to know the state of a quantum system, uncertainty relations are at the heart of why some classically impossible cryptographic primitives become possible when quantum communication is allowed. This thesis is concerned with strong notions of uncertainty relations and their applications in quantum information theory. One operational manifestation of such uncertainty relations is a purely quantum effect referred to as information locking. A locking scheme can be viewed as a cryptographic protocol in which a uniformly random n-bit message is encoded in a quantum system using a classical key of size much smaller than n. Without the key, no measurement of this quantum state can extract more than a negligible amount of information about the message, in which case the message is said to be "locked". Furthermore, knowing the key, it is possible to recover, that is "unlock", the message. We give new efficient constructions of bases satisfying strong uncertainty relations leading to the first explicit construction of an information locking scheme. We also give several other applications of our uncertainty relations both to cryptographic and communication tasks. In addition, we define objects called QC-extractors, that can be seen as strong uncertainty relations that hold against quantum adversaries. We provide several constructions of QC-extractors, and use them to prove the security of cryptographic protocols for two-party computations based on the sole assumption that the parties' storage device is limited in transmitting quantum information. In doing so, we resolve a central question in the so-called noisy-storage model by relating security to the quantum capacity of storage devices.Comment: PhD Thesis, McGill University, School of Computer Science, 158 pages. Contains arXiv:1010.3007 and arXiv:1111.2026 with some small addition

Software and hardware implementation for secure RF communications on low power devices

A lo largo de los últimos años se ha producido un gran incremento de dispositivos conectados a internet y a otros dispositivos con control remoto. Las empresas y plataformas de código libre han hecho que estas tecnologías sean mucho más accesibles para "makers" y otros muchos usuarios. Sin embargo, existen bastantes proyectos que no disponen o no muestran medidas de seguridad contra posibles ataques en el medio que podrían realizarse sin que el propio usuario se diera cuenta. En este trabajo se desarrolla una parte hardware y otra software teniendo en cuenta la seguridad en todo momento. Se han utilizado los últimos componentes y algoritmos que permiten a dispositivos de poca potencia poder intercambiar pequeños mensajes de forma segura. A pesar de las medidas añadidas, la interfaz de usuario final y la programación a alto nivel se han mantenido lo más simple posible. En los ejemplos finales se demuestra como efectuar comunicaciones RF seguras con estos dispositivos y como se evitan posibles ataques.In recent years, there has been an explosion of internet connected and other type of remote-controlled devices. Companies and open source platforms have managed to make those technologies much more accessible an easier to use by makers and other individuals. However, there are multiple projects that lack security measures against potential wireless attacks which could be performed without the user's notice. This work presents both hardware and software developments designed with security in mind, using state of the art components and algorithms that allow cheap low-power devices to exchange small messages securely. Despite those added measures, the end-user interface and high-level programming of the hardware remains simple. The resulting examples show how perform more secure RF communications with these types of devices and how they avoid potential attacks.Durant els últims anys hi ha hagut un gran increment de dispositius connectats a internet i d'altres tipus de dispositius amb control remot. Les empreses i plataformes de codi lliure han aconseguit fer aquestes tecnologies molt més accessibles per a "makers" i molts altres usuaris. De totes maneres, hi ha força projectes que no disposen o no mostren mesures de seguretat contra possibles atacs en el medi que podrien ser realitzats sense que el propi usuari se n'adoni. En aquest treball es desenvolupa una part de maquinari i una de programari tenint en compte la seguretat en tot moment. S'utilitzen els últims components i algorismes que permeten a dispositius de poca potència poder intercanviar petits missatges amb seguretat. Tot i les mesures afegides, la interfície d'usuari final i la programació a alt nivell s'ha mantingut el més simple possible. Els exemples finals mostren com efectuar comunicacions RF segures amb aquests tipus de dispositius i com s'eviten possibles atacs

Dimentia: Footnotes of Time

Time from the physicist\u27s perspective is not inclusive of our lived experience of time; time from the philosopher\u27s perspective is not mathematically engaged, in fact Henri Bergson asserted explicitly that time could not be mathematically engaged whatsoever. What follows is a mathematical engagement of time that is inclusive of our lived experiences, requiring the tools of storytelling

Against Organicism: a defence of an ontology of everyday objects

This thesis claims that attempts to eliminate everyday objects from ontology on the basis of a priori reasoning about the composition relation fail. The thesis focuses on the positions of 'Organicist' philosophers; philosophers who argue that all that exists are organisms and microscopic (or smaller) mereological simples. Organicist positions have two key foundations: 1) arguments from compositional failure, which conclude that there are no everyday objects because (it is argued) there are no non-living composite entities. 2) A rhetorical move, the 'O-arranging manoeuvre', whereby it is claimed that the elimination of everyday objects from our ontology would make 'no-difference' because object-wise arrangements of mereological simples take their place. The thesis maintains that arguments from compositional failure should be reinterpreted as arguments to the conclusion that the notion of 'composition' being employed by Organicists is inadequate for the purposes of metaphysics. A minimal alternative account of everyday objects is posited. It is shown that by deploying the O-arranging manoeuvre Organicists (and other Eliminativists) commit themselves to all that is required on the presented account to entail the conclusion that everyday objects exist. The thesis concludes that there are everyday objects. It suggests that we should reject the idea that composition is what matters in ontology, but if one does not then the thesis gives reasons for rejecting compositional ontologies that entail the non-existence of everyday objects

Underdetermination and the Claims of Science

The underdetermination of theory by evidence is supposed to be a reason to rethink science. It is not. Many authors claim that underdetermination has momentous consequences for the status of scientific claims, but such claims are hidden in an umbra of obscurity and a penumbra of equivocation. So many various phenomena pass for `underdetermination\u27 that it\u27s tempting to think that it is no unified phenomenon at all, so I begin by providing a framework within which all these worries can be seen as species of one genus: A claim of underdetermination involves (at least implicitly) a set of rival theories, a standard of responsible judgment, and a scope of circumstances in which responsible choice between the rivals is impossible. Within this framework, I show that one variety of underdetermination motivated modern scepticism and thus is a familiar problem at the heart of epistemology. I survey arguments that infer from underdetermination to some reëvaluation of science: top-down arguments infer a priori from the ubiquity of underdetermination to some conclusion about science; bottom-up arguments infer from specific instances of underdetermination, to the claim that underdetermination is widespread, and then to some conclusion about science. The top-down arguments either fail to deliver underdetermination of any great significance or (as with modern scepticism) deliver some well-worn epistemic concern. The bottom-up arguments must rely on cases. I consider several promising cases and find them to either be so specialized that they cannot underwrite conclusions about science in general or not be underdetermined at all. Neither top-down nor bottom-up arguments can motivate any deep reconsideration of scienc

Composable security in relativistic quantum cryptography

Relativistic protocols have been proposed to overcome certain impossibility results in classical and quantum cryptography. In such a setting, one takes the location of honest players into account, and uses the signalling limit given by the speed of light to constraint the abilities of dishonest agents. However, composing such protocols with each other to construct new cryptographic resources is known to be insecure in some cases. To make general statements about such constructions, a composable framework for modelling cryptographic security in Minkowski space is required. Here, we introduce a framework for performing such a modular security analysis of classical and quantum cryptographic schemes in Minkowski space. As an application, we show that (1) fair and unbiased coin flipping can be constructed from a simple resource called channel with delay; (2) biased coin flipping, bit commitment and channel with delay through any classical, quantum or post-quantum relativistic protocols are all impossible without further setup assumptions; (3) it is impossible to securely increase the delay of a channel, given several short-delay channels as ingredients. Results(1) and (3) imply in particular the non-composability of existing relativistic bit commitment and coin flipping protocols