November 2011
How Quantum Theory Helps us Explain
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.6554
I offer an account of how the quantum theory we have helps us explain so much. The account depends on a pragmatist interpretation of the theory: This takes a quantum state to serve solely as a source of sound advice to physically situated agents on the content and appropriate degree of belief about matters concerning which they are currently inevitably ignorant. The...
Unity, Disunity and Pluralism in Science, David A....
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.6545
We discuss the problems of consensus and unity in science. The natural sciences seem to contrast with many other areas of endeavor in that a high level of consensus seems to exist in them. However, a careful analysis of the structure of particular physical theories,such as those concerned with electrons, shows that there is great heterogeneity of both theory and...
October 2011
For Poincaré, the true relations, the real...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
Poincaré’s emphasis on structural, or relational,...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
For Poincaré the most harmonious, simple, and...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
Poincaré regards the utility of science as...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
Poincaré’s attitude to impredicativity was...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
Indeed, the program to eliminate impredicativity...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
Let us just say that when put together, these...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
Finally, to finish off this argument, Poincaré...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
So, if mathematical reasoning can yield genuine...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
Thus, Poincaré continues in the second part of...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
One presupposition is that if something is a...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
The closest thing to Kant’s intuitive space, for...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
In contrast with geometry, where there is a range...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
The logicists attempted to provide a mathematical...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
For Poincaré, therefore, even if physics can help...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
He espoused conventionalism for some principles of...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
He advocated conventionalism for some principles...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poi-math/
In less than a decade, that smartphone you're...
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/print/405599/arm_cto_predicts_chips_size_blood_cells/
For Poincaré, the aim of the science is to...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
For Poincaré, there are many kinds of hypotheses:
Hypotheses which have the maximum scope, and which are common to all scientific theories (for example, the hypothesis according to which the influence of remote bodies is negligible). Such hypotheses are the last to be changed.
Indifferent hypotheses that, in spite of their auxiliary role in ...
According to Poincaré, although scientific...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
Beltrami’s translation and Poincaré’s study of functions led Poincaré to assert that:
Non-Euclidean geometries have the same logical and mathematical legitimacy as Euclidean geometry.
All geometric systems are equivalent and thus no system of axioms may claim that it is the true geometry.
Axioms of geometry are neither synthetic a priori judgments...
Poincaré’s prohibition of impredicative...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
For Poincaré, impredicative definitions are the...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
Another aspect of mathematical thinking that...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
Bertrand Russell said Peano’s axioms constitute an...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
Logicists such as Bertrand Russell and Gottlob...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
From a philosophical point of view, Poincaré’s...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
In his research on the three-body problem,...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/poincare/#H2
"Nothing is enough to the [person] for whom enough...
The age-old question of whether money can make a...
http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201110/material-world/how-much-money-does-it-take-make-you-happy
A new CDC study based on a large survey of the...
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201110/antidepressant-use-skyrockets
1) Rates of antidepressant use continue to escalate—a remarkable 11 percent of the general population now takes an antidepressant. Antidepressants are now the third most prescribed class of medications in the US—and are first in the 18-44 age group. Rates of antidepressant use have increased an ...
"So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the...
Life is what happens while we're making other...
More than ever before, the world depends on US... →
Opponents of science are experts at winning the... →
Future Shock – 1972 Documentary (Alvin Toffler,... →
Future Shock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock
Future Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term “future shock” as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of “too much change in too short a period of time”. The book, which became an...
Culture shock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock
Culture shock is the difficulty people have adjusting to a new culture that differs markedly from their own.
The shock of moving to a foreign country often consists of distinct phases, though not everyone passes through these phases and not everyone is in the new culture long enough to pass through all four.[1] There are no fixed symptoms ascribed...
