Relational Blockworld: Experience, Time, and Space Reintegrated

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Silberstein ◽  
W.M. Stuckey ◽  
Timothy McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Time Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Block Universe

Chapter 8 argues that the Relational Blockworld (RBW) account naturally admits a kind of neutral monism that simultaneously deflates the generation/hard problem and explains time as experienced. Thus, the claim that the block universe is incompatible with time as experienced is refuted. The first section sets the stage, the second focuses on the Passage of time, and the third focuses on the Direction of time. Section four argues that embodied, embedded, and extended cognitive science and phenomenology support the neutral monism of RBW. The fifth section focuses on freedom, spontaneity, and creativity in RBW. Objections to the block universe picture based on free will in human action and creativity and spontaneity in the universe writ large are refuted. It is shown that RBW has all the freedom, creativity, and spontaneity anyone could reasonably hope for. Section six characterizes Presence in detail, and its relation to time as experienced is discussed.

Coda for Ants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Silberstein ◽  
W.M. Stuckey ◽  
Timothy McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Gravity ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Consciousness Studies ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
Block Universe

The epilogue summarizes and reviews the main claims of the book pertaining to the problems of the dynamical universe paradigm and the resolution of those problems via the adynamical block universe alternative called Relational Blockworld (RBW). The new physics RBW is expected to generate—and must provide in order to be considered a viable alternative to the dynamical paradigm— has been provided. RBW’s debt to the late John Wheeler is acknowledged and it is argued that the RBW model is an affirmation and instantiation of the five main principles Wheeler said ought to govern any attempt at quantum gravity and unification. Finally, if RBW with its neutral monism is true, RBW should lead not only to a new paradigm in physics but also to a new paradigm in cognitive science and consciousness studies.

scholarly journals Sizing Up Free Will: The Scale of Compatibilism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart T Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The World ◽  
Previous State ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
The Universe

Is human free will compatible with the natural laws of the universe? To ‘compatibilists’ who see free actions as emanating from the wants and reasons of human agents, free will looks perfectly plausible. However, ‘incompatibilists’ claim to see the more ultimate sources of human action. The wants and reasons of agents are said to be caused by physical processes which are themselves mere natural results of the previous state of the world and the natural laws which govern it. This paper argues that the incompatibilists make a mistake in appealing to such non-agent sources of human action. They fail to realize that free will may exist at one scale, but not at the scales where they look. When free will is considered from the correctly scaled perspective, it does seem compatible with determinism and natural laws.

Negative Liberty

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Levin
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Human Control ◽  
The Third ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Sufficient Cause ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Preceding Event

Philosophers have articulated six notions of human freedom. Four are metaphysical. According to one, a man acts freely when he is doing what he wants to; according to the second, he acts freely when he is not being compelled by outside forces; according to the third, he acts freely when the prior state of the universe was not a sufficient cause of what he is doing; according to the fourth, he acts freely when he, not any preceding event, is the cause of what he is doing. The third and fourth theories may be called “indeterministic freedom” and “the agency theory,” named only to be rejected. I reject indeterminism out of agreement with a long tradition which holds that (a) there is no reason to think that human actions are ever undetermined, and (b) an undetermined human action would not be “free” in any sense in which we desire our actions to be free and believe that they are in fact free. To appreciate (b), reflect that agents should control and be accountable for “free” actions. Now, we control an event by assembling or obstructing its sufficient conditions; merefore, an event without sufficient conditions, a random event which just happens, would lie beyond human control and, hence, the sphere of human freedom. Similarly, a man is no more responsible for what happens independently of his choices – and an event without sufficient conditions cannot have a choice as a sufficient condition – than he is responsible for the behavior of a roulette wheel.

Delving into Horror

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 135-150
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Perception Of Time ◽  
Definition Of

The springboard for this essay is the author’s encounter with the feeling of horror and her attempts to understand what place horror has in philosophy. The inquiry relies upon Leonid Lipavsky’s “Investigation of Horror” and on various textual plunges into the fanged and clawed (and possibly noumenal) abyss of Nick Land’s work. Various experiences of horror are examined in order to build something of a typology, while also distilling the elements characteristic of the experience of horror in general. The essay’s overall hypothesis is that horror arises from a disruption of the usual ways of determining the boundaries between external things and the self, and this leads to a distinction between three subtypes of horror. In the first subtype, horror begins with the indeterminacy at the boundaries of things, a confrontation with something that defeats attempts to define it and thereby calls into question the definition of the self. In the second subtype, horror springs from the inability to determine one’s own boundaries, a process opposed by the crushing determinacy of the world. In the third subtype, horror unfolds by means of a substitution of one determinacy by another which is unexpected and ungrounded. In all three subtypes of horror, the disturbance of determinacy deprives the subject, the thinking entity, of its customary foundation for thought, and even of an explanation of how that foundation was lost; at times this can lead to impairment of the perception of time and space. Understood this way, horror comes within a hair’s breadth of madness - and may well cross over into it.

On the matter of proving Euclidean fifth postulate and the origin of non-Euclidean geometries

2019 ◽  
Vol 950 (8) ◽  
pp. 2-11
Author(s):  
S.A. Tolchelnikova ◽  
K.N. Naumov
Keyword(s):  
Celestial Mechanics ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Relativity Theory ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
The Third ◽  
Stellar Astronomy ◽  
Spherical Surfaces ◽  
Mathematical System ◽  
Solar System Bodies ◽  
The Universe

The Euclidean geometry was developed as a mathematical system due to generalizing thousands years of measurements on the plane and spherical surfaces. The development of celestial mechanics and stellar astronomy confirmed its validity as mathematical principles of natural philosophy, in particular for studying the Solar System bodies’ and Galaxy stars motions. In the non-Euclidean geometries by Lobachevsky and Riemann, the third axiom of modern geometry manuals is substituted. We show that the third axiom of these manuals is a corollary of the Fifth Euclidean postulate. The idea of spherical, Riemannian space of the Universe and local curvatures of space, depending on body mass, was inculcated into celestial mechanics, astronomy and geodesy along with the theory of relativity. The mathematical apparatus of the relativity theory was created from immeasurable quantities

Minds, Machines, and Giving a Damn

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Chodat
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Walker Percy ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Partial Success ◽  
The Way

The 1960s saw the triumph of cognitive science over behaviorism. This chapter examines three literary–philosophical objections to this shift: “West Coast” phenomenology, Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2, and the writings of Walker Percy, the first of the postwar sages featured in this book. For “West Coast” philosophers, cognitive science ignores the way human action is structured by what we “give a damn” about—a sense of significance that orients our actions. Powers’s novel goes a step further: no more than machines do we know what to give a damn about. Percy’s essays and fiction challenge both these positions, asking us to see analogies between the significance we find in language and the significance we find in living a Christian life. Establishing such an analogy is the goal of Percy’s 1971 Love in the Ruins, which seeks to embody—with only partial success—what terms such as “faith” and “community” might mean.

scholarly journals Gravitational Interaction in the Chimney Lattice Universe

Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Maxim Eingorn ◽  
Andrew McLaughlin ◽  
Ezgi Canay ◽  
Maksym Brilenkov ◽  
Alexander Zhuk
Keyword(s):  
Helmholtz Equation ◽  
Gravitational Potential ◽  
Fourier Expansion ◽  
Gravitational Interaction ◽  
Alternative Solution ◽  
The Third ◽  
Present Universe ◽  
Delta Functions ◽  
Yukawa Potentials ◽  
The Universe

We investigate the influence of the chimney topology T×T×R of the Universe on the gravitational potential and force that are generated by point-like massive bodies. We obtain three distinct expressions for the solutions. One follows from Fourier expansion of delta functions into series using periodicity in two toroidal dimensions. The second one is the summation of solutions of the Helmholtz equation, for a source mass and its infinitely many images, which are in the form of Yukawa potentials. The third alternative solution for the potential is formulated via the Ewald sums method applied to Yukawa-type potentials. We show that, for the present Universe, the formulas involving plain summation of Yukawa potentials are preferable for computational purposes, as they require a smaller number of terms in the series to reach adequate precision.

The Model of the Universe, Encoded in the Thracian Cult Spaces, in the Context of Modern Cosmogonic Concepts

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Sarbova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Time And Space ◽  
Sacred Architecture ◽  
The Universe

Accepting the thesis that the Thracian cult buildings under a mound can be interpreted as models of the universe, time and space, man and his ideas of harmony (A. Fol, V. Fol, M. Ruseva), in this article I further develop this thesis, while exploring it, placed in the context of modern concepts and theories in the field of physics, as well as taking into account the place of religions and other sciences in the construction of a comprehensive modern cosmogonic model. At the same time, I consider and analyse the extent to which such searches are a topic in modern sacred architecture.

Locke and the Nature of Political Authority

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Capacity To Consent ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Will

AbstractThis paper aims to illuminate the ongoing significance of Locke's political philosophy. It argues that the legitimacy of political authority lies, according to Locke, in the extent to which it collaborates with individuals so as to allow them to be themselves more effectively, and in its answerability to the consent such individuals should thereby give it. The first section discusses how the free will inevitably asserts its authority; the second shows the inevitability of the will's incorporation of authority as a kind of prosthesis, which in turn transforms the operation of the will; and the third treats the issue of consent, arguing that Locke is less interested in explicit acts of consent than in the norm of consent, in answerability to which structures of authority should be shaped so as to honor the beings whose capacity to consent is definitive for them.

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