The Fundamentality of Physics

A core commitment among physicalists is that physics holds some special status among the sciences, that it is fundamental. This paper argues that the most common interpretation of the fundamentality of physics, in terms of the ontological or explanatory completeness of physics, faces several insurmountable challenges. This interpretation relies on questionable assumptions about physics, many of which have been widely recognized as questionable in the philosophy of science for decades. Moreover, completeness physicalism is untenable in failing to provide the physicalist with any usable guide to ontology or metaphysical commitments. These same considerations motivate a revised interpretation of fundamentality in terms of a notion of ontological or explanatory maximality. This maximality physicalism is developed and defended.

Implementation of Scientific Approach in Physics

This research is entitled "The Implementation of Scientific Approaches in Physics Learning in Class X of SMA Negeri 9 Lubuklinggau". This study aims to determine the completeness of physics learning outcomes of class X students of SMA Negeri 9 lubuk linggau after implementing the Scientific approach. The research method used was quasi-experimental. This research uses a scientific approach, the scientific approach has stages of observing, asking, trying, reasoning, and communicating. The learning material in this research is measurement. The population in this study was all class X SMA Negeri 9 Lubuklinggau and the sample was class X IPA 2, amounting to 36 students and taken randomly. The test instrument uses 7 essay questions and observation sheets to collect data about all activities or student activity processes during learning. Based on the results of data analysis with t-test, it was obtained that t-count = 4,33 and t-table = 1,697, this shows that t-hitung ≥ t-tabel then Ha was received and Ho was rejected. Thus the hypothesis proposed in this study can be accepted as true. So it can be concluded the physics learning outcomes of class X students of SMA Negeri 9 Lubuklinggau after applying the Scientific approach is significantly completed.

Mental causation

Both folk and scientific psychology assume that mental events and properties participate in causal relations. However, considerations involving the causal completeness of physics and the apparent non-reducibility of mental phenomena to physical phenomena have challenged these assumptions. In the case of mental events (such as someone’s thinking about Vienna), one proposal has been simply to identify not ‘types’ (or classes) of mental events with types of physical events, but merely individual ‘token’ mental events with token physical ones, one by one (your and my thinking about Vienna may be ‘realized’ by different type physical states). The role of mental properties (such as ‘being about Vienna’) in causation is more problematic. Properties are widely thought to have three features that seem to render them causally irrelevant: (1) they are ‘multiply-realizable’ (they can be realized in an indefinite variety of substances); (2) many of them seem not to supervene on neurophysiological properties (differences in mental properties do not always depend merely on differences in neurophysiological ones, but upon relations people bear to things outside their skin); and (3) many of them (for example, ‘being painful’) seem inherently ‘subjective’ in a way that no objective physical properties seem to be. All of these issues are complicated by the fact that there is no consensus concerning the nature of causal relevance for properties in general.

God, Physicalism, and the Totality of Facts

The paper offers a general critique of physicalism and of one variety of nonphysicalism, arguing that such theses are untenable. By distinguishing between the absolute conception of reality and the causal completeness of physics it shows that the ‘explanatory gap’ is not merely epistemic but metaphysical. It defends the essential subjectivity and unity of consciousness and its inseparability from a self-conscious autonomous rational and moral being. Casting a favourable light on dualism freed from misconceptions, it suggests that the only plausible way forward in the search for an understanding of both physical and mental reality is a recognition of the mind as a metaphysically distinct entity.