▽Relational Quantum Mechanics ●01/27 02:47 The two postulates are not in contradiction with each other because when new information is gathered some previous relevant information becomes irrelevant. “Relevant” here means that it affects future probabilities. A moment of reflection shows that first postulate implies the characteristic discreteness of quantum theory,the second implies Heisenberg’s uncertainties. Very simila
▽Semantic Challenges to Realism ●01/26 06:15 First published Thu Jan 11, 2001; substantive revision Mon Jan 25, 2021 According to metaphysical realism, the world is as it is independent of how humans or other inquiring agents take it to be. The objects the world contains, together with their properties and the relations they enter into, fix the world’s nature and these objects [together with the properties they have and the relations t
▽Time ●11/25 09:01 First published Mon Nov 25, 2002; substantive revision Tue Nov 24, 2020 Discussions of the nature of time, and of various issues related to time, have always featured prominently in philosophy, but they have been especially important since the beginning of the twentieth century. This article contains a brief overview of some of the main topics in the philosophy of time—(1) fatalism; (2) redu
▽Laws of Nature ●11/17 07:22 First published Tue Apr 29, 2003; substantive revision Mon Nov 16, 2020 Science includes many principles at least once thought to be laws of nature: Newton’s law of gravitation, his three laws of motion,the ideal gas laws, Mendel’s laws, the laws of supply and demand, and so on. Other regularities important to science were not thought to have this status. These include regularities tha
▽Space and Time: Inertial Frames ●11/11 05:41 Leibniz confuses impetus with motion. According to Newton, impetus is in truth the same as the force of inertia… (Berkeley 1721 [1992], p. 79) …it is established by experience that it is a primary law of nature that a body persists “in a state of motion or of rest as long as nothing happens from elsewhere to change that state,”and therefore it is inferred that the force o
