Current debate and policy surrounding the use of genetic editing in humans often relies on a binary distinction between therapy and human enhancement. In this paper, we argue that this dichotomy fails to take into account perhaps the most significant potential uses of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in humans. We argue that genetic treatment of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, breast- and ovarian-cancer causing BRCA1/2 mutations and the introduction of HIV resistance in humans should be considered within a new category of genetic protection (...) treatments. We find that if this category is not introduced, life-altering research might be unnecessarily limited by current or future policy. Otherwise ad hoc decisions might be made, which introduce a risk of unforeseen moral costs, and might overlook or fail to address some important opportunities. (shrink)

Recent debates in Foundations of Physics have highlighted a tension between radical relational approaches that eliminate time as a fundamental variable and renewed arguments for preserving an underlying ordinal structure. While Rovelli, Barbour, and Page–Wootters propose that all dynamics can be expressed through timeless correlations, Mozota Frauca and Ellis have recently contended in FoP that physics cannot dispense with the asymmetric “before/after” relation that grounds causal explanation. This paper introduces a physical mechanism by which such ordinal structure can be realised (...) without reinstating absolute time. Each physical event is described as the closure of a lawful relation—the directed completion of an emission–absorption pair that converts open potentiality into realized fact. Every closure involves a finite local generative interval Δτ, defined operationally as the minimal time resolution of the participating clock or detector. The ensemble of these directed closures forms a self-organising partial order whose cumulative growth constitutes the empirical order ordinarily described as time. Using Special Relativity as a case study, the paper shows how worldlines grow tick-by-tick from local clocks, how null connections serve as generative relations, and how energy–mass balance holds across closure cycles. The model predicts that quantum non-local correlations should remain perfect only within a coherence horizon set by Δτ—offering an empirical route to confirm or falsify the generative-layer hypothesis. In this framework, spacetime geometry records what has been realized, while time itself emerges as the topology of ongoing realization. (shrink)

Recent discussions in Foundations of Science have revived the “two-times problem’’ - the apparent conflict between the formal symmetry of physical time and the experiential asymmetry of becoming. This paper develops an operational resolution based on the concept of closure: the completion of radiative relations between emission and absorption events. Time is defined as the ordered accumulation of such realized closures, forming a Lorentz-coherent record of the world W(s). Each closure adds a new element to this record without invoking a (...) global present or subjective flow. The future remains open as a set of lawful but unrealized possibilities F(s), while the realized domain expands locally through Past-Only Lorentz Equivariance. The resulting framework reconciles the empirical structure of relativity with the probabilistic openness of quantum mechanics. The arrow of time arises from the non-invertibility of closure; simultaneity and duration emerge from mutual verification among records. The two-times problem thereby dissolves: the universe does not evolve in time - it creates time as it grows. (shrink)

This paper revisits Einstein’s 1905 formulation of Special Relativity and proposes two small but decisive updates. The first concerns a mathematical detail: when time and space intervals are squared to form invariant magnitudes, the order of temporal succession is lost. The second concerns a physical detail: the electrodynamical basis of time measurement rests on emission and absorption of radiation, processes that are not symmetric in direction. Both points together restore temporal direction to the operational core of relativity without altering its (...) Lorentz-invariant structure. The aim is not to replace Einstein’s theory, but to recover what it may have hidden - the simple fact that every act of measurement begins with emission and ends with closure. (shrink)

From Maxwell to quantum field theory, the equations of physics are time-symmetric. Yet every observation - from telescope to photodiode - records light arriving from the past. This paradox persists in causal-set theory, whose order relation indicates which events can influence which, but not why influence runs one way. This paper proposes a local, Lorentz-invariant criterion for direction based on the invariant sign of radiative flux T^μν k_ν>0. Where flux is positive, energy travels from emission to absorption, and the corresponding (...) link becomes future-directed. This rule preserves causal-set axioms, satisfies local conservation, and reproduces retarded propagation in the continuum limit. Philosophically, it provides a truthmaker for temporal direction: an ontological condition under which asymmetry becomes real. By grounding orientation in the physical transfer of energy, the paper unites the causal and the temporal, showing that directionality is realized rather than imposed. (shrink)

This paper challenges the Block Universe interpretation of relativity, which denies a physically meaningful “Now.” It introduces the Fixed-Now Growing Worldline (FNGW) model, distinguishing a realized domain W(s) from an unrealized domain F(s), separated by a spacelike boundary N where lightlike interactions become absorptions. Each absorption extends W(s), yielding a Lorentz-coherent but dynamically growing universe. Lorentz symmetry applies only to the realized past (Past-Only Lorentz Equivariance). Supported by non-locality experiments, the model reframes Minkowski’s static geometry as a relativistic process of (...) becoming, where the universe evolves through continuous conversion of potential into actuality. (shrink)

Hermann Minkowski’s geometrization of Einstein’s relativity (Minkowski 1908) transformed physics into a theory of invariant form. Yet by squaring time in the metric, geometry also erased direction. This paper reconstructs how the historical order of mathematical invention - geometry before vector algebra, symmetry before sequence - produced an ontology without becoming. By tracing what Minkowski could have done had he combined his quadratic form with the oriented magnitudes of Gibbs (1901) or with the causal relations later formalized in Causal Set (...) Theory (Kronheimer & Penrose 1967; Bombelli et al. 1987; Dowker 2021), we show that the loss of direction was contingent rather than necessary. Modern physics’ recovery of finite waiting and causal latency at the microscopic level suggests that it is quietly restoring what geometry forgot. (shrink)

This paper develops a generative interpretation of quantum and relativistic phenomena based on a Radiation-First ontology. Instead of treating matter and spacetime as pre-existing arenas in which radiation propagates, the proposed Closure-Oriented Radiative Expansion (CORE) framework reverses the order: radiation is primary, and matter together with spacetime arise as the accumulated record of radiative closures. All physical realization occurs within a finite generative domain, N, where lawful potentials become localized energy–momentum through absorption and emission processes. The resulting events form the (...) realized domain, W(s), whose geometric representation corresponds to the observed spacetime continuum. This approach preserves Lorentz invariance and the empirical content of quantum theory while resolving the conceptual tension between potentiality and actuality. Superposition is understood as lawful openness, measurement as generative closure, and time as the ordered sequence of such closures through which the universe expands its realized record. The framework offers a unified ontology in which radiation, matter, and time are complementary aspects of a single physical process of becoming. (shrink)

Special relativity describes a world of symmetric relations, yet physical reality unfolds asymmetrically. This paper revisits the simultaneity argument of Putnam and Penrose and identifies its missing physical element: closure. Between emission and absorption lies an open null connection that becomes real only when closed by interaction. The geometry of SR allows both directions of connection, but radiation in nature is single-headed - each photon is emitted once and absorbed once. From this asymmetry arises temporal order: the past is the (...) growing record of closed relations, while the future remains open. The proposed closure principle reconciles relativity with becoming and serves as the conceptual foundation for later developments in the Fixed-Now Growing Worldline (FNGW) and Closure-Oriented Radiative Expansion (CORE) frameworks. (shrink)

Since Minkowski’s geometrization of relativity, the ontology of time has been dominated by the Block Universe interpretation, which denies an objective present. The Evolving Block Universe (EBU) of Ellis and Drossel (2020) seeks to restore becoming through wavefunction collapse but, as Riggs (2024) shows, inherits circularity: collapse presupposes temporal order. This paper develops an alternative framework - the Radiation-First Ontology (RFO) - in which time corresponds to the closure of null radiative connections rather than the passage of events through spacetime. (...) The universe exists only within a finite generative layer N, where emissions and absorptions close to form new realized events. The realized domain W(s) records fixed closures, while the lawful potential domain F(s) defines unrealized amplitudes in a complex Hilbert space. N thus functions as a spacelike generative plane of becoming: Lorentz-invariant yet ontologically dynamic. Temporal direction arises from the irreversibility of closure, providing a coherent reconciliation of relativity, quantum theory, and becoming. Keywords: time; simultaneity; relativity; quantum ontology; radiation; closure; becoming; block universe. (shrink)

A Lorentz-invariant rule for temporal direction is derived from local radiative flux. For any energy-carrying field with stress–energy tensor T^μνand null tangent k_ν, the scalar contraction defines the oriented energy transfer between emission and absorption. Φ=T^μν k_μ u_ν A positive flux (Φ>0) specifies realized transfer from emitter to absorber. A stochastic but non-negative confinement interval between absorption and re-emission provides local temporal order. Together, Φ>0 and τ_w≥0 supply dual Lorentz-invariant conditions determining time’s arrow within causal-set dynamics. Radiative balance becomes temporally (...) distributed - null closure followed by timelike confinement - uniting conservation and direction without boundary asymmetry. Keywords: Radiative balance; Arrow of time; Causal set theory; Lorentz invariance; Temporal asymmetry; Truthmaker principle. (shrink)

Bell experiments show that nature violates local realism while respecting stringent no-signalling constraints. The minimal “standard quantum package” accounts for this via a global quantum state that encodes nonlocal correlations but leaves open what, if anything, is happening in spacetime between distant systems. In this paper we propose a different starting point. We adopt a radiation-first and clock-first perspective on spacetime, in which worldlines are not pre-given 4D curves but growing records of the operation of massive clocks. Within this view, (...) the latest tick of a clock acquires a clear physical status as the local boundary between realized past and open future. We then introduce an extended ontological postulate: at any given stage of their operation, there exists a physical relation between the “currently active” segments of the worldlines of distant clocks - segments between their latest and next tick - that underwrites the observed nonlocal correlations, while remaining strictly compatible with no-signalling. This postulate goes beyond the minimal quantum package without modifying any empirical predictions. It instead replaces the bare global quantum state with a more concrete relational spacetime structure. We briefly sketch how a framework we call NIM is intended to implement this structure and discuss how such an approach fits within contemporary work on quantum foundations and spacetime ontology. -/- Keywords: Quantum nonlocality, Bell inequalities, No-signalling, Clocks and time, Spacetime ontology, Relational quantum mechanics, Primitive ontology . (shrink)

This paper presents a mathematical and ontological framework for representing temporal becoming within relativistic physics. The proposed Fixed-Now Model of a Growing Worldline (FNGW) reformulates the relation between time, existence, and worldlines. Rather than interpreting time as a moving present or a static block, the model defines the worldline as an expanding entity that grows backward into the past from a fixed Now. The present is treated as a fixed boundary, while the realized past expands as proper time accumulates. Each (...) tick of a local clock corresponds to an incremental extension of the realized past. The model reconciles the geometry of relativity with the experience of temporal passage, providing a precise mathematical basis for a becoming ontology compatible with Special Relativity (SR). This framework could serve as a bridge between the geometry of relativity and the discrete event structure of quantum measurement. (shrink)

The symposium was convened to explore the Principle of Waiting Time (τₙ or τ_w) within the broader Radiation-First Ontology (RFO) - a process-based metaphysical model of reality developed in response to the shortcomings of both classical spacetime ontology and quantum indeterminism. Radiation-First Ontology reverses the usual order of explanation: instead of assuming that matter and spacetime are primary, it posits that radiative interactions - null connections between emitters and absorbers - constitute the fundamental acts of existence. Reality is generated through (...) closures of these null connections; each closure event defines a local act of realization. In this view: • F(s) represents the domain of lawful potential connections (possible null relations consistent with physical law). • N is the generative layer - the thin, dynamic zone in which potential null connections are instantiated and closed. • W(s) is the recorded domain of realized events, the fixed and energy-neutral past. Only N possesses ontological existence. F(s) is law without being, and W(s) is record without energy. All energy - whether massive or radiative - is confined to N during the brief act of closure. This is the Energy-Confinement Principle. Time, accordingly, is not a background dimension but the ordered succession of closures within N. Each closure takes a finite waiting time τ_w, the generative interval during which a potential becomes actual. (shrink)

Standard discussions of the arrow of time locate irreversibility in macroscopic or boundary-level phenomena: entropy increase, measurement collapse, or cosmological initial conditions. This paper identifies a microscopic, physically grounded time-asymmetry inherent in spontaneous emission. The emission process follows a causal waiting-time distribution P(t)=Γe^(-Γt), which defines a non-reversible temporal order: emission is a stochastic transition with P(t<0)=0, while absorption is conditionally instantaneous. This asymmetry fixes the causal direction of radiative events E→A independently of thermodynamic or cosmological arrows. The argument implies that (...) the observed temporal orientation of electromagnetic processes arises already at the level of single quantum transitions, not from emergent macroscopic statistics. (shrink)

Mathematics knows how to move from the reals to the complex numbers, but not the other way around. In physics, this reduction happens every time a complex amplitude becomes a real measurement, yet there is no formal description of such a transformation. This essay asks: what would it take to define the passage from ℂ to ℝ as a lawful, oriented process - an algebraic morphism rather than a mere projection? Every physicist knows that we calculate in ℂ, but we (...) observe in ℝ. Wavefunctions, amplitudes, eigenstates, and propagators all live happily in the complex field – until the moment of measurement, when only real quantities remain. This transition happens billions of times every second, in every physical system, and yet mathematics has no formal description of it. We have a rich language for extending a real space into a complex one – complexification, tensor extension, analytic continuation – but none for going the other way. The operation ℝ ⟶ ℂ has a theory. Its opposite, ℂ ⟶ ℝ, does not. And still, this reduction underlies every real value we ever compute or measure. (shrink)

This White Paper outlines the conceptual foundations of Radiation-First Ontology (RFO), a process-based framework in which radiative closure - rather than spacetime geometry or material persistence - is taken as the primitive act of existence. Reality unfolds through finite generative intervals, or waiting times (τ_w≥0), during which lawful potentials become actual events. In this ontology, radiation precedes matter: emission and absorption define the fundamental events from which worldlines and geometry arise as records. RFO provides a coherent structure, denoted F–N–W, linking (...) three domains of reality: (1) the lawful potential field F(s); (2) the generative layer N, where null connections are closed; and (3) the recorded world W(s), the fixed archive of realized events. Time corresponds to the ordered succession of closures within N. The Principle of Waiting Time replaces “evolution in time” with “realization through waiting.” This generative interval grounds the arrow of time, reconciles quantum indeterminacy with relativistic invariance, and provides a new truthmaker for temporal becoming. The paper ends with testable implications and outlines the first research agenda for the Radiation-First programme. (shrink)

Two families of mathematical methods lie at the heart of investigating the hierarchical structure of genetic variation in Homo sapiens: /diversity partitioning/, which assesses genetic variation within and among pre-determined groups, and /clustering analysis/, which simultaneously produces clusters and assigns individuals to these “unsupervised” cluster classifications. While mathematically consistent, these two methodologies are understood by many to ground diametrically opposed claims about the reality of human races. Moreover, modeling results are sensitive to assumptions such as preexisting theoretical commitments to certain (...) linguistic, anthropological, and geographic human groups. Thus, models can be perniciously reified. That is, they can be conflated and confused with the world. This fact belies standard realist and antirealist interpretations of “race,” and supports a pluralist conventionalist interpretation. (shrink)

I analyze the importance of parts in the style of biological theorizing that I call compositional biology. I do this by investigating various aspects, including partitioning frames and explanatory accounts, of the theoretical perspectives that fall under and are guided by compositional biology. I ground this general examination in a comparative analysis of three different disciplines with their associated compositional theoretical perspectives: comparative morphology, functional morphology, and developmental biology. I glean data for this analysis from canonical textbooks and defend the (...) use of such texts for the philosophy of science. I end with a discussion of the importance of recognizing formal and compositional biology as two genuinely different ways of doing biology – the differences arising more from their distinct methodologies than from scientific discipline included or natural domain studied. Ultimately, developing a translation manual between the two styles would be desirable as they currently are, at times, in conflict. (shrink)

This article began as a review of a conference, organized by Gerhard Schlosser, entitled “Modularity in Development and Evolution.” The conference was held at, and sponsored by, the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst, Germany in May, 2000. The article subsequently metamorphosed into a literature and concept review as well as an analysis of the differences in current perspectives on modularity. Consequently, I refer to general aspects of the conference but do not review particular presentations. I divide modules into three kinds: structural, (...) developmental, and physiological. Every module fulfills none, one, or multiple functional roles. Two further orthogonal distinctions are important in this context: module-kinds versus module-variants-of-a-kind and reproducer versus nonreproducer modules. I review criteria for individuation of modules and mechanisms for the phylogenetic origin of modularity. I discuss conceptual and methodological differences between developmental and evolutionary biologists, in particular the difference between integration and competition perspectives on individualization and modular behavior. The variety in views regarding modularity presents challenges that require resolution in order to attain a comprehensive, rather than a piecemeal and fragmentary, evolutionary developmental biology. (shrink)

Scientists use models to understand the natural world, and it is important not to conflate model and nature. As an illustration, we distinguish three different kinds of populations in studies of ecology and evolution: theoretical, laboratory, and natural populations, exemplified by the work of R.A. Fisher, Thomas Park, and David Lack, respectively. Biologists are rightly concerned with all three types of populations. We examine the interplay between these different kinds of populations, and their pertinent models, in three examples: the notion (...) of “effective” population size, the work of Thomas Park on /Tribolium/ populations, and model-based clustering algorithms such as /Structure/. Finally, we discuss ways to move safely between three distinct population types while avoiding confusing models and reality. (shrink)

Darwin's ideas on variation, heredity, and development differ significantly from twentieth-century views. First, Darwin held that environmental changes, acting either on the reproductive organs or the body, were necessary to generate variation. Second, heredity was a developmental, not a transmissional, process; variation was a change in the developmental process of change. An analysis of Darwin's elaboration and modification of these two positions from his early notebooks (1836-1844) to the last edition of the /Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication/ (1875) (...) complements previous Darwin scholarship on these issues. Included in this analysis is a description of the way Darwin employed the distinction between transmission and development, as well as the conceptual relationship he saw between heredity and variation. This paper is part of a larger project comparing commitments regarding variation during the latter half of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

August Weismann is famous for having argued against the inheritance of acquired characters. However, an analysis of his work indicates that Weismann always held that changes in external conditions, acting during development, were the necessary causes of variation in the hereditary material. For much of his career he held that acquired germ-plasm variation was inherited. An irony, which is in tension with much of the standard twentieth-century history of biology, thus exists – Weismann was not a Weismannian. I distinguish three (...) claims regarding the germ-plasm: (1) its continuity, (2) its morphological sequestration, and (3) its variational sequestration. With respect to changes in Weismann’s views on the cause of variation, I divide his career into four stages. For each stage I analyze his beliefs on the relative importance of changes in external conditions and sexual reproduction as causes of variation in the hereditary material. Weismann believed, and Weismannism denies, that variation, heredity, and development were deeply intertwined processes. This article is part of a larger project comparing commitments regarding variation during the latter half of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Analytical categories of scientific cultures have typically been used both exclusively and universally. For instance, when styles of scientific research are employed in attempts to understand and narrate science, styles alone are usually employed. This article is a thought experiment in interweaving categories. What would happen if rather than employ a single category, we instead investigated several categories simultaneously? What would we learn about the practices and theories, the agents and materials, and the political-technological impact of science if we analyzed (...) and applied styles, paradigms, and models simultaneously? I address these questions in general and for a specific case study: a brief history of systematics. (shrink)

Reification is to abstraction as disease is to health. Whereas abstraction is singling out, symbolizing, and systematizing, reification is neglecting abstractive context, especially functional, historical, and analytical-level context. William James and John Dewey provide similar and nuanced arguments regarding the perils and promises of abstraction. They share an abstraction-reification account. The stages of abstraction and the concepts of “vicious abstractionism,” “/the/ psychologist’s fallacy,” and “the philosophic fallacy” in the works of these pragmatists are here analyzed in detail. For instance, in (...) 1896 Dewey exposes various fallacies associated with reifying dualistic reflex arc theory. The conclusion prescribes treatments (pluralism and assumption archaeology) for de-reifying ill models (i.e., universalized, narrowed, and ontologized models) in contemporary scientific fields such as cognitive science and biology. (shrink)

Sentimentalist aesthetic theories, broadly construed, posit that emotions play a fundamental role in aesthetic experiences. Jesse Prinz has recently proposed a reductionistic version of sentimentalist aesthetics, suggesting that it is the discrete feeling of wonder that makes an experience aesthetic. In this contribution, we draw on Prinz’s proposal in order to outline a novel version of a sentimentalist theory. Contrasting Prinz’s focus on a single emotion, we argue that an aesthetic experience is rudimentarily composed of a plurality of emotions. We (...) acknowledge and discuss significant problems that follow from such a theory, arguing that a pluralist version of sentimentalism is nonetheless the soundest position within sentimentalist aesthetics. (shrink)

De acuerdo con la metafísica naturalizada, la metafísica debe ser informada por nuestra mejor ciencia disponible y no apoyarse en el razonamiento a priori. En consecuencia, la metafísica naturalizada tiende a descartar los intentos de los metafísicos por disputar con la ciencia. Este artículo sostiene que, en cambio, la metafísica naturalizada debería acoger tales conflictos entre metafísica y ciencia. La metafísica naturalizada no es (y no debería ser) eliminativa respecto de la metafísica. Por lo tanto, si tales conflictos se originan (...) en la ausencia inmediata, dentro de la ciencia, de una respuesta a una cuestión metafísica, entonces el conflicto no debe ser descartado, sino recibido como una ocasión para hacer (más) metafísica naturalizada. Que los conflictos entre metafísica y ciencia pueden ser beneficiosos para la metafísica naturalizada se ejemplifica mediante el caso de las teorías no espaciales de la gravedad cuántica. Estas teorías son criticadas por metafísicos que, a menudo siguiendo a David Lewis, argumentan que la distancia espacial es un elemento fundamental indispensable en cualquier metafísica coherente debido a su rol como la relación constructora del mundo (world-making relation). Sin embargo, se reconoce que el conflicto resultante está bien fundado, puesto que las teorías no espaciales de la gravedad cuántica no ofrecen ninguna relación constructora del mundo alternativa a la distancia espacial. En lugar de descartar este conflicto, la metafísica naturalizada debería, por lo tanto, recibir la resistencia lewisiana como un llamado a buscar una. Cómo se desarrolla esto al modo de una negociación entre la teoría científica y la cuestión metafísica se ejemplifica en la última parte del artículo, donde se propone el entrelazamiento (entanglement) como una relación constructora del mundo alternativa dentro de la gravedad cuántica de lazos (loop quantum gravity). (shrink)

The goal of the present paper is to construct a formal explication of the pluralistic ignorance explanation of the bystander effect. The social dynamics leading to inaction is presented, decomposed, and modeled using dynamic epistemic logic augmented with ‘transition rules’ able to characterize agent behavior. Three agent types are defined: First Responders who intervene given belief of accident; City Dwellers, capturing ‘apathetic urban residents’ and Hesitators, who observe others when in doubt, basing subsequent decision on social proof. It is shown (...) how groups of the latter may end in a state of pluralistic ignorance leading to inaction. Sequential models for each agent type are specified, and their results compared to empirical studies. It is concluded that only the Hesitator model produces reasonable results. (shrink)

Schaffner’s model of theory reduction has played an important role in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. Here, the model is found to be problematic because of an internal tension. Indeed, standard antireductionist external criticisms concerning reduction functions and laws in biology do not provide a full picture of the limits of Schaffner’s model. However, despite the internal tension, his model usefully highlights the importance of regulative ideals associated with the search for derivational, and embedding, deductive relations among mathematical (...) structures in theoretical biology. A reconstructed Schaffnerian model could therefore shed light on mathematical theory development in the biological sciences and on the epistemology of mathematical practices more generally. *Received November 2006; revised March 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Philosophy Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz, CA 95064; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Levins and Lewontin have contributed significantly to our philosophical understanding of the structures, processes, and purposes of biological mathematical theorizing and modeling. Here I explore their separate and joint pleas to avoid making abstract and ideal scientific models ontologically independent by confusing or conflating our scientific models and the world. I differentiate two views of theorizing and modeling, orthodox and dialectical, in order to examine Levins and Lewontin’s, among others, advocacy of the latter view. I compare the positions of these (...) two views with respect to four points regarding ontological assumptions: (1) the origin of ontological assumptions, (2) the relation of such assumptions to the formal models of the same theory, (3) their use in integrating and negotiating different formal models of distinct theories, and (4) their employment in explanatory activity. Dialectical is here used in both its Hegelian–Marxist sense of opposition and tension between alternative positions and in its Platonic sense of dialogue between advocates of distinct theories. I investigate three case studies, from Levins and Lewontin as well as from a recent paper of mine, that show the relevance and power of the dialectical understanding of theorizing and modeling. (shrink)

In the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, one often finds claims along the lines that “spacetime emerges from entanglement.” This paper argues that behind these general statements hide three distinct emergence claims about, respectively, metric, gravitational dynamics, and topological connectivity. Thus, despite being advertised with the same terminology, these results are not about the same spatiotemporal aspects. They can therefore not just be grouped as evidence for one unanimous conclusion, though they do point in similar directions. The paper also investigates (...) whether the three emergence claims satisfy two of the necessary conditions for emergence: Determination and novelty. The paper argues that none of the emergence claims satisfies the determination condition: More than entanglement is needed to furnish the emergence basis. Besides entanglement, the emergence basis for the bulk metric must include the induced metric on the boundary. Thus, this claim might not satisfy the novelty condition for emergence that the emergent should be novel as compared to the emergence basis. Likewise, the emergence basis for topological connectivity seems to include connectivity whereby this emergence claim is also questionable. The paper concludes that only gravitational dynamics is novel compared to the fully furnished emergence basis. (shrink)

I investigate how theoretical assumptions, pertinent to different perspectives and operative during the modeling process, are central in determining how nature is actually taken to be. I explore two different models by Michael Turelli and Steve Frank of the evolution of parasite-mediated cytoplasmic incompatility, guided, respectively, by Fisherian and Wrightian perspectives. Since the two models can be shown to be commensurable both with respect to mathematics and data, I argue that the differences between them in the (1) mathematical presentation of (...) the models, (2) explanations, and (3) objectified ontologies stem neither from differences in mathematical method nor the employed data, but from differences in the theoretical assumptions, especially regarding ontology, already present in the respective perspectives. I use my "set up, mathematically manipulate, explain, and objectify" (SMEO) account of the modeling process to track the model-mediated imposition of theoretical assumptions. I conclude with a discussion of the general implications of my analysis of these models for the controversy between Fisherian and Wrightian perspectives. (shrink)

Geographic Information Science (GIS) is an interdisciplinary science aiming to detect and visually represent patterns in spatial data. GIS is used by businesses to determine where to open new stores and by conservation biologists to identify field study locations with relatively little anthropogenic influence. Products of GIS include topographic and thematic maps of the Earth’s surface, climate maps, and spatially referenced demographic graphs and charts. In addition to its social, political, and economic importance, GIS is of intrinsic philosophical interest due (...) to its methodological richness and because it is an instructive analogue to other sciences. This chapter works towards a philosophy of GIS and cartography, or PGISC. In particular, it examines practices of classifying geographic space, objects, and relations. By focusing on the use of natural kinds in data modeling and map generalization practices, I show how the making and using of kinds is contextual, fallible, plural, and purposive. (shrink)

This letter addresses the editorial decision to publish the article, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (Cofnas, 2020). Our letter points out several critical problems with Cofnas's article, which we believe should have either disqualified the manuscript upon submission or been addressed during the review process and resulted in substantial revisions.

This paper sets forward a novel theory of temporal binding, a mechanism that integrates the temporal properties of sensory features into coherent perceptual experiences. Specifying a theory of temporal binding remains a widespread problem. The popular ‘brain time theory’ suggests that the temporal content of perceptual experiences is determined by when sensory features complete processing. However, this theory struggles to explain how perceptual experiences can accurately reflect the relative timing of sensory features processed at discrepant times. In contrast, ‘event time (...) theories’ suggest that the temporal content of perceptual experiences reflects the relative event time of external sensory features and that the brain accommodates differential processing times. We can formulate retrodictive and predictive versions of this theory. Retrodictive event time theories propose that we accommodate desynchronised processing retrodictively. Predictive event time theories propose that we accommodate desynchronised processing by predictively modelling the event time of sensory features. I argue that both views have strengths and weaknesses. This paper proposes a new hybrid theory that integrates these theories to accommodate these weaknesses. Firstly, I argue how retrodictions and predictions can interact in mutually beneficial ways to ensure speedy and accurate temporal binding. Secondly, I propose how attention plays a central role in flexibly selecting which contents get to be temporally bound. This theory can explain how prediction and retrodiction differentially affect temporal binding and, in turn, proposes a new way to understand temporal binding and has implications for how we should understand conscious experiences. (shrink)

Psychopathy has been theorized as a disorder of emotion, which impairs moral judgments. However, these theories are increasingly being abandoned as empirical studies show that psychopaths seem to make proper moral judgments. In this contribution, these findings are reassessed, and it is argued that prevalent emotion‐theories of psychopathy appear to operate with the unjustified assumption that psychopaths have no emotions, which leads to the hypothesis that psychopaths are completely unable to make moral judgments. An alternative and novel explanation is proposed, (...) theorizing psychopathy as a degree‐specific emotional deficiency, which causes degree‐specific differences in moral judgments. (shrink)

McDowell and Merleau-Ponty share a critical attitude towards a certain Cartesian picture of the mind. According to the picture in question nothing which properly belongs to subjectivity can be hidden to the subject herself. Nevertheless there is a striking asymmetry in how the two philosophers portray the problematic consequences of such a picture. They can seem to offer exact opposite views of these consequences, which, given the almost identical characterization of the transparency claim, is puzzling. I argue that a closer (...) look at the prima facie puzzling asymmetry dissolves the apparent disagreement and reveals a deeper agreement concerning both the nature and the origin of the problems haunting the Cartesian picture in question. Both McDowell and Merleau-Ponty argue that on the picture of the relation of between mind and world in question, we lose our grip on the very idea of a perceptual appearance. Furthermore, the two authors regard a certain conception of nature as conceived in the image of science, as one of the crucial elements in making the picture of the mind in question look attractive. (shrink)

Philosophy can shed light on mathematical modeling and the juxtaposition of modeling and empirical data. This paper explores three philosophical traditions of the structure of scientific theory—Syntactic, Semantic, and Pragmatic—to show that each illuminates mathematical modeling. The Pragmatic View identifies four critical functions of mathematical modeling: (1) unification of both models and data, (2) model fitting to data, (3) mechanism identification accounting for observation, and (4) prediction of future observations. Such facets are explored using a recent exchange between two groups (...) of mathematical modelers in plant biology. Scientific debate can arise from different modeling philosophies. (shrink)

Two controversies exist regarding the appropriate characterization of hierarchical and adaptive evolution in natural populations. In biology, there is the Wright-Fisher controversy over the relative roles of random genetic drift, natural selection, population structure, and interdemic selection in adaptive evolution begun by Sewall Wright and Ronald Aylmer Fisher. There is also the Units of Selection debate, spanning both the biological and the philosophical literature and including the impassioned group-selection debate. Why do these two discourses exist separately, and interact relatively little? (...) We postulate that the reason for this schism can be found in the differing focus of each controversy, a deep difference itself determined by distinct general styles of scientific research guiding each discourse. That is, the Wright-Fisher debate focuses on adaptive process, and tends to be instructed by the mathematical modeling style, while the focus of the Units of Selection controversy is adaptive product, and is typically guided by the function style. The differences between the two discourses can be usefully tracked by examining their interpretations of two contested strategies for theorizing hierarchical selection: horizontal and vertical averaging. (shrink)

We may correctly say that Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most influential Christian-religious thinkers of the modern era, but are we equally justified in categorizing his writings as foundationally religious? This paper challenges a prevailing exclusive-theological interpretation that contends that Kierkegaard principally writes from a Christian dogmatic viewpoint. I argue that Kierkegaard’s religion is better understood as an outcome of his philosophical analysis of human nature. Conclusively, we should appreciate Kierkegaard first as a philosopher, whose aim is the explication (...) of human subjectivity, and not primarily as an orator of Christian orthodoxy. (shrink)

Selectionist evolutionary theory has often been faulted for not making novel predictions that are surprising, risky, and correct. I argue that it in fact exhibits the theoretical virtue of predictive capacity in addition to two other virtues: explanatory unification and model fitting. Two case studies show the predictive capacity of selectionist evolutionary theory: parallel evolutionary change in E. coli, and the origin of eukaryotic cells through endosymbiosis.

Should we think of our universe as law-governed and “clockwork”-like or as disorderly and “soup”-like? Alternatively, should we consciously and intentionally synthesize these two extreme pictures? More concretely, how deterministic are the postulated causes and how rigid are the modeled properties of the best statistical methodologies used in the biological and behavioral sciences? The charge of this entry is to explore thinking about causation in the temporal evolution of biological and behavioral systems. Regression analysis and path analysis are simply explicated (...) with reference to a thought experiment of painting three universes (clockwork, soup, and conscious) useful for imagining our actual universe. Attention to historical, structural, and mechanistic explanatory perspectives broadens the palette of methodologies available for analyzing determinism in, and explanation of, biological and behavioral systems. Each justified methodology provides a partial perspective on complex reality. Is a total explanation of any system ever possible, and what would it require? (shrink)

There are two fundamentally distinct kinds of biological theorizing. "Formal biology" focuses on the relations, captured in formal laws, among mathematically abstracted properties of abstract objects. Population genetics and theoretical mathematical ecology, which are cases of formal biology, thus share methods and goals with theoretical physics. "Compositional biology," on the other hand, is concerned with articulating the concrete structure, mechanisms, and function, through developmental and evolutionary time, of material parts and wholes. Molecular genetics, biochemistry, developmental biology, and physiology, which are (...) examples of compositional biology, are in serious need of philosophical attention. For example, the very concept of a "part" is understudied in both philosophy of biology and philosophy of science. ;My dissertation is an attempt to clarify the distinction between formal biology and compositional biology and, in so doing, provide a clear philosophical analysis, with case studies, of compositional biology. Given the social, economic, and medical importance of compositional biology, understanding it is urgent. For my investigation, I draw on the philosophical fields of metaphysics and epistemology, as well as philosophy of biology and philosophy of science. I suggest new ways of thinking about some classic philosophy of science issues, such as modeling, laws of nature, abstraction, explanation, and confirmation. I hint at the relevance of my study of two kinds of biological theorizing to debates concerning the disunity of science. (shrink)

I motivate the concept of styles of scientific investigation, and differentiate two styles, formal and compositional. Styles are ways of doing scientific research. Radically different styles exist. I explore the possibility of the unification of biology and social science, as well as the possibility of unifying the two styles I identify. Recent attempts at unifying biology and social science have been premised almost exclusively on the formal style. Through the use of a historical example of defenders of compositional biological social (...) science, the Ecology Group at the University of Chicago from, roughly, the 1930s to the 1950s, I attempt to show the coherence and possibility, if not utility, of employing the compositional style to effect the synthesis of biology and social science. I also relate the efforts of the Ecology Group to those of investigators in the Sociology Department of the University of Chicago. In my conclusion, I discuss the usefulness both of employing the category of styles of scientific investigation in historical and philosophical studies of science, as well as the concept of compositionality in scientific studies. I end the paper with some tentative suggestions regarding the importance of compositionality for an analysis of human society. (shrink)

This project investigates naturalized metaphysics as a recent trend in analytic metaphysics originating in the naturalist attitude of James Ladyman and Don Ross in their seminal work Everything must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized (2007). The primary focus, however, will be the more recent article “Neo-Positivist Metaphysics” (2012) by Alyssa Ney that originates in this tradition. The project will conclude that naturalized metaphysics is an unsuccessful attempt at an answer to the question ’how is metaphysics possible’. More precisely, the project will establish (...) that any answer to this question must instruct how to succeed at attempts at assertions about the Kantian thing in itself. This requirement is the result of an argument that no other conception of ’reality’ is robust enough to accommodate an ambitious metaphysics. Subsequently, it will be argued that naturalized metaphysics is conceived by its proponents as an attempt at such an answer, but that naturalized metaphysics does not provide the required instruction. This problem occurs because of Carnap’s challenge to metaphysics. Carnap observes that no assertion can be made outside a linguistic framework which has the consequence that metaphysical assertions must be about the conceptual conventions of the linguistic framework rather than the thing in itself. It is the view of Ney and the other proponents of naturalized metaphysics that metaphysics is possible as a naturalized metaphysics; a metaphysics that appropriately defers or yields to the findings of science. The project argues that this requirement does nothing to ensure that Carnap’s challenge is avoided. The challenge is equally significant to naturalized and non-naturalized metaphysics, so long as both require that successful attempts at metaphysics must be assertions about the thing in itself. -/- The project concludes that until or unless Carnap’s challenge is refuted, naturalized metaphysics remain impossible, just like the metaphysics it is supposed to replace. (shrink)