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Philosophers
Mortimer Adler Rogers Albritton Alexander of Aphrodisias G.E.M.Anscombe Thomas Aquinas Aristotle David Armstrong Augustine A.J.Ayer Mark Balaguer William Belsham Henri Bergson Isaiah Berlin Bernard Berofsky Susanne Bobzien Emil du Bois-Reymond George Boole Émile Boutroux F.H.Bradley C.D.Broad C.A.Campbell Joseph Keim Campbell Carneades Ernst Cassirer Roderick Chisholm Chrysippus Cicero Randolph Clarke Samuel Clarke Donald Davidson Democritus Daniel Dennett René Descartes Richard Double Fred Dretske John Earman Laura Waddell Ekstrom Epictetus Epicurus John Martin Fischer Owen Flanagan Philippa Foot Alfred Fouilleé Harry Frankfurt Richard L. Franklin Carl Ginet Nicholas St. John Green Ian Hacking Ishtiyaque Haji Stuart Hampshire Georg W.F. Hegel Martin Heidegger R.E.Hobart Thomas Hobbes David Hodgson Shadsworth Hodgson Ted Honderich Pamela Huby David Hume William James Robert Kane Immanuel Kant Tomis Kapitan Christine Korsgaard Keith Lehrer Gottfried Leibniz Leucippus C.I.Lewis David Lewis Peter Lipton John Locke John R. Lucas Lucretius Hugh McCann Colin McGinn Michael McKenna Alfred Mele John Stuart Mill Dickinson Miller G.E.Moore Thomas Nagel Friedrich Nietzsche P.H.Nowell-Smith Robert Nozick William of Ockham Timothy O'Connor Charles Sanders Peirce Derk Pereboom Steven Pinker Plato Karl Popper H.A.Prichard Hilary Putnam Willard van Orman Quine Frank Ramsey Ayn Rand Thomas Reid Charles Renouvier Nicholas Rescher C.W.Rietdijk Josiah Royce Bertrand Russell Paul Russell Gilbert Ryle T.M.Scanlon Moritz Schlick Arthur Schopenhauer John Searle Henry Sidgwick Walter Sinnott-Armstrong J.J.C.Smart Saul Smilansky Michael Smith L. Susan Stebbing Galen Strawson Peter Strawson Eleonore Stump Richard Taylor Kevin Timpe Peter van Inwagen Manuel Vargas John Venn Kadri Vihvelin Voltaire G.H. von Wright R. Jay Wallace Ted Warfield Roy Weatherford Alfred North Whitehead David Widerker David Wiggins Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Wolf Scientists Michael Arbib Bernard Baars John S. Bell Charles Bennett Margaret Boden David Bohm Neils Bohr Ludwig Boltzmann Max Born Leon Brillouin Stephen Brush Henry Thomas Buckle Anthony Cashmore Arthur Holly Compton John Conway Abraham de Moivre Paul Dirac John Eccles Arthur Stanley Eddington Albert Einstein Richard Feynman Joseph Fourier GianCarlo Ghirardi Nicolas Gisin A.O.Gomes Joshua Greene Jacques Hadamard Martin Heisenberg Werner Heisenberg Pascual Jordan Simon Kochen Stephen Kosslyn Rolf Landauer Alfred Landé Pierre-Simon Laplace David Layzer Benjamin Libet Josef Loschmidt Ernst Mach Henry Margenau James Clerk Maxwell Ernst Mayr Jacques Monod Roger Penrose Steven Pinker Max Planck Henri Poincaré Adolphe Quételet Jerome Rothstein Erwin Schrödinger Claude Shannon Herbert Simon B. F. Skinner Antoine Suarez Leo Szilard William Thomson (Kelvin) John von Neumann Daniel Wegner Steven Weinberg Norbert Wiener Eugene Wigner E. O. Wilson Ernst Zermelo |
Part Five - Problems of Philosophy
Here we review some great questions of philosophy for which modern physical science and information philosophy now provide us with the possibility of fuller understanding, if not plausible and practical solutions.
Several of these are problems that 20th-century philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein labeled "philosophical puzzles" or Bertrand Russell called "pseudo-problems." Analytic language philosophers thought many of these problems could be "dis-solved," revealing them to be caused by the misuse of language.
Gilbert Ryle called them "category mistakes" that could be avoided by more careful "conceptual analysis." His analysis of the "concept of mind" concluded that mind simply did not exist. Using the new methodology of information philosophy, these problems are now back under consideration as genuinely important, analyzable and potentially soluble in terms of information, with some aspects subject to experimental testing.
Philosophical Problems
Free Will Value (Ethics) Knowledge (Epistemology) Consciousness Evil (Theodicy) Immortality Induction Metaphysics Mind-Body One or Many Other Minds Ought from Is Universals Physics Problems The Arrow of Time Entanglement Macroscopic Recurrence Microscopic Reversibility Measurement Classical Philosophical Problems
The Problem of Free Will - A dozen thinkers since William James in 1884 have proposed "two-stage" models of free will - first "free," then will," - first chance, then choice, - first alternative possibilities, then one actuality. The most plausible and practical solution to the 2400-year old problem of free will is our Cogito model. The critical random component of the first stage is provided by noise in the brain's information processing.
The Problem of Value - Information philosophy moves the source of ultimate value beyond man and our created gods, beyond life and the Earth, to its origins in a Cosmic Providence, which creates stable information structures that we call Ergo. Note that quantum mechanics, though normally thought of as adding only indeterminacy, is the source of the stability in most information structures.
The Problem of Knowledge - Epistemology - More correctly the problem of certain knowledge, when our means of perception is limited and fallible. Instead of logical language debates about "justified true belief," information philosophy looks to information structures in the brain that correspond to structures in the world and in other minds.
Consciousness can be defined in information terms as an entity (usually a living thing but we can also include artificially conscious machines or computers) that reacts to the information (and particularly to changes in the information) in its environment. We call it information consciousness.
The Problem of Evil - Theodicy - "If God is Good He is not God. If God is God He is not Good." (J.B., by Archibald MacLeish) The question is not "Does God exist?" The question is "Does Goodness exist?" The solution lies in a dualist world with both bad and good. If ergodic information is an objective good, then entropic destruction of information is "the devil incarnate," as Norbert Wiener put it.
The Problem of Evil - Theodicy - "If God is Good He is not God. If God is God He is not Good." (J.B., by Archibald MacLeish) The question is not "Does God exist?" The question is "Does Goodness exist?" The solution lies in a dualist world with both bad and good. If ergodic information is an objective good, then entropic destruction of information is "the devil incarnate," as Norbert Wiener put it.
Immortality - Information philosophy implies two kinds of immortality, the material survival of genetic information and the survival of ideas in the sum of all knowledge and human artifacts. The survival of parts of the genetic code in DNA is the longest approximation to immortality known in living things.
The Problem of Induction - We now understand why Hume is right that induction does not lead to certain truth, but like experiments, induction can count as statistical evidence for and against our hypotheses and theories.
Metaphysics - Are there unavoidable a priori first principles of philosophy and thus of science? There are definitely axioms or starting assumptions for all thought and reasoning. We will see they are exercises in information minimalism - the least that can be said about things.
The Mind-Body Problem - Solved in part by our Sum model, which explains how abstract information, an idea, or knowledge is incorporated into a human mind, and how pure ideas act on the physical world. Information is neither energy nor matter. But it needs matter for its embodiment and energy for its communication. Information is the mind in the body, the ghost in the machine, as close to a spirit or soul as science can get. When we die, it is our information that is lost. Our ERRS (experience recorder, reproducer, and sequencer) model for the mind is simpler than but superior to cognitive science computational models of the mind.
One or Many - Is the world a unity? We will see this is part of the great dualism between ideal and material, being and becoming,
Modern Physics Problems
The Arrow of Time - Arthur Stanley Eddington connected "Time's Arrow" with the direction of increasing entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. We now show that it is also the direction of increasing information.
Entanglement is a mysterious quantum phenomenon that seems capable of transmitting information over vast distances faster than the speed of light, a property called non-locality. Information physics shows that although information about probability is indeed transmitted faster than the speed of light, no signaling is possible, since no matter or energy is transmitted.
Macroscopic Recurrence - Ernst Zermelo argued against Ludwig Boltzmann's H-Theorem (his derivation of the second law of thermodynamics), on the grounds that given enough time, any system would return to the same starting conditions and thus entropy must decrease as well as increase. Information physics shows that exactly the same circumstances can never recur. Friedrich Nietzsche's "Eternal Return of the Same" is a physical impossibility, because of the increasing information in the universe.
Microscopic Reversibility - Joseph Loschmidt also argued against Ludwig Boltzmann's H-Theorem, on the grounds that if time were reversed the entropy would decrease. Boltzmann agreed that it would, according to his initial version of the H-Theorem which was derived from classical dynamical physics. He then defended his case for entropy increase on the basis of probabilities and an assumption of "molecular disorder." A quantum-mechanical treatment of binary (two-particle) collisions confirms the correctness of Boltzmann's "molecular disorder" assumption.
The Problem of Measurement - We explain how our measuring instruments, which are usually macroscopic objects and treatable with classical physics, can give us information about the microscopic world of atoms and subatomic particles like electrons and photons, which are described with quantum physics. The so-called "cut" between the classical and quantum worlds occurs at the moment that stable observable information enters the world. It does not require the consciousness of an observer.
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