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Supertask
In philosophy, a supertask is a countably infinite sequence of operations that occur sequentially within a finite interval of time. Supertasks are called hypertasks when the number of operations becomes uncountably infinite. A hypertask that includes one task for each ordinal number is called an ultratask. The term "supertask" was coined by the philosopher James F. Thomson, who devised Thomson's lamp. The term "hypertask" derives from Clark and Read in their paper of that name. History Zeno Motion The origin of the interest in supertasks is normally attributed to Zeno of Elea. Zeno claimed that motion was impossible. He argued as follows: suppose our burgeoning "mover", Achilles say, wishes to move from A to B. To achieve this he must traverse half the distance from A to B. To get from the midpoint of AB to B, Achilles must traverse half ''this'' distance, and so on and so forth. However many times he performs one of these "traversing" tasks, there is another one left for him ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomson's Lamp
Thomson's lamp is a philosophical puzzle based on infinites. It was devised in 1954 by British philosopher James F. Thomson, who used it to analyze the possibility of a supertask, which is the completion of an infinite number of tasks. Consider a lamp with a toggle switch. Flicking the switch once turns the lamp on. Another flick will turn the lamp off. Now suppose that there is a being who is able to perform the following task: starting a timer, he turns the lamp on. At the end of one minute, he turns it off. At the end of another half minute, he turns it on again. At the end of another quarter of a minute, he turns it off. At the next eighth of a minute, he turns it on again, and he continues thus, flicking the switch each time after waiting exactly one-half the time he waited before flicking it previously. The sum of this infinite series of time intervals is exactly two minutes. The following question is then considered: Is the lamp on or off at two minutes? Thomso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeno's Paradoxes
Zeno's paradoxes are a set of philosophical problems generally thought to have been devised by Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (c. 490–430 BC) to support Parmenides' doctrine that contrary to the evidence of one's senses, the belief in plurality and change is mistaken, and in particular that motion is nothing but an illusion. It is usually assumed, based on Plato's ''Parmenides'' (128a–d), that Zeno took on the project of creating these paradoxes because other philosophers had created paradoxes against Parmenides' view. Thus Plato has Zeno say the purpose of the paradoxes "is to show that their hypothesis that existences are many, if properly followed up, leads to still more absurd results than the hypothesis that they are one." Plato has Socrates claim that Zeno and Parmenides were essentially arguing exactly the same point. Some of Zeno's nine surviving paradoxes (preserved in Aristotle's ''Physics'' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of mind, mind, and Philosophy of language, language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras ( BCE), although this theory is disputed by some. Philosophical methodology, Philosophical methods include Socratic questioning, questioning, Socratic method, critical discussion, dialectic, rational argument, and systematic presentation. in . Historically, ''philosophy'' encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a ''philosopher''."The English word "philosophy" is first attested to , meaning "knowledge, body of knowledge." "natural philosophy," which began as a discipline in ancient India and Ancient Greece, encompasses astronomy, medicine, and physics. For example, Isaac Newton, Newton's 1687 ''Phil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intuitionism
In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism (opposed to preintuitionism), is an approach where mathematics is considered to be purely the result of the constructive mental activity of humans rather than the discovery of fundamental principles claimed to exist in an objective reality. That is, logic and mathematics are not considered analytic activities wherein deep properties of objective reality are revealed and applied, but are instead considered the application of internally consistent methods used to realize more complex mental constructs, regardless of their possible independent existence in an objective reality. Truth and proof The fundamental distinguishing characteristic of intuitionism is its interpretation of what it means for a mathematical statement to be true. In Brouwer's original intuitionism, the truth of a mathematical statement is a subjective claim: a mathematical statement corresponds to a mental construction, and a mathematician ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Journal For The Philosophy Of Science
''British Journal for the Philosophy of Science'' (''BJPS'') is a peer-reviewed, academic journal of philosophy, owned by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science (BSPS) and published by University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes work that uses philosophical methods in addressing issues raised in the natural and human sciences. Overview The leading international journal in the field, ''BJPS'' publishes outstanding new work on a variety of traditional and 'cutting edge' topics, from issues of explanation and realism to the applicability of mathematics, from the metaphysics of science to the nature of models and simulations, as well as foundational issues in the physical, life, and social sciences. Recent topics covered in the journal include the epistemology of measurement, mathematical non-causal explanations, signalling games, the nature of biochemical kinds, and approaches to human cognitive development, among many others. The journal seeks to advance the field ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalam Cosmological Argument
The Kalam cosmological argument is a modern formulation of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. It is named after the ''Kalam'' (medieval Islamic scholasticism) from which its key ideas originated. William Lane Craig was principally responsible for giving new life to the argument, due to his ''The Kalām Cosmological Argument'' (1979), among other writings. The argument's key underpinning idea is the metaphysical impossibility of actual infinities and of a temporally past-infinite universe, traced by Craig to 11th-century Persian Muslim scholastic philosopher Al-Ghazali. This feature distinguishes it from other cosmological arguments, such as Five Ways (Aquinas), that of Thomas Aquinas, which rests on the impossibility of a causality, causally ordered infinite regress, and those of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, which refer to the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Since Craig's original publication, the Kalam cosmological argument has elicited p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Chalmers
David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, as well as co-director of NYU's Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness (along with Ned Block). In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Chalmers is best known for formulating the hard problem of consciousness. He and David Bourget cofounded PhilPapers, a database of journal articles for philosophers. Early life and education Chalmers was born in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1966, and subsequently grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, where he attended Unley High School. As a child, he experienced synesthesia. He began coding and playing computer games at age 10 on a PDP-10 at a medical center. He also performed e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
José Benardete
José Amado Benardete (1928 - 2016) was an American philosopher and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University. He was the son of Maír José Benardete and the brother of Seth Benardete and Diego Benardete, professor of mathematics at the University of Hartford. Benardete was known for his works on metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio .... Books * ''Greatness of Soul in Hume, Aristotle and Hobbes'' (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013) * ''Metaphysics: The Logical Approach'' (Oxford University Press, 1989) * ''Infinity: An Essay in Metaphysics'' (Oxford University Press, 1964) References External linksPersonal Website 1928 births 2016 deaths American people of Turkish-Jewish descent American philosophy academics Jewish philosophers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minds And Machines
''Minds and Machines'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering artificial intelligence, philosophy, and cognitive science. The journal was established in 1991 with James Henry Fetzer as founding editor-in-chief. It was published by Kluwer Academic Publishers but was taken over by Springer in 2021 (Springer Science+Business Media). Affiliated with the Society for Machines and Mentality, a special interest group within the International Association for Computing and Philosophy. The current editor-in-chief is Mariarosaria Taddeo (University of Oxford). Editors Previous editors-in-chief of the journal have been James H. Fetzer (1991–2000), James H. Moor (2001–2010), and Gregory Wheeler (2011–2016). Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed by the following services: According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2016 impact factor of 0.514. Article categories The journal publishes articles in the categories Research articl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustavo E
Gustavo is the Latinate form of a Germanic male given name with respective prevalence in Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian. It has been a common name for Swedish monarchs since the reign of Gustav Vasa. It is derived from Gustav /ˈɡʊstɑːv/, also spelled Gustaf, of Old Swedish origin, meaning “staff of the Gods/Goths” or “great royal staff” or "staff of the Geats", derived from the Old Norse elements Gautr ("Geat") and stafr ("staff"). Other Swedish variants/derivatives: Gösta, Göstav, Gustafsson, Gustavsson. Such a name is also etymologically indicative of a Slavonic origin (through Swedish) from "Gostislav", a compound word from Old Slavic "Gost'" ("guest") and "slava" ("glory"). Other Slavonic variants/derivatives: Goslav, Gustaw, Gusti, Gustik, Gusty. Such a name in the United States also bears diminutive forms in English, which serve as nick names: Gus, Gussie, Gussy, Goose. To avoid confusion, note that these nick names are also commonly used for a different ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon. Although it has a great effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, it has no locally detectable features according to general relativity. In many ways, a black hole acts like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light. Moreover, quantum field theory in curved spacetime predicts that event horizons emit Hawking radiation, with the same spectrum as a black body of a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. This temperature is of the order of billionths of a kelvin for stellar black holes, making it essentially impossible to observe directly. Objects whose gravitational fields are too strong for light to escape were fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Dilation
In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them ( special relativistic "kinetic" time dilation) or to a difference in gravitational potential between their locations ( general relativistic gravitational time dilation). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity. After compensating for varying signal delays due to the changing distance between an observer and a moving clock (i.e. Doppler effect), the observer will measure the moving clock as ticking slower than a clock that is at rest in the observer's own reference frame. In addition, a clock that is close to a massive body (and which therefore is at lower gravitational potential) will record less elapsed time than a clock situated further from the said massive body (and which is at a higher gravitational potential). These predictions of the theory of relativity have been repeated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
