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Paul Austin Murphy
Paul Austin Murphy

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3 days ago

How Professor Donald Hoffman Uses Mathematics: From Idealism to the Amplituhedron

Professor Donald Hoffman is a philosophical idealist. Professionally, he’s also a cognitive psychologist. At some point after 2013, Hoffman discovered that a small number of theoretical physicists were claiming that “spacetime is doomed”. He particularly noted the work of Nima Arkani-Hamed and his amplituhedron. More relevantly, Hoffman realised that he…

Donald Hoffman

19 min read

How Professor Donald Hoffman Uses Mathematics: From Idealism to the Amplituhedron
How Professor Donald Hoffman Uses Mathematics: From Idealism to the Amplituhedron
Donald Hoffman

19 min read


May 29

Physicist Paul Davies’s Contributions to the Advancement of Religion, As Seen By Father Mariano Artigas

In 1995, the physicist and popular science writer Paul Davies was presented with a John Templeton Foundation award. This foundation awards individuals who’ve made a “significant contribution to the advancement of religion”. The priest and physicist Mariano Artigas wrote a piece on Davies’s award. After asking “why was [the unconventionally…

Philosophy

13 min read

Physicist Paul Davies’s Contributions to the Advancement of Religion, As Seen By Father Mariano…
Physicist Paul Davies’s Contributions to the Advancement of Religion, As Seen By Father Mariano…
Philosophy

13 min read


May 23

Postmodern Physics: Post-Observation, Post-Evidence, Post-Experiment

In the mid-1990s, the science journalist John Horgan interviewed various physicists (including Sheldon Glashow, Edward Witten and Steven Weinberg) who spoke both for and against the strongly speculative (or “nonempirical”) nature of much contemporary physics and cosmology. After Horgan wrote The End of Science, Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, the writer…

Philosophy

18 min read

Postmodern Physics: Post-Observation, Post-Evidence, Post-Experiment
Postmodern Physics: Post-Observation, Post-Evidence, Post-Experiment
Philosophy

18 min read


Published in

Paul Austin Murphy’s Essays on Philosophy

·May 17

Bernardo Kastrup: The Idealist Cult Leader Who Endlessly Abuses Others

Yes. That’s right. There is indeed a self-referential problem with the title above. It contains the words “cult leader”, which can be deemed to be abuse. However, I haven’t done this kind of thing with any other philosopher before. I do it with Bernardo Kastrup because he stridently preaches his…

Philosophy

14 min read

Bernardo Kastrup: The Idealist Cult Leader Who Endlessly Abuses Others
Bernardo Kastrup: The Idealist Cult Leader Who Endlessly Abuses Others
Philosophy

14 min read


Published in

Paul Austin Murphy’s Essays on Philosophy

·May 13

When Science Journalist John Horgan Met the Anarchist Philosopher of Science Paul Feyerabend

Way back in 1992, the science journalist John Horgan (who writes for Scientific American) interviewed the anarchist philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. (A full account of this interview can be found in Horgan’s 1996 book, The End of Science.) In that interview, Feyerabend asked Horgan, “What’s so great about knowledge?”…

Philosophy

13 min read

When Science Journalist John Horgan Met the Anarchist Philosopher of Science Paul Feyerabend
When Science Journalist John Horgan Met the Anarchist Philosopher of Science Paul Feyerabend
Philosophy

13 min read


Published in

Paul Austin Murphy’s Essays on Philosophy

·May 7

Is There a Hard Problem of Consciousness… and of Everything Else?

Philosopher Dr. Kane Baker argues that there are hard problems of liquidity, white walls, balls, and, indeed, “everything”. He cites three examples: (1) There’s a logical possibility that “you have the same H₂O microstructure, but you just don’t have liquidity”. (2) You can look at a white wall, and yet…

Philosophy

13 min read

Is There a Hard Problem of Consciousness… and of Everything Else?
Is There a Hard Problem of Consciousness… and of Everything Else?
Philosophy

13 min read


Published in

Paul Austin Murphy’s Essays on Philosophy

·May 2

David Lewis on Knowledge, Justification, and the Lottery Paradox

The American philosopher David Kellogg Lewis (1942–2001) approached the lottery paradox from a philosophical angle. That is, he didn’t approach it in the same way as many mathematicians, scientists and logicians had previously done. Lewis, instead, focussed on knowledge and justification and their relation to the paradox… Yet knowledge and…

Philosophy

10 min read

David Lewis on Knowledge, Justification, and the Lottery Paradox
David Lewis on Knowledge, Justification, and the Lottery Paradox
Philosophy

10 min read


Published in

Paul Austin Murphy’s Essays on Philosophy

·Apr 28

Are We All “Sheeple” Who Can’t Escape Our Conceptual Schemes or Epistemes?

The philosopher Michel Foucault argued that (most? all?) people don’t realise that the epistemes they exist within determine their experiences, “discourse”, beliefs and even behaviour. (According to Foucault, epistemes constitute “the historical a priori”.)… So how did Foucault and similar theorists (e.g., Marx, etc.) escape from the conceptual schemes and/or…

Philosophy

11 min read

Are We All “Sheeple” Who Can’t Escape Our Conceptual Schemes or Epistemes?
Are We All “Sheeple” Who Can’t Escape Our Conceptual Schemes or Epistemes?
Philosophy

11 min read


Published in

Paul Austin Murphy’s Essays on Philosophy

·Apr 19

David Chalmers’ Reality+… and The Matrix

The main character in The Matrix (Neo) experienced a reality which was entirely an illusion. Yet, on David Chalmers’ take, his reality+ idea is mainly about what does — and what will — happen when individuals, groups and entire societies consciously (or willingly) create virtual realities. Thus, in that strong…

Philosophy

10 min read

David Chalmers’ Reality+… and The Matrix
David Chalmers’ Reality+… and The Matrix
Philosophy

10 min read


Published in

Paul Austin Murphy’s Essays on Philosophy

·Apr 14

A Religious Physics and Cosmology for the 21st Century?

Paul Davies is a physicist and writer of popular books on science. To use Davies’s own words about the theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler, he is “not afraid to tackle deep philosophical questions”. …

Philosophy

12 min read

A Religious Physics and Cosmology for the 21st Century?
A Religious Physics and Cosmology for the 21st Century?
Philosophy

12 min read

Paul Austin Murphy

Paul Austin Murphy

2.7K Followers

MY PHILOSOPHY: https://paulaustinmurphypam.blogspot.com/ My Flickr Account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/193304911@N06/

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