Self-evolving Cosmos, The: A Phenomenological Approach To Nature's Unity-in-diversity


Book Description

This unique book offers an original way of thinking about two of the most significant problems confronting modern theoretical physics: the unification of the forces of nature and the evolution of the universe. In bringing out the inadequacies of the prevailing approach to these questions, the author demonstrates the need for more than just a new theory. The meanings of space and time themselves must be radically rethought, which requires a whole new philosophical foundation. To this end, the book turns to the phenomenological writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger. Their insights into space and time bring the natural world to life in a manner well-suited to the dynamic phenomena of contemporary physics.In aligning continental thought with problems in physics and cosmology, the book makes use of topology. Phenomenological intuitions about space and time are systematically fleshed out via an unconventional and innovative approach to this qualitative branch of mathematics. The author's pioneering work in topological phenomenology is applied to such topics as quantum gravity, cosmogony, symmetry, spin, vorticity, dimension theory, Kaluza-Klein and string theories, fermion-boson interrelatedness, hypernumbers, and the mind-matter interface.




The Self-evolving Cosmos


Book Description

This unique book offers an original way of thinking about two of the most significant problems confronting modern theoretical physics: the unification of the forces of nature and the evolution of the universe. In bringing out the inadequacies of the prevailing approach to these questions, the author demonstrates the need for more than just a new theory. The meanings of space and time themselves must be radically rethought, which requires a whole new philosophical foundation. To this end, the book turns to the phenomenological writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger. Their insights into space and time bring the natural world to life in a manner well-suited to the dynamic phenomena of contemporary physics. In aligning continental thought with problems in physics and cosmology, the book makes use of topology . Phenomenological intuitions about space and time are systematically fleshed out via an unconventional and innovative approach to this qualitative branch of mathematics. The author''s pioneering work in topological phenomenology is applied to such topics as quantum gravity, cosmogony, symmetry, spin, vorticity, dimension theory, Kaluza-Klein and string theories, fermion-boson interrelatedness, hypernumbers, and the mind-matter interface. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Introduction Individuation and the Quest for Unity (77 KB). Contents: Introduction: Individuation and the Quest for Unity; The Obstacle to Unification in Modern Physics; The Phenomenological Challenge to the Classical Formula; Topological Phenomenology; The Dimensional Family of Topological Spinors; Basic Principles of Dimensional Transformation; Waves Carrying Waves: The Co-Evolution of Lifeworlds; The Forces of Nature; Cosmogony, Symmetry, and Phenomenological Intuition; The Self-Evolving Cosmos; The Psychophysics of Cosmogony. Readership: Philosophically-oriented readers drawn to current developments in physics and cosmology. For academics and scientists dealing with the foundations of physics, the philosophy of science in general, and or contemporary phenomenological thought.




A Phenomenological Revision of E. E. Harris's Dialectical Holism


Book Description

The purpose of this work is to critically assess Errol E. Harris’s process philosophy in the face of contemporary research in the special sciences. Harris devoted his life to grappling with the big questions concerning the relationships between nature, mind, and knowledge. His 70-plus year career was distinguished, his texts on the history of philosophy, philosophy of science, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and consciousness were widely published, and yet his metaphysics has until now remained excluded from mainstream discussions. This book’s contention is that Harris’s work reveals as yet unnoticed connections between theories in numerous scientific disciplines ranging from psychology to cosmology and that an examination of certain theories within these disciplines may serve to strengthen his original arguments. This work maintains that the resulting metaphysics frames a transdisciplinary paradigm shift and provides a viable solution to the hard problem of consciousness.




The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization


Book Description

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization.




Introductory Lectures on Knot Theory


Book Description

More recently, Khovanov introduced link homology as a generalization of the Jones polynomial to homology of chain complexes and Ozsvath and Szabo developed Heegaard-Floer homology, that lifts the Alexander polynomial. These two significantly different theories are closely related and the dependencies are the object of intensive study. These ideas mark the beginning of a new era in knot theory that includes relationships with four-dimensional problems and the creation of new forms of algebraic topology relevant to knot theory. The theory of skein modules is an older development also having its roots in Jones discovery. Another significant and related development is the theory of virtual knots originated independently by Kauffman and by Goussarov Polyak and Viro in the '90s. All these topics and their relationships are the subject of the survey papers in this book.




Scientific Legacy Of Professor Zbigniew Oziewicz: Selected Papers From The International Conference "Applied Category Theory Graph-operad-logic"


Book Description

Dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Zbigniew Oziewicz from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the book consists of papers on a wide variety of topics related to the work of Professor Oziewicz, which were presented at the special conference on Graph-Operads-Logic (GOL 2021), selected through peer review to promote his scientific legacy.Professor Oziewicz was a great enthusiast and supporter of category theory and its applications in physics, as well as in various areas of mathematics (topology, noncommutative geometry, etc.). In particular, he made significant contributions to the theory of Frobenius algebras, which now are becoming more important due to their connection with topological quantum field theories that are used in mathematical physics and in quantum topology. Professor Oziewicz was a great and very generous teacher, who immersed his students in the beautiful ideas of category theory as well as mathematical physics and computation. It was his idea to start a series of conferences under the title Graphs-Operads-Logic, most of them held in Mexico, with some of them in the USA, which were a great platform to discuss various ideas connected with category theory and its various applications, and to make friends with other scientists. Despite his passing, the GOL 2021 conference is included in this series to pay tribute to his many contributions to diverse areas of science.The book is laid out in twelve main topics where we can find relevant works from distinguished experts.




The Geometry Of The Universe


Book Description

Cosmology, the study of the universe, arouses a great deal of public interest, with serious articles both in the scientific press and in major newspapers, with many of the theories and concepts (e.g. the 'big bang' and 'black holes') discussed, often in great depth.Accordingly the book is divided into three parts:Part 1 is readable (and understandable) by anyone with a nodding acquaintance with the basic language of cosmology: events, lights paths, galaxies, black holes and so on. It covers the whole story of the book in a way as untechnical as possible given the scope of the topics covered.Part 2 covers the same ground again but with enough technical details to satisfy a reader with basic knowledge of mathematics and/or physics.Part 3 consists of appendices which are referred to in the other parts and which also contain the highly technical material omitted from Section 2.




Topological Library


Book Description

1. On manifolds homeomorphic to the 7-sphere / J. Milnor -- 2. Groups of homotopy spheres. I / M. Kervaire and J. Milnor -- 3. Homotopically equivalent smooth manifolds / S.P. Novikov -- 4. Rational Pontrjagin classes. Homeomorphism and homotopy type of closed manifolds / S.P. Novikov -- 5. On manifolds with free abelian fundamental group and their applications (Pontrjagin classes, smooth structures, high-dimensional knots) / S.P. Novikov -- 6. Stable homeomorphisms and the annulus conjecture / R. Kirby




Topological Library - Part 3: Spectral Sequences In Topology


Book Description

The final volume of the three-volume edition, this book features classical papers on algebraic and differential topology published in the 1950s-1960s. The partition of these papers among the volumes is rather conditional. The original methods and constructions from these works are properly documented for the first time in this book. No existing book covers the beautiful ensemble of methods created in topology starting from approximately 1950. That is, from Serre's celebrated “singular homologies of fiber spaces.”




New Horizons For Second-order Cybernetics


Book Description

In almost 60 articles this book reviews the current state of second-order cybernetics and investigates which new research methods second-order cybernetics can offer to tackle wicked problems in science and in society. The contributions explore its application to both scientific fields (such as mathematics, psychology and consciousness research) and non-scientific ones (such as design theory and theater science). The book uses a pluralistic, multifaceted approach to discuss these applications: Each main article is accompanied by several commentaries and author responses, which together allow the reader to discover further perspectives than in the original article alone. This procedure shows that second-order cybernetics is already on its way to becoming an idea shared by many researchers in a variety of disciplines.