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What can’t be sensed

Step by step, our ideas about the nature of our reality have moved far from the sensory constructions of space and time that define our immediate experience. And once fully outside the knowledge brought with sensation, we lose our footing. It’s difficult to manage ‘what can’t be sensed.’ But our conceptual difficulties with quantum mechanics […]

Finding ourselves between physics and biology

The Institute of Physics (IOP) Biological Physics Group has a conference coming up June 24 to June 26 in Brighton, UK. The title of the conference is what first got my attention: Physics of Emergent Behavior/From single cells to groups of individuals.

The following text appears on the conference home page to introduce their interest […]

What’s the tool, what’s the reality, what are we doing?

I am intrigued by the current debate in physics concerning the significance of the wave function in quantum theory. The nature of the debate opens the door to a host of philosophical issues surrounding both physics and mathematics. In an article appearing in the June issue of Scientific American, I was introduced to a relatively […]

Multiverse, busses and emergent space-time

There was once what many call a ‘foundational crisis in mathematics’ – disputes among mathematicians about both their ideas and their methods. But while one needn’t now address the relationship between mathematics and reality in order to pursue a successful career in mathematics, the conceptual and experimental puzzles of modern physics likely reflect a similar […]

Quantum mechanical biology

In my guest blog for Scientific American, I wrote about the work of Bob Coecke who has designed a graphical mathematics, based on a branch of mathematics called category theory. He uses this diagrammatic calculus to describe and investigate quantum mechanical processes. Coecke’s work has found application in biology and linguistics, suggesting some interesting links […]

Quantum Mechanical Words and Mathematical Organisms

My post appeared on the Scientific American Guest Blog this morning. Here’s the link:

Quantum Mechanical Words and Mathematical Organisms

A brief note and a little from Deutsch

I’m short on time today and working on a guest blog which I hope to be able to provide a link to shortly. But I did begin exploring a website that has short video interviews with some of my favorite thinkers. I found among a list of participants on the website Closer To Truth, Gregory […]

The light that Einstein sees

I read another New Scientist article today. The article was written by Brian Greene. While it didn’t give me a lot of new information, it made an interesting point about what it means (and when is it particularly effective) to take our mathematics seriously. He talked about Einstein’s insight regarding the speed of light. It […]

Avalanches, structure, and expectations

New Scientist did an article in their February 6 issue called Mind Maths: Five laws that rule the brain.

As is usually the case, the article’s allure is the suggestion that new research may hold the promise of capturing the brain’s complexity in just a few mathematical models. And, as is usually the case, […]

Are we finding the mathematical structure of reality?

I’m intrigued by Max Tegmark’s conviction that the universe is, itself, a mathematical structure. He presented his ideas, again, on February 15 at the recent annual meeting of AAAS, in a symposium called Is Beauty Truth? He said that he has just completed a book on the same topic. I listened to the entire session […]