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685The Problem of Measurement - Real or Imaginary?American Journal of Physics 41 1022-5. 1973.It is argued that criticisms of Willian Band and James Park concerning the quantum mechanics measurement problem do not succeed.
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1604From knowledge to wisdom: a revolution for science and the humanitiesPentire Press. 2007.From Knowledge to Wisdom argues that there is an urgent need, for both intellectual and humanitarian reasons, to bring about a revolution in science and the humanities. The outcome would be a kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to create a better world. Instead of giving priority to solving problems of knowledge, as at present, academia would devote itself to helping us solve our immense, current global problems – climate change, war, poverty, population gro…Read more
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730Are Philosophers Responsible for Global Warming?Philosophy Now 65 (65): 12-13. 2008.The suggestion that philosophers are responsible for global warming seems, on the face of it, absurd. However, that we might cause global warming has been known for over a century. If we had had in existence a more rigorous kind of academic inquiry devoted to promoting human welfare, giving priority to problems of living, humanity might have become aware of the dangers of global warming long ago, and might have taken steps to meet these dangers decades ago. That we do not have academic inquir…Read more
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1142Quantum propensiton theory: A testable resolution of the wave/particle dilemmaBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (1): 1-50. 1988.In this paper I put forward a new micro realistic, fundamentally probabilistic, propensiton version of quantum theory. According to this theory, the entities of the quantum domain - electrons, photons, atoms - are neither particles nor fields, but a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the propensiton - entities which interact with one another probabilistically. This version of quantum theory leaves the Schroedinger equation unchanged, but reinterprets it to specify how propensitons…Read more
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666Towards a Micro Realistic Version of Quantum Mechanics, Part IFoundations of Physics 6 (3): 275-292. 1976.This paper investigates the possibiity of developing a fully micro realistic version of elementary quantum mechanics. I argue that it is highly desirable to develop such a version of quantum mechanics, and that the failure of all current versions and interpretations of quantum mechanics to constitute micro realistic theories is at the root of many of the interpretative problems associated with quantum mechanics, in particular the problem of measurement. I put forward a propensity micro realist…Read more
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1082Can there be necessary connections between successive events?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 19 (1): 1-25. 1968.THE aim of this paper is to refute Hume's contention that there cannot be logically necessary connections between successive events. I intend to establish, in other words, not 'Logically necessary connections do exist between successive events', but instead the rather more modest proposition: 'It may be, it is possible, as far as we can ever know for certain, that logically necessary connections do exist between successive events.' Towards the end of the paper I shall say something about the im…Read more
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409Methodological problems of neuroscienceIn David Rose & G. Vernon Dobson (eds.), Models of the Visual Cortex, Wiley. 1985.In this paper I argue that neuroscience has been harmed by the widespread adoption of seriously inadequate methodologies or philosophies of science - most notably inductivism and falsificationism. I argue that neuroscience, in seeking to understand the human brain and mind, needs to follow in the footsteps of evolution.
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648Particle Creation as the Quantum Condition for Probabilistic Events to OccurPhysics Letters A 187 (2 May 1994): 351-355. 1994.A new version of quantum theory is proposed, according to which probabilistic events occur whenever new statioinary or bound states are created as a result of inelastic collisions. The new theory recovers the experimental success of orthodox quantum theory, but differs form the orthodox theory for as yet unperformed experiments.
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2210What ought to be the aims of science? How can science best serve humanity? What would an ideal science be like, a science that is sensitively and humanely responsive to the needs, problems and aspirations of people? How ought the institutional enterprise of science to be related to the rest of society? What ought to be the relationship between science and art, thought and feeling, reason and desire, mind and heart? Should the social sciences model themselves on the natural sciences: or ought the…Read more
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1163A priori conjectural knowledge in physics: The comprehensibility of the universeIn Michael Veber & Michael Shaffer (eds.), What Place for the A Priori?, Open Court. pp. 211-240. 2005.In this paper I argue for a priori conjectural scientific knowledge about the world. Physics persistently only accepts unified theories, even though endlessly many empirically more successful disunified rivals are always available. This persistent preference for unified theories, against empirical considerations, means that physics makes a substantial, persistent metaphysical assumption, to the effect that the universe has a (more or less) unified dynamic structure. In order to clarify what this…Read more
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503The world faces grave global problems. These have been made possible by modern science and technology. We have put knowledge-inquiry into academic practice – a seriously irrational kind of inquiry that seeks knowledge and technological know-how dissociated from a more fundamental concern to seek and promote wisdom. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in academic inquiry, so that knowledge-inquiry becomes wisdom-inquiry – a kind of inquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping hu…Read more
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839Creating a Better World: Towards the University of WisdomIn Ronald Barnett (ed.), The Future University: Ideas and Possibilities, Routledge. 2011.Universities need to change dramatically in order to help humanity make progress towards as good a world as possible.
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872Taking the Nature of God SeriouslyIn Asa Kasher & Jeanine Diller (eds.), Models of God and Other Ultimate Realities, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2013.Once it is appreciated that it is not possible for an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God to exist, the important question arises: What does exist that is closest to, and captures the best of what is in, the traditional conception of God? In this paper I set out to answer that question. The first step that needs to be taken is to sever the God-of-cosmic-power from the God-of-cosmic-value. The first is Einstein’s God, the underlying dynamic unity in the physical universe which physics se…Read more
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31What the Task of Creating Civilization has to Learn from the Success of Modern Science: Towards a New EnlightenmentReflections on Higher Education 4 47-69. 1992.Modern scientific, academic inquiry suffers from a serious, wholesale fundamental defect. Though very successful at improving specialized scientific knowledge and technological know-how, it is an intellectual and human disaster when it comes to helping us realize what is of value in life - in particlar, when it comes to helping us create a more enlightened, civilized world
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758Does Science Provide Us with the Methodological Key to Wisdom?Philosophia, First Part of 'Arguing for Wisdom in the University' 40 (4): 664-673. 2012.Science provides us with the methodological key to wisdom. This idea goes back to the 18th century French Enlightenment. Unfortunately, in developing the idea, the philosophes of the Enlightenment made three fundamental blunders: they failed to characterize the progress-achieving methods of science properly, they failed to generalize these methods properly, and they failed to develop social inquiry as social methodology having, as its basic task, to get progress-achieving methods, generalized …Read more
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254The Menace of Science without WisdomEthical Record 117 (9): 10-15. 2012.We urgently need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of science – and of academic inquiry more generally. Instead of giving priority to the search for knowledge, universities need to devote themselves to seeking and promoting wisdom by rational means, wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom thus including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how, but much else besides. A basic task ought to be to help humanity learn…Read more
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329Wisdom and curiosity? I remember them wellThe Times Higher Education Supplement (1,488): 14. 2001.Academic inquiry has two basic inter-related aims. One is to explore intellectually aspects of our world of intrinsic interest and value, for its own sake, and to encourage non-academics to participate in such exploration, thus improving our knowledge and understanding. The other is, by intellectual means, to help humanity solve its problems of living, so that a more peaceful, just, democratic and environmentally enlightened world may be attained. Both are at present betrayed.
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561In this paper I sketch a liberal studies course designed to explore our fundamental problem of thought and life: How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? The fundamental character of this problem provides one with the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues. What does physics tell us about the universe and ourselves? How do we account for everything physics leaves out? How can living brains be conscious? If everything occurs in accord…Read more
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612“Are There Objective ValuesThe Dalhousie Review 79 (3): 301-317. 1999.In this paper I demolish three influential arguments - moral, metaphysical and epistemological - against value realism. We have good reasons to believe, and no good reasons not to believe, that value-features, value-facts, really do exist in the world.
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509SimplicityPhilsci Archive. 2000.There are two problems of simplicity. What does it mean to characterize a scientific theory as simple, unified or explanatory in view of the fact that a simple theory can always be made complex (and vice versa) by a change of terminology? How is preference in science for simple theories to be justified? In this paper I put forward a proposal as to how the first problem is to be solved. The more nearly the totality of fundamental physical theory exemplifies the metaphysical thesis that the univer…Read more
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186The Generalized Darwinian Research ProgrammeIn From Knowledge to Wisdom, Blackwell. pp. 269-275. 1984.The generalized Darwinian research programme accepts physicalism, but holds that all life is purposive in character. It seeks to understand how and why all purposiveness has evolved in the universe – especially purposiveness associated with what we value most in human life, such as sentience, consciousness, person-to-person understanding, science, art, free¬dom, love. As evolution proceeds, the mechanisms of evolution themselves evolve to take into account the increasingly important role that …Read more
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285Do philosophers love wisdom?The Philosophers' Magazine 22 22-24. 2003.An academic enterprise that sought to promote human welfare rationally would give intellectual priority to tackling problems of living, including global problems, and would take the basic aim to be to seek and promote wisdom. Universities today, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge - insofar as they are not devoted to money - when judged from the standpoint of promoting human welfare, betray reason, and as a result betray humanity. Why? Because a bad philosophy of inquiry is built into the int…Read more
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1165Physics and Common Sense: A Critique of PhysicalismBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 16 (February): 295-311. 1966.In this paper I set out to solve the problem of how the world as we experience it, full of colours and other sensory qualities, and our inner experiences, can be reconciled with physics. I discuss and reject the views of J. J. C. Smart and Rom Harré. I argue that physics is concerned only to describe a selected aspect of all that there is – the causal aspect which determines how events evolve. Colours and other sensory qualities, lacking causal efficacy, are ignored by physics and cannot be p…Read more
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101Science and the environment: A new enlightenmentScience and Public Affairs (Spring 1997): 50-56. 1997.Nicholas Maxwell believes that while we have developed an excellent way of learning about the nature of the universe, we have so far failed in our attempts to apply this method to create a civilized world.
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481Cutting God in HalfPhilosophy Now 35 (35): 22-25. 2002.In order to solve the problem of the monstrous acts that an all-powerful, all-knowing God would daily be performing, we need to sever the God of Power from the God of Value. The former is the underlying dynamic unity in the physical universe, eternal, omnipresent, all-powerful, but an It, and thus not capable of knowing what It does. It can be forgiven the terrible things It does. The latter is what is of most value associated with our human world - or the world of sentient life more generall…Read more
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737A New Conception of SciencePhysics World 13 (8): 17-18. 2000.When scientists choose one theory over another, they reject out of hand all those that are not simple, unified or explanatory. Yet the orthodox view of science is that evidence alone should determine what can be accepted. Nicholas Maxwell thinks he has a way out of the dilemma.
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406Knowledge to Wisdom: We Need a RevolutionPhilosophia 34 (3): 377-378. 2006.The following document is a very brief summary of a thesis and argument that I have devoted the last 30 years of my life to trying to get across to my fellow human beings. It was first spelled out in What’s Wrong With Science? (Bran’s Head Books, 1976) and subsequently in From Knowledge to Wisdom (Blackwell, 1984), Is Science Neurotic? (Imperial College Press, 2004) and numerous articles. Three years ago an international group was formed, called Friends of Wisdom, which seeks to get across to ac…Read more
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851In Praise of Natural Philosophy: A Revolution for Thought and LifeMcGill-Queen's University Press. 2017.The central thesis of this book is that we need to reform philosophy and join it to science to recreate a modern version of natural philosophy; we need to do this in the interests of rigour, intellectual honesty, and so that science may serve the best interests of humanity. Modern science began as natural philosophy. In the time of Newton, what we call science and philosophy today – the disparate endeavours – formed one mutually interacting, integrated endeavour of natural philosophy: to impro…Read more
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502Wisdom in the UniversityRoutledge. 2008.We face grave global problems. We urgently need to learn how to tackle them in wiser, more effective, intelligent and humane ways than we have done so far. This requires that universities become devoted to helping humanity acquire the necessary wisdom to perform the task. But at present universities do not even conceive of their role in these terms. The essays of this book consider what needs to change in the university if it is to help humanity acquire the wisdom it so urgently needs.
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578A mug's game? Solving the problem of induction with metaphysical presuppositionsIn John Earman & John Norton (eds.), PhilSci Archive, . 2004.This paper argues that a view of science, expounded and defended elsewhere, solves the problem of induction. The view holds that we need to see science as accepting a hierarchy of metaphysical theses concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these theses asserting less and less as we go up the hierarchy. It may seem that this view must suffer from vicious circularity, in so far as accepting physical theories is justified by an appeal to metaphysical theses in turn justifi…Read more
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