There is no end to the list of questions—some of immediate concern, others exclusively the province of science fiction—we humans would like answered about the always-just-around-the-corner-but-never-quite-here technology of artificial intelligence. Will robots replace the working class? Will we wake up one day and find ourselves prisoners of The Matrix? Will realistic robots replace human relationships? […]
A Substantivalist Explanation of Dark Matter
Abstract: In this article I recommend that substantivalism change its focus from what it has been traditionally—a thinly veiled effort to explain the current standard models of physics—and instead embrace the proper focus of philosophy—explaining reality itself. Exploiting that new perspective, I define a rigorous and testable model of spacetime as a substance, and propose […]
Reframing the Substantivalism Debate
Abstract: This paper highlights and examines a critical assumption embedded within the framework of the substantivalism/relationalism debate. This assumption is the unacknowledged priority given to the traditional properties of spacetime-as-coordinate-system that have been handed down over the course of the twentieth century. In this paper, I attempt to substantiate my claim that such an unreflective […]
Do We Live In the Matrix?
Elon Musk recently added his voice to a discussion about the likelihood that humanity is no longer residing in the world as we know it, but is instead housed within a simulation maintained, presumably, by an extremely advanced artificial intelligence. The rationale for this position has some merit, at least on the surface, and goes as […]
Toward a Definition of the First Principle
Our Abyss Customarily, we think of a crisis as a period of limited duration, an obstacle heroically overcome, “bad times” endured with poise and tenacity and then recalled with pride. Man is a hopeful creature, constitutionally bound to imagine, even in the face of imminent death, that salvation is always near at hand. The oxymoronic […]