Mind Matter Mathematics Mortality Meditations On A Momentous Metaphysical Theory

Hermann Weyl (1885-1955) was one of the twentieth century's most important mathematicians, as well as a seminal figure in the development of quantum physics and general relativity. He was also an eloquent writer with a lifelong interest in the philosophical implications of the startling new scientific developments with which he was so involved. Mind and Nature is a collection of Weyl's most important general writings on philosophy, mathematics, and physics, including pieces that have never before been published in any language or translated into English, or that have long been out of print. Complete with Peter Pesic's introduction, notes, and bibliography, these writings reveal an unjustly neglected dimension of a complex and fascinating thinker. In addition, the book includes more than twenty photographs of Weyl and his family and colleagues, many of which are previously unpublished. Included here are Weyl's exposition of his important synthesis of electromagnetism and gravitation, which Einstein at first hailed as "a first-class stroke of genius"; two little-known letters by Weyl and Einstein from 1922 that give their contrasting views on the philosophical implications of modern physics; and an essay on time that contains Weyl's argument that the past is never completed and the present is not a point. Also included are two book-length series of lectures, The Open World (1932) and Mind and Nature (1934), each a masterly exposition of Weyl's views on a range of topics from modern physics and mathematics. Finally, four retrospective essays from Weyl's last decade give his final thoughts on the interrelations among mathematics, philosophy, and physics, intertwined with reflections on the course of his rich life.

The relationship of mind to matter, and the very understanding of mind and matter still eludes understanding, even after millennia of philosophical work and centuries of scientific reflection. The present volume shows how process philosophy helps us in conceptualizing such problems. The reader will find twelve chapters—written by prominent specialists of various specializations—discussing the relation between a processual school of thinking and natural and psychological scientific research, with a focus on the problems of mind and experience. The three successive sections of the book scrutinise in increasing detail the human mind, to give the full overview of the role that process philosophy might play in providing a consistent, unified language for the description of physical and mental reality.

Thoughts can create worlds. Every time you dream, you make worlds out of your own thoughts. You do not make dreamworlds out of atoms, out of "matter". How many people grasp the significance of this fact? A dream, in and of itself, proves that a mind can create what convincingly passes as a material world, even though the dreamworld emphatically isn't material, but is made of thoughts produced by the mind of the dreamer. Why don't we indulge in the boldest of thoughts? If one mind can build a dreamworld out of its own thoughts, what would happen if all minds dreamt together? What world might they create with their united effort, with their thoughts pulled together and operating as one? In fact, they would build the very world we are living in right now! This is a universe of thought, and nothing but mind matters.

This accessible and easy-to-follow book offers a new approach to consciousness. The author’s eclectic style combines new physics-based insights with those of analytical philosophy, phenomenology, cognitive science and neuroscience. He proposes a view in which the mechanistic framework of classical physics and neuroscience is complemented by a more holistic underlying framework in which conscious experience finds its place more naturally.

Good news at last; here are new and exact descriptions of the mind, consciousness, body, reality, time, nervous system taxonomy. Feel the stimulation of your curiosity into the ancient questions about the mind-body duality as you plan your research and publication program. How reality and three time dimensions emerge from the mind and consciousness. Easy to understand mathematical definitions of otherwise ambiguous terms. Each of fifty hypotheses will inspire you to publish more than your peers. Introducing all the recommendations you will need to design an experiment or a research project which will propel you to the credible and prestigious forefront of your field. Exact scientific answers to the problem of mind-consciousness-body are easily worth 4 hours of reading. These solutions will kick off your numerous insightful publications. The price of this book will yield massive funding for years of your research. The math is reduced to the bare minimum and is explained in detail so the reader can use it is his own publications. The mathematics is treated as an abbreviated language which is translated into natural language.

Do numbers and the other objects of mathematics enjoy a timeless existence independent of human minds, or are they the products of cerebral invention? Do we discover them, as Plato supposed and many others have believed since, or do we construct them? Does mathematics constitute a universal language that in principle would permit human beings to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations elsewhere in the universe, or is it merely an earthly language that owes its accidental existence to the peculiar evolution of neuronal networks in our brains? Does the physical world actually obey mathematical laws, or does it seem to conform to them simply because physicists have increasingly been able to make mathematical sense of it? Jean-Pierre Changeux, an internationally renowned neurobiologist, and Alain Connes, one of the most eminent living mathematicians, find themselves deeply divided by these questions. The problematic status of mathematical objects leads Changeux and Connes to the organization and function of the brain, the ways in which its embryonic and post-natal development influences the unfolding of mathematical reasoning and other kinds of thinking, and whether human intelligence can be simulated, modeled,--or actually reproduced-- by mechanical means. The two men go on to pose ethical questions, inquiring into the natural foundations of morality and the possibility that it may have a neural basis underlying its social manifestations. This vivid record of profound disagreement and, at the same time, sincere search for mutual understanding, follows in the tradition of Poincaré, Hadamard, and von Neumann in probing the limits of human experience and intellectual possibility. Why order should exist in the world at all, and why it should be comprehensible to human beings, is the question that lies at the heart of these remarkable dialogues.

Why is there a material world? Why is it fundamentally mathematical? Matter Matters explores a seventeenth-century answer to these questions as it emerged from the works of Descartes and Leibniz. The 'mathematization' of the physics is shown to have been conceptually underwritten by two methods of philosophizing, namely, analysis and synthesis. The connection between these things—mathematics, matter, and the methods of analysis and synthesis—has thus far gone unexplored by scholars. The book is in four Parts: Part I works out the context in which the theory of modern matter arose. Part II develops the method of analysis, showing how it aligns with Descartes's famous doctrine of clear and distinct ideas. Part III develops the method of synthesis, focusing primarily on Leibniz, showing how it establishes the very conditions necessary and sufficient for mathematics. Analysis and synthesis turn out to establish isomorphic conceptual systems, which turn out to be isomorphic to what mathematicians today call a group. The group concept expresses the conditions underwriting all of mathematics. Part IV examines several relatively new interpretations of Descartes—the realist and idealist readings—which appear to be at odds with one another. The examination shows the sense in which these readings are actually compatible, and together reveal a richer picture of Descartes's position on the reality of matter. Ultimately, Matter Matters establishes the claim that mathematics is intelligible if, and only if, matter exists.