Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2023 number 1

The article considers assumptions used by R. Descartes, of which he declares he does not recognize them as true. He declares them as such, since he uses them not guided by biblical texts, but on the basis of experimental data. Nevertheless, he recognizes them as significant “for life”. First of all, Descartes here considers the corporeal world in the making, but not as created by God wholly-formed. Also, here he not only demonstrates a distraction from the idea of God as the ruler of the processes occurring in nature, but also notes that such a distraction is justifiable. All this gives grounds to recognize the presence of a materialistic component in the considered constituent of his teaching. And since before this, Descartes formulated the basic laws of mechanics, his contribution to the development of modern science is also appreciated. The conclusion is made that although the main part of what Descartes states here is not proclaimed by him as true, nevertheless, by publishing his considerations he contributed a lot to strengthening the emerging tendencies to overcome adherence to a religious worldview

The paper analyses the studies of philosophers and psychologists, and also the ideas of futurologists and biologists, which allows us to conclude that not only the present affects the future, but vice versa as well. The shift of the viewpoint beyond the limits of the usual meanings contributes to a change in the understanding of the relationship of temporal modes and the strengthening of the indeterminist position regarding the ontology of the future.

Quantum physics radically changes the worldview, destroys the usual picture of the world and related philosophical concepts. Science is increasingly reminiscent of science fiction, in which the impossible becomes possible: time flows in different directions, matter dissolves in a vacuum, communications beyond the speed of light take place, and a lot more. The phenomenal nature of the results of physical experiments at the micro- and macrolevel of cognition is inevitably suggestive of the possible virtuality of the surrounding reality. The simulation hypothesis is one of the most consistent models of the universe, the singularity point of which becomes the point of a phase shift to a new interpretation of reality

The advance of QBism over other interpretations of quantum mechanics is that it introduces the first-person perspective and treats quantum theory, including the Born rule, as a norm. The problematic nature of this position (subjectivism, relativism, residual dualism, etc.) stems from the fact that it remains within the assumptions and prejudices of modern philosophy, including when it is interpreted phenomenologically. Cubism, however, can be transformed into contextual quantum realism (CQR) - a consistent and genuinely realistic position - by reinterpreting its basic notions, particularly the notions of reality, experience, agent, quantum norm, quantum probability, and others

The article deals with the problem of describing reality in the language of mathematics and logic with regard to the intellectual intuition corresponding to a certain stage in the development of knowledge. The question is raised of how the basic requirements for mathematical theory and logic will change if we take some of the multiverse models of modern physics as a basis. Mathematics is considered in the context of various historical approaches; mutual criticism of intuitionism, logicism and formalism is analyzed. It is shown that some of the well-known requirements for a formal theory (such as consistency) may begin to play a different role if the multiverse hypothesis is accepted. Under the theories based on the idea of the plurality of worlds, disputes related to logical consequence, the law of Duns Scotus, the law of the excluded middle and other well-known facts of classical logic, due to intuitive unacceptability, become resolved. An approach based on paraconsistent logics is considered; such logics can be treated as the first to conform to the multiverse theories. The problem of the universality of the mathematical language and the accompanying intellectual intuition is proposed for discussion. Can mathematics describe any of the physically possible worlds and therefore become the basis for the “theory of everything” (not so much in the sense of the quantum gravity theory, but as describing all possible worlds) and in what epistemological consequences this can result? It is shown that in a unified theory that claims to describe multiverse models, the classical intuitive requirement of consistency becomes restrictive and serving the purpose of an approximate description of a particular world, rather than the whole of all possible worlds. This requires a change in the general methodology in describing the world by such a theory and a revision of current standards

The article proves in a fundamentally new way the reasons for the unidirectionality and asymmetry of the arrow of objective time, which are considered from the perspective of the functional concept of time developed by the author. According to the functional concept, the arrow of time, like objective time, is formed by a successive change in qualitatively new states of a material object or process. Since objective time is formed only by concrete and finite objects, it is always local. The arrow of time, like objective time, is non-substantial, is not a physical entity, and therefore is irreversible. Since the arrow of objective time is irreversible, it is directed only forward. Therefore, the arrow of objective time is unidirectional. In nature, only the present exists, while the past and the future do not exist in nature, but appear only in the observer’s mind. And so, the arrow of time, like objective time, moves from the present to the next present, and not from the past to the future, as is it generally believed in science. Accordingly, the arrow of objective time is asymmetric. Objective time is formed only by concrete and finite objects or processes, while the Universe is uncreatable and indestructible and exists eternally. For this reason, the concept of time and the concept of the arrow of time do not apply to it. The concepts of objective time and the arrow of objective time would apply to the Universe, if it pulsed and the cycles of its expansion and compression completely repeated all its inherent possibilities to change. The article also discusses the possibilities of using the concept of objective, functional time in practice.

One of the main requirements for mathematical proofs is that of rigor. Rigor guarantees that there is a logical connection between the proposition being proved and the assumptions or axioms being accepted. Traditionally, the rigor of a mathematical proof is thought to be ensured by appealing to formalization. However, this understanding does not correspond to mathematical practice. The vast majority of proofs (both in the past and at present) are given informally and accepted by the community of expert mathematicians without any formalization. The article presents an alternative position regarding the rigor of mathematical proof proposed by S. De Toffoli, which is supposed to be consistent with practice. The article is divided into four parts. The first part considers the traditional understanding of proof as a surveyable and formalizable construct used for persuasion; it discusses the structure of proof and the standard understanding of rigor provided by formalization. The second part of the article discusses the practice of referring to “manipulative imagination” with respect to topology and shows the special status of this ability in “filling in” gaps in informal proofs. It is argued that this ability is developed through an appropriate training and involves only such manipulations that are justified from a strictly formal point of view. The third part discusses an alternative to the traditional notion of proof as a shareable, transferable and formalizable construct, components (“steps”) of which can be enumerated. Also, it introduces the notion of simil-proof which is a means of explaining the mathematical practice of accepting incomplete or error-containing proofs. In the fourth part of the article, the final points are formulated concerning the commitments of accepting relativism and anti-realist ontology when explaining the notions of proof and rigor.

The article provides a philosophical analysis of the methods for describing and explaining the properties of light in geometric optics. The causes and factors that have had a defining effect on the methodology of description and explanation in geometric optics are revealed.

The article is concerned with analyzing the main stages in the development of the physiology of the organ of hearing. In the era of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, the preconditions for the further development of this scientific area were formed. In modern times, the accumulation of knowledge, acquired through the use of new theoretical and experimental approaches to understanding the processes in the body, continues and important discoveries are made. At present, the physiology of the hearing organ is one of the important areas of physiology. The article is aimed at identifying and describing the basic periods of formation and development of the physiology of the hearing organ. The materials used for writing this work were domestic and foreign studies on the issue. The main results consist in presenting the stages of development of the physiology of the hearing organ along with providing the description of the contribution of leading researchers in this field. The conclusion is made about the process of formation and development of the physiology of the organ of hearing as a branch of biomedical knowledge.

There are not many examples in history when the world scientific thought was able to respond so quickly to a common challenge, which became a coronavirus infection in 2020-2022. During this period, domestic economic researchers published 1615 Russian-language articles in journals, so that a wide range of their views was reflected. The semantic and cluster analysis of keywords and frequencies of references to concepts in the titles of these articles made it possible to identify a number of patterns. The collection of article titles can be considered as a sublimated text reflecting the researchers’ cumulative understanding of the economic processes that took place during the examined period. It was possible to determine a strong correspondence of the frequencies of the used concepts to the distribution according to Zipf's law. This should be interpreted as a reflection of a certain unity of the process of public understanding of both the circumstances of the pandemic and its impact on the economy in various aspects