A fundamental error has dominated philosophy and science since ancient times, the assumption of the existence of the "unicorn-world"-that is, the existence of one unique world. It is one of the oldest and most dominant paradigms in human thinking that has generated many pseudo-problems in philosophy and science. We can identify this thinking paradigm, the unicorn-world, in the majority of myths, theological doctrines, philosophical approaches and scientific theories. In order to avoid this error, in Part I of this thesis, I show that it is necessary to replace the unicorn-world (in which all entities, such as Gods, minds, bodies, planets, tables and micro-particles have been placed all together) with "epistemologically different worlds" (which presuppose that each class of entities forms an epistemological different world). More than three centuries ago, Descartes was aware of the impossibility of solving an "anomaly" (the mind-body problem) but did not realize that the cause of this "mystery" is the unicorn-world. The role of Kantian a priori constitutive elements (categories and pure intuitions) is extended to the epistemologically constitutive interactions among classes of epistemologically different entities that belong to epistemologically different worlds. The consequence of the existence of epistemologically different worlds is that the famous mind-body problem is a false problem or a pseudo-problem. In Part II, from the "epistemologically different worlds" perspective, I analyze notions from: (1) The philosophy of mind and cognitive science (the mind-body problem, emergence and reduction, mental causation and supervenience, levels, etc.) (2) The philosophy of science (Carnap's linguistic frameworks, Quine's and Goodman's relativity, Friedman's relative constitutive a priori principles) and the science of the twentieth century (the relationship between Einstein's theory of relatiVity and quantum mechanics, complementarity and superposition, entanglement, nonlocality and nonseparability from quantum mechanics).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/258342 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Vacariu, Gabriel, History & Philosophy, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. History & Philosophy |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Vacariu Gabriel., http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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