Taxonomy

Submitted by jhwierenga on Wed, 08/01/2018 - 16:09

Click on a tag on any page in order to obtain a definition of the taxonomic term and a list of all pages tagged with that term.

Taxonomy terms

Lawrence Krauss (1954 - ) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, and director of its Origins Project. Krauss has formulated a model in which the universe could have potentially come from "nothing," as outlined in his 2012 book A Universe from Nothing [Krauss, Lawrence M. (2012). A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. New York: Free Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-4516-2445-8.]. However, Krauss's "nothing" in no way resembles the absolute nothingness of QO. It is a quantum foam, which somehow just got there. It already has natural order, the origins of which he does not address. QO is the only hypothesis, formulated in a manner as to be open to scientific examination, which actually takes the title of Krauss's book seriously.

The definition of life is controversial. The current definition is that organisms maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, and reproduce. [Source: Wikipedia].

Mathematics is the discipline of rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions in order to establish whether a statement which is expressed in defined terms is necessarily true, given the axioms and definitions.

There is no a priori limit to the subject areas that can be covered by mathematics.

Motion is the apparent movement of elementary particles through space in experienced time.

Natural law is the uniformity of behavior which arises in consequence of the universe as quantum system containing the same information only once.

Natural law quanta are quanta that produce consistent behaviour in the universe by means of entanglement relationships with quanta that derive from them,  For example, there is a electron natural law quantum which dictates the behaviour of all electrons.

There is not a strict demarcation between natural law quanta and ordinary quanta.. 

Natural purpose is the inherent tendency of the universe to achieve goodness, in the sense of higher order natural law quanta.

Noether's (first) theorem states that every differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. The theorem was proven by mathematician Emmy Noether in 1915 and published in 1918. [source: Wikipedia].

Nomic evolution is the process by means of which natural law  develops.

According to QO, nomic evolution occurs by means of quantum mechanical processes of quantum splitting and resonance within quantum systems. In this way, new relationships between concepts develop. When these relationships are instantiated in our universe of space and particles, they are no longer subject to change, because a change requires inordinate amounts of energy.

A score which can be used to assess the relative credibility of scientific explanations of a set of phenomena, even when one or more of the explanations do not account fully for the phenomena. See /narratives/the-Occam-method.

Occam's razor is the rule that, when explaining a set of phenomena, one should not add explanatory elements unnecessarily. In other words, simple explanations should be preferred above complex ones.

The ontic ancestry of a natural law quantum is the path by which it was derived from the original quantum. 

The Pauli exclusion principle is the quantum mechanical principle that states that two or more identical fermions (particles with half-integer spin) cannot occupy the same quantum state within a quantum system simultaneously.

Something is perfect if it is without defect of any sort and there is no other thing thinkable that we could prefer above this something.

In QO, this definition cannot be applied constructively, and the concept is therefore meaningless.

A personal being is a conscious being with a sense of self.

Phenomena are the things which we perceive by means of observation and measurement.

See phenomena.

Philosophical wallpaper is a derogatory term which refers to philosophical discussions which go to great lengths to define and understand terms and nevertheless fail in making them sufficiently robust to support the arguments in which they apply them.

There are probably almost as many definitions of philosophy as there are philosophers. Our definition is: philosophy is the discipline of coming to an understanding of phenomena solely by means of thought processes, such as questioning, rational arguments and systematic presentation. There is no a priori limit to the subjects which can thereby be addressed.