Metadebates on Science

How do scientists approach science? Scientists, sociologists and philosophers were asked to write on this intriguing problem and to display their results at the International Congress `Einstein Meets Magritte'. The outcome of their effort can be found in this rather unique book, presenting all kinds of different views on science. Quantum mechanics is a discipline which deserves and receives special attention in this book, mainly because it is fascinating and, hence, appeals to the general public. This book not only contains articles on the introductory level, it also provides new insights and bold, even provocative proposals. That way, the reader gets acquainted with `science in the making', sitting in the front row. The contributions have been written for a broad interdisciplinary audience of scholars and students.

General Introduction. Acknowledgments. Editorial Introduction: Harmony in Chaos; G.C. Cornelis. Was Einstein a philosopher? Deduction vs. induction, the end of certitude and conventialism; A. Adam. Einstein, ethics and action; D. Fawkes. Cognitive science: two cultures or one; M.W. Bielecki. Gödel's theorem and strong AI: is reason blind? B. Voorhees. What about the modernistic concept of consciousness? S. Langenberg. Mind, nature and the emerging science of change: an introduction to metamorphology; J. Wilk. On cognitive and social dimensions of science: constructivism and nonlinear dynamics; W.H. Herfel. Necessity of a new paradigm in experimental research taking into accont space and time; C. Capel-Boute, A. Koeckelenbergh. Biomedical applications of magnetic fluids as a specific interdisciplinary problem; V.S. Lazarev, et al. Cosmology and proliferation; G.C. Cornelis. Resonance as a unifying principle between the observer and the observed; P.J. Lewi. Early Greek thought and perspectives for the interpretation of quantum mechanics; K. Verelst, B. Coecke. Landscapes of sibylline strangeness: complementarity, quantum measurement and classical physics; A. Plotnitsky. Metalinguistic views of quantum mechanics and its formalizability; L. Löfgren. Quantum truth, non-separability and reality; E. Giannetto. Soliton waves vs. the particle paradigm: the elementary nature of the physical world; G. Hunter. Which side Spinoza would have taken (between Einstein and Bohr) if he had lived to see the `scientific' development of our days: an analysis of human representation of physical reality; D. Nesher. General relativity and quantum theory - ontological investigations; S. Weinstein. From quantal to material level; E.Hemmerlin. On the origin ofprobabilities in quantum mechanics; D. Aerts, et al. Index.