Knowledge and Time

This is a unique volume by a unique scientist, which combines conceptual, formal, and engineering approaches in a way that is rarely seen. Its core is the relation between ways of learning and knowing on the one hand and different modes of time on the other. Partial Boolean logic and the associated notion of complementarity are used to express this relation, and mathematical tools of fundamental physics are used to formalize it. Along the way many central philosophical problems are touched and addressed, above all the mind-body problem. Completed only shortly before the death of the author, the text has been edited and annotated by the author's close collaborator Harald Atmanspacher.

Auteur

Hans Primas was professor of chemistry at ETH in Zurich, but also pursued his strong interests in psychology and philosophy, partly inspired by the work of C. G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli. In addition he worked on the formulation and philosophy of quantum mechanics, particularly the measurement problem, on realism in quantum theory, and on emergence and reduction in the sciences in general. Harald Atmanspacher is a staff member at the Collegium Helveticum of ETH Zurich. He gained his doctorate in Physics in 1986 at the University of Munich and worked until 1998 as researcher at the MPI for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching. Thereafter, until 2013, he headed the Theory Group of the IGPP in Freiburg. He lectures on interdisciplinary problems at ETH Zurich, and is a faculty member at the C.G. Jung Institute in Küsmancht. He is president of the "Society for Mind-Matter Research" and editor of the international interdisciplinary journal "Mind and Matter". He has edited several books, in particular - with Hans Primas - the book "Recasting Reality" (Springer, 2009) about the philosophical ideas of Wolfgang Pauli.

Contenu
Part I Knowledge: Introduction.- Boolean Descriptions.- Non-Boolean Descriptions.- Rationality and Creativity.- Modes of Knowing in Mathematics.- Bottom-Up Approaches in Physics.- Top-Down Approaches in Physics.- Part II Time: Matter, Mind and Time.- Temporal Groups and Algebras.- Representations of Temporal Groups and Semigroups.- Complementary Concepts of Time.- The Relevance of Sequential Time.- The Relevance of Non-Sequential Time.- Appendix A: C- and W-Algebras.