This book explores the many and diverse ways in which nothingness is weaved into the fabric of our existence. It can express the very ground of reality or a cessation of mind: a winking out, as well as being a guide for painting meditative states. It is inescapably linked with the divine in many traditions as a precondition of our existence. It is the Pleroma before consciousness and the gateway to enlightenment. While these essays are indeed wide ranging and eclectic, they share one theme...

Why life’s shortness—more than anything else—is what makes it meaningfulDeath might seem to render pointless all our attempts to create a meaningful life. Doesn’t meaning require transcending death through an afterlife or in some other way? On the contrary, Dean Rickles argues, life without death would be like playing tennis without a net. Only constraints—and death is the ultimate constraint—make our actions meaningful. In Life Is Short, Rickles explains ...

Why life's shortness—more than anything else—is what makes it meaningfulDeath might seem to render pointless all our attempts to create a meaningful life. Doesn't meaning require transcending death through an afterlife or in some other way? On the contrary, Dean Rickles argues, life without death would be like playing tennis without a net. Only constraints—and death is the ultimate constraint—make our actions meaningful. In Life Is Short, Rickles explains ...

This book serves as a gentle primer on the philosophy of mind for those wishing to directly explore the strange subjective aspects of psychedelics, providing the means for novices to get to grips with the mind before disrupting it. The discussion includes both classic issues from philosophy of mind, as well as more recent developments in the science of mind. It is set across six key thematic areas: The Hard Problem of Consciousness; Problems of Measurement; Kinds of Minds; The Relation bet...

In this book Rickles considers several interpretative difficulties raised by gauge-type symmetries (those that correspond to no change in physical state). The ubiquity of such symmetries in modern physics renders them an urgent topic in philosophy of physics. Rickles focuses on spacetime physics, and in particular classical and quantum general relativity. Here the problems posed are at their most pathological, involving the apparent disappearance of spacetime! Rickles argues that both trad...

Structural realism has rapidly gained in popularity in recent years, but it has splintered into many distinct denominations, often underpinned by diverse motivations. There is, no monolithic position known as ‘structural realism,’ but there is a general convergence on the idea that a central role is to be played by relational aspects over object-based aspects of ontology. What becomes of causality in a world without fundamental objects? In this book, the foremost authorities on structural ...

Dual-Aspect Monism and the Deep Structure of Meaning investigates the metaphysical position of dual-aspect monism, with particular emphasis on the concept of meaning as a fundamental feature of the fabric of reality. As an alternative to other positions – mainly dualism, physicalism, idealism – that have been proposed to understand consciousness and its place in nature, the decompositional version of dual-aspect monism considers the mental and the physical as two aspects of one un...

This collection of interdisciplinary and multicultural essays takes a novel approach to the ancient theory of the Harmony of the Spheres and the notion of musical harmony.The idea of the harmony of the spheres is an old and venerable one, finding a parallel between the orderly nature of the cosmos and that of music. Wherever there is discussion of order, number, and frequency, connections to music are close at hand. Modern physics, while on the surface a long way f...

In this essay collection, leading physicists, philosophers, and historians attempt to fill the empty theoretical ground in the foundations of information and address the related question of the limits to our knowledge of the world.Over recent decades, our practical approach to information and its exploitation has radically outpaced our theoretical understanding - to such a degree that reflection on the foundations may seem futile. But it is exactly fields such as quantum informatio...

This volume argues that concepts from the theory of computation—including information theory, formal languages, and discrete structures—might provide novel paths towards a solution to the problem of quantum gravity. By combining elements of physics with computer science and mathematics, the volume proposes to transform the foundations of spacetime physics and bring it into the digital age.In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent a new theoretical framework will be neede...

Thinking about Science, Reflecting on Art: Bringing Aesthetics and Philosophy of Science Together is the first book to systematically examine the relationship between the philosophy of science and aesthetics. With contributions from leading figures from both fields, this edited collection engages with such questions as:Does representation function in the same way in science and in art?What important characteristics do scientific models s...

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through...