Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend were among the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century. Extensive studies have been dedicated to the development of their controversial relationship, which saw Feyerabend turning from a student and supporter of Popper to one of his harshest critics. Yet, it is not as well known that the rift between Popper and Feyerabend arose mainly in the context of their studies on the foundations of quantum mechanics, which has been the main subject of (...) their discussions for about two decades. This paper reconstructs in detail their diatribe over the foundations of quantum mechanics, emphasising also the major role that their personal relationship played in their distancing. (shrink)

Discussions on indeterminism in physics focus on the possibility of an open future, i.e. the possibility of having potential alternative future events, the realisation of one of which is not fully determined by the present state of affairs. Yet, can indeterminism affect also the past, making it open as well? We show that by upholding principles of finiteness of information one can entail such a possibility. We provide a toy model that shows how the past could be fundamentally indeterminate, while (...) also explaining the intuitive (and observed) asymmetry between the past—which can be remembered, at least partially—and the future—which is impossible to fully predict. (shrink)

In this paper, we reject commonly accepted views on fundamentality in science, either based on bottom-up construction or top-down reduction to isolate the alleged fundamental entities. We do not introduce any new scientific methodology, but rather describe the current scientific methodology and show how it entails an inherent search for foundations of science. This is achieved by phrasing metaphysical assumptions into falsifiable statements and define as fundamental those that survive empirical tests. The ones that are falsified are rejected, and the (...) corresponding philosophical concept is demolished as a prejudice. Furthermore, we show the application of this criterion in concrete examples of the search for fundamentality in quantum physics and biophysics. (shrink)