Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Humanity Amid Innovation: Exploring Our Relationship To Technology, Sarah Durkee

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis examines the impacts of technology on fundamental aspects of human nature and experience. Drawing on the works from Kant, Turing, Arendt, Benjamin, and Freud, it explores how rapid technological change is redefining human reason, intelligence, and creativity in the digital age. The first chapter analyzes whether modern online communication platforms realize or undermine Kant's vision of an enlightened public sphere fostering free discourse and critique. It argues that prioritizing engagement over substantive debate, these digital realms corrode the depth of interaction essential for cultivating human reason. The second chapter explores the pursuit of artificial intelligence as a reproduction …

Algorithmic Bias: Causes And Effects On Marginalized Communities, Katrina M. Baha

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Individuals from marginalized backgrounds face different healthcare outcomes due to algorithmic bias in the technological healthcare industry. Algorithmic biases, which are the biases that arise from the set of steps used to solve or analyze a problem, are evident when people from marginalized communities use healthcare technology. For example, many pulse oximeters, which are the medical devices used to measure oxygen saturation in the blood, are not able to accurately read people who have darker skin tones. Thus, people with darker skin tones are not able to receive proper health care due to their pulse oximetry data being inaccurate. This …

What Is A Number?, Nicholas Radley

HON499 projects

This essay is, in essence, an attempt to make a case for mathematical platonism. That is to say, that we argue for the existence of mathematical objects independent of our perception of them. The essay includes a somewhat informal construction of number systems ranging from the natural numbers to the complex numbers.

Connectivism: Adopting Quantum Holism In International Relations, Grant Randal Highland

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The current scientific context of both quantum science and an ever-increasingly connected global citizenry has set the conditions for a new perspective whereby the social sciences are on the cusp of adopting a quantum approach of probability and potentiality versus the clockwork mechanistic determinism of cause-and-effect Newtonian mechanics. While a scientific realist approach toward the application of quantum science to the social sciences is germane, there is a valid reason international relations should also consider and adopt the philosophical worldviews outside the genealogical canon of our early western forbears, as well as the philosophical explorations of consciousness and humanism which …

Dimentia: Footnotes Of Time, Zachary Hait

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Time from the physicist's perspective is not inclusive of our lived experience of time; time from the philosopher's perspective is not mathematically engaged, in fact Henri Bergson asserted explicitly that time could not be mathematically engaged whatsoever. What follows is a mathematical engagement of time that is inclusive of our lived experiences, requiring the tools of storytelling.

Climate Change And Liberation In Latin America, Ernesto O. Hernández

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to propose the liberation movements in Latin America as alternative philosophical frameworks to the crisis of climate change. These movements have provided the grounds to identify inequities and injustices and have practiced ethical methodologies to overcome them. Additionally, the movements seek to represent and reflect the value of non-traditional philosophical agents in Latin America. The work focuses on four major Latin American ecological liberation movements; theology, philosophy, pedagogy, and feminism. Eco-Theology advances the role of Religion as the practice of Religação, reexamination, and resetting our relationship with nature by reconnecting with it. Eco-Philosophy of …

Philosophy Of Mathematics: Theories And Defense, Amy E. Maffit

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this paper I discuss six philosophical theories of mathematics including logicism, intuitionism, formalism, platonism, structuralism, and moderate realism. I also discuss problems that arise within these theories and attempts to solve them. Finally, I attempt to harmonize the best features of moderate realism and structuralism, presenting a theory that I take to best describe current mathematical practice.

La Vie De Blaise Pascal Et Son Heritage Mathématique Et Philosophique, Katherine Weeks

Honors Theses

This paper will discuss the life of Blaise Pascal, his philosophy and mathematics. We will first study the life of Pascal, by looking at his family, the success of his family, and how he was educated. We will then move onto study the history of the arithmetic triangle, which eventually becomes known as Pascal’s Triangle. Finally we will look at Pascal’s Pensées. Finally we will conclude that Pascal is not only known for Pascal’s Triangle but also his legacy in the Philosophic world. It becomes clear that Pascal would not have been the mathematician he was without the philosophy, and …

The Reasonable Effectiveness Of Mathematics In The Natural Sciences, Nicolas Fillion

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the most unsettling problems in the history of philosophy examines how mathematics can be used to adequately represent the world. An influential thesis, stated by Eugene Wigner in his paper entitled "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences," claims that "the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve." Contrary to this view, this thesis delineates and implements a strategy to show that the applicability of mathematics is very reasonable indeed.

I distinguish three forms of the …

The Quantum Dialectic, Logan Kelley

Pitzer Senior Theses

A philosophic account of quantum physics. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part I is dedicated to laying the groundwork of quantum physics, and explaining some of the primary difficulties. Subjects of interest will include the principle of locality, the quantum uncertainty principle, and Einstein's criterion for reality. Quantum dilemmas discussed include the double-slit experiment, observations of spin and polarization, EPR, and Bell's theorem. The first part will argue that mathematical-physical descriptions of the world fall short of explaining the experimental observations of quantum phenomenon. The problem, as will be argued, is framework of the physical descriptive schema. Part …

The Exploratory Value Of Agent-Based Models In Social Science, Ricardo Andress Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

N/A

Scholasticism An Intellectual Basis And Unifying Principle Of Modern Science, Alice V. Johnson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation

Amid the almost uninterrupted disintegration of systems during the last three centuries, the philosophy of St. Thomas has alone been able to stand the shock of criticism; it alone has proved sufficiently solid and comprehensive to serve as an intellectual basis and unifying principle for all the new facts and phenomena brought to light by modern science.