International Workshop in Helsinki on May 11th 2019
The workshop is devoted to dealing with problems in physics and philosophy by unification. In the unified approach, a minimal ontological core of postulates or hypothetical laws of nature provides natural resolutions to long-standing problems that are caused by dis- unification, and that cannot be properly resolved by focusing only on details of isolated topics. Unification is urgently needed, for in nei- ther discipline do we find a commonly accepted ontological core or world-view that could function as a unifying base, and a great major- ity of physicists and philosophers focus on specialized problems in isolated research areas. Furthermore, attempts to address interrelations between physics and philosophy are rare, and when it is done the focus is in very constrained domains.
The workshop brings together scholars with a mutual interest in unification, to discuss particular unifying resolutions and more generally about what a unified approach should look like. The questions to be discussed include, but are not restricted to: What are the central problems in physics and scientifically oriented philosophy? Can we identify postulates of a provisional scientifically and philo- sophically sound unified ontology? How do specific provisional postulates unify domains of inquiry that are currently separate and how do they resolve their central problems? What are the criteria by which one theory is to be preferred over another? How did the historical development result in the current situation in physics and philosophy?
Ph.D Cecilia af Forselles, National Librarian, Vice President of The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
Ph.D Avril Styrman, Chair, the Finnish Society for Natural Philosophy, Finland
Ph.D Ling Jun Wang, Professor, Department of Chemistry and Physics, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, USA
Ph.D C.S. Unnikrishnan, Professor, Department of Physics, TIFR, Mumbai, India
Ph.D Heikki Sipilä, Ametek Finland Oy
Ph.D Tuomo Suntola, Millennium Technology Prize 2018; Chair, Physics Foundations Society, Finland
Ph.D Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson, Researcher, Department of Philosophy, Lund University, Sweden
Ph.D Laurence Gould, Professor, Department of Physics, University of Hartford, USA
Ph.D Tapio Ala-Nissilä, Professor, Aalto University, Finland and Loughborough University, UK
Ph.D Tarja Kallio-Tamminen, The Finnish Society for Natural Philosophy, Finland
The workshow is arranged by The Finnish Society for Natural Philosophy, Physics Foundations Society, Aalto University and The Finnish Society for the History of Science and Learning at the House of Science and Letters, Kirkkokatu 6, 00170 Helsinki lecture hall 104, on May 11th 2019, 10.00-19.00.