Jochen Szangolies studied physics in Germany at the university of Siegen, completing his diploma in 2012. His thesis was developed into a book, published by Springer in 2015 under the title 'Testing Quantum Contextuality - The Problem of Compatibility'. He obtained his PhD at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of Düsseldorf in 2016, working in the Quantum Information group. He has since left academia, but continues to pursue his research interests, publishing on the foundations of quantum physics and the philosophy of mind. He enjoys to travel, and carries on meditating without ever really getting better---but figures that's why they call it 'practice'. Email: jochen.szangolies [at] gmx.de
by Jochen Szangolies Turn your head to the left, and make a conscious inventory of what you’re seeing. In my case, I see a radiator upon which a tin can painted with an image of Santa Claus is perched; above that, a window, whose white frame delimits a slate gray sky and the very topmost…
by Jochen Szangolies The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahâfut al-falâsifa) is an attempt by 11th century Sunni theologian and mystic al-Ghazâlî to refute the doctrines of philosophers such as Ibn Sina (often latinized Avicenna) or al-Fârâbî (Alpharabius), which he viewed as heretical for favoring Greek philosophy over the tenets of Islam. Al-Ghazâlî’s methodological principle was…
by Jochen Szangolies There seems to be a peculiar kind of compulsion among the philosophically minded to return, time and again, to the issue of free will. It’s like a sore on the gums of philosophy—one that might heal if only we could stop worrying it with our collective tongues. Such a wide-spread affliction surely…
by Jochen Szangolies In November 2020, an odd news item cut through the clouds of pandemic-induced haze with a sharp metal edge: way out in the Utah desert, a strange monolith had been found, a three-sided metal prism (and hence, not quite aptly called a ‘monolith’, with ‘-lith’ coming from Greek líthos, meaning ‘stone’). Subsequent…
by Jochen Szangolies It’s getting late, and your friends are leaving; however, you decide to linger for a bit at the bar, enjoying a last drink, perhaps quietly observing the people around you. As your gaze sweeps the room, it suddenly locks onto another’s, and your idle attention snaps into focus. You feel a strange…
by Jochen Szangolies The year 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the introduction of IBM’s first Personal Computer (PC), the IBM 5150. Since then, computers have risen from a novelty to a ubiquitous fixture of modern life, with a transformative impact on nearly all aspects of work and leisure alike. It is perhaps this ubiquity…
by Jochen Szangolies Meet Hubert. For going on ten years now, Hubert has shared a living space with my wife and me. He’s a generally cheerful fellow, optimistic to a fault, occasionally prone to a little mischief; in fact, my wife, upon seeing the picture, remarked that he looked inordinately well-behaved. He’s fond of chocolate…
by Jochen Szangolies Even if you’ve never played chess in your life, the image in Fig. 1 is probably readily identifiable to you. The regular grid of the chessboard, white and black standing in opposition, perhaps even the individual pieces—knights, pawns, bishops, and so on—are a cultural staple. If you have some familiarity with the…
by Jochen Szangolies Hearing the words ‘quantum mechanics’ usually invokes images of the impossibly tiny and fleeting, phenomena just barely on the edge of existence, unfathomably far removed from everyday experience. Perhaps illustrated in the form of bright, jittery sparkly things jumping about in a PBS documentary, perhaps as amorphous, hovering blobs of improbability, perhaps,…
by Jochen Szangolies This is the fourth part of a series on dual-process psychology and its significance for our image of the world. Previous parts: 1) The Lobster and the Octopus, 2) The Dolphin and the Wasp, and 3) The Reindeer and the Ape A (nowadays surely—or hopefully—outdated) view, associated with Descartes, represents animals as…
by Jochen Szangolies This is the third part of a series on dual-process psychology and its significance for our image of the world. Previous parts: 1) The Lobster and the Octopus and 2) The Dolphin and the Wasp Rudolph, the blue-eyed reindeer With Christmas season still twinkling in the rear view mirror, images of reindeer, most commonly in…
by Jochen Szangolies In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded. At least, that’s how the current state of knowledge is summarized by the great Terry Pratchett in Lords and Ladies. As far as cosmogony goes, it certainly has the virtue of succinctness. It also poses—by virtue of summarily ignoring—what William James called the ‘darkest…
by Jochen Szangolies Consider the lobster. Rigidly separated from the environment by its shell, the lobster’s world is cleanly divided into ‘self’ and ‘other’, ‘subject’ and ‘object’. One may suspect that it can’t help but conceive of itself as separated from the world, looking at it through its bulbous eyes, probing it with antennae. The…
by Jochen Szangolies Who Are You? I want you to take a moment to reflect on the answer that first came to mind upon reading this question. Was it something related to your job? Are you a baker, a writer, a physicist, a construction worker? Or did you start thinking about your passions—the things you…
by Jochen Szangolies Aristotle characterized humans as zoon logon echon, the rational animal. In general, we like to believe that our opinions are formed through reason—that we have arrived at them by means of a process of weighing the alternatives, selecting that which we deem most appropriate. This implies a certain mutual intelligibility—I might not…
by Jochen Szangolies Thomas Bayes and Rational Belief When we are presented with two alternatives, but are uncertain which to choose, a common way to break the deadlock is to throw a coin. That is, we leave the outcome open to chance: we trust that, if the coin is fair, it will not prefer either…
by Jochen Szangolies J Richard Gott and the Fall of the Berlin Wall J Richard Gott, now an astrophysicist famous for the notion that the universe might have created itself by reaching back through time, visited the Berlin Wall in 1969, while an undergraduate at Harvard. There, he made the following prediction (paraphrased): The Wall…