The Map and the Territory: Exploring the Foundations of Science, Thought and Reality

 Philosophy -- Philosophy of Abstraction. Ontological/Epistemological distinction. Thoughtvs Reality. Generalization vs Contextuality. Theoretical Physics: Space, Time, Dimension, Force, Wave Functions, Operators, Fields,Strings etc., Are they real? Transition/Correspondence between theories and reality. Varioustangled loops and circular definitions at the foundations of Science. Mathematics: Magnitude -- Number, Sets, Classes, Functions, Abstract mathematicalstructures/objects, Platonism and various schools of thought. Information Theory/ Computing/Logic: Information is everything. Aspects of computabilityand undecidability in our very map (Theories and Constructs) and how far they leak into theterritory (reality). Biology/Cognitive Science: Perception -- how our map of the territory and thereby the veryterritory itself is fenced by the evolution. Brain/Mind and the extent they let us patch thereality with percepts. Map and Territory, an illusion? From a cognitive viewpoint.

List of authors who have accepted: (* = tentative)

· Ian Stewart, University of Warwick, England. 

· William G Unruh, University of British Columbia, Canada. 

· Gregory Chaitin, IBM and his wife Virginia Chaitin. 

· Simon Saunders (*), Oxford University, Oxford. 

· Simon Kochen(*), Princeton University. 

· Marcelo Gleiser, Professor of physics at Dartmouth.  

· José Acacio de Barros, Associate professor at San Francisco State. 

· Tian Yu Cao, Boston University. 

· David Wolpert, Santa Fe Institute. 

· Vlatko Vedral, University of Oxford. 

· Edward Slowik, Winona State University, USA. <

· Steven Weinstein, University of Waterloo. 

· Eors Szathmary, Munich and Eötvös University. 

· Barry Dainton, University of Liverpool. 

· John Searle (*), University of California.