D.O.D. Doctor on demand

LAUREA MAGISTRALEDuring the last years we’ve seen a fast expansion of the cities and we noticed how, year after year, always more people moved to this urban areas. By some estimates in the 2050 the 2/3 of the population will live in big cities. This brought to the saturation of the available areas where to build structures and anything could be necessary to give a service to the always increasing number of people living the cities. From here the necessity to create new alternative spaces that can help people to simplify their lives and guarantee a good service to the population in every kind of situation. Analyzing di erent societies of the world, we can notice that some populations, nowadays mainly located in Asia are already facing this problem of overpopulation in some big cities and in the next years the problem will increase even more. To contrast this problem in Japan and some other areas, for example, in the past years was born the concept of capsule hotels where people can spend the night in a small space with only the necessary things for them; a single person for every capsule, in this way there is more space for everyone who needs a place to sleep and this is necessary in those areas where the amount of people is so elevated that with a normal bedroom for every single person there wouldn’t be enough space for everyone. The work of this thesis is based on this situation, starting analyzing the problem and the evolution of the society. This thesis is divided in three fundamental parts: a research part, a description of the context where the projet is based, and the last part about the project itself. The research starts with an analysis of the scenario, so the analysis of the world of the future with a moving society, overcrowded cities, and the opportunities given by new technologies. The second part tells about the starting point of the project so the concept of space in di erent cultures and the perception of space for the human being. In the third and nal part there is expained ...During the last years we’ve seen a fast expansion of the cities and we noticed how, year after year, always more people moved to this urban areas. By some estimates in the 2050 the 2/3 of the population will live in big cities. This brought to the saturation of the available areas where to build structures and anything could be necessary to give a service to the always increasing number of people living the cities. From here the necessity to create new alternative spaces that can help people to simplify their lives and guarantee a good service to the population in every kind of situation. Analyzing di erent societies of the world, we can notice that some populations, nowadays mainly located in Asia are already facing this problem of overpopulation in some big cities and in the next years the problem will increase even more. To contrast this problem in Japan and some other areas, for example, in the past years was born the concept of capsule hotels where people can spend the night in a small space with only the necessary things for them; a single person for every capsule, in this way there is more space for everyone who needs a place to sleep and this is necessary in those areas where the amount of people is so elevated that with a normal bedroom for every single person there wouldn’t be enough space for everyone. The work of this thesis is based on this situation, starting analyzing the problem and the evolution of the society. This thesis is divided in three fundamental parts: a research part, a description of the context where the projet is based, and the last part about the project itself. The research starts with an analysis of the scenario, so the analysis of the world of the future with a moving society, overcrowded cities, and the opportunities given by new technologies. The second part tells about the starting point of the project so the concept of space in di erent cultures and the perception of space for the human being. In the third and nal part there is expained ..

Quantum metametaphysics

Say that metaphysical indeterminacy occurs just when there is a fact such that neither it nor its negation obtains. The aim of this work is to shed light on the issue of whether orthodox quantum mechanics provides any evidence of metaphysical indeterminacy by discussing the logical, semantic, and broadly methodological presuppositions of the debate. I argue that the dispute amounts to a verbal disagreement between classical and quantum logicians, given Eli Hirsch’s account of substantivity; but that it need not be so if Ted Sider’s naturalness-based account of substantivity is adopted instead. Given the latter approach, can anything be said in order to tip the balance of the dispute either way? Some prima facie reasonable constraints on naturalness entail that the classicist is right, and the quantum world is therefore determinate. Nevertheless, there are reasons for weakening those constraints, to the effect that the dispute remains very much open. Finally, I discuss alternative accounts of metaphysical indeterminacy, and argue that they are unsuitable for framing the quantum indeterminacy debate

Vague Existence

Ted Sider has famously argued that existence, in the unrestricted sense of ontology, cannot be vague, as long as vagueness is modeled by means of precisifications. The first section of Chapter 9 exposes some controversial assumptions underlying Sider’s alleged reductio of vague existence. The upshot of the discussion is that, although existence cannot be vague, it can be super-vague, i.e. higher-order vague, for all orders. The second section develops and defends a novel framework, dubbed negative supervaluationary semantics, which makes room for the possibility of super-vague existence

Quantum metaphysical indeterminacy and worldly incompleteness

An influential theory has it that metaphysical indeterminacy occurs just when reality can be made completely precise in multiple ways. That characterization is formulated by employing the modal apparatus of ersatz possible worlds. As quantum physics taught us, reality cannot be made completely precise. I meet the challenge by providing an alternative theory which preserves the use of ersatz worlds but rejects the precisificational view of metaphysical indeterminacy. The upshot of the proposed theory is that it is metaphysically indeterminate whether p just in case it is neither true nor false that p, and no terms in ‘p’ are semantically defective. In other words, metaphysical indeterminacy arises when the world cannot be adequately described by a complete set of sentences defined in a semantically nondefective language. Moreover, the present theory provides a reductive analysis of metaphysical indeterminacy, unlike its influential predecessor. Finally, I argue that any adequate logic of a language with an indeterminate subject matter is neither compositional nor bivalent

Derivative Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Quantum Physics

This chapter argues that quantum indeterminacy can be construed as a merely derivative phenomenon. The possibility of merely derivative quantum indeterminacy undermines both a recent argument against quantum indeterminacy due to David Glick, and an argument against the possibility of merely derivative indeterminacy due to Elizabeth Barnes

Modal Conceptions of Essence

Philosophers distinguish between having a property essentially and having it accidentally. The way the distinction has been drawn suggests that it is modal in character, and so that it can be captured in terms of necessity, or cognate notions. The present chapter takes the suggestion at face value by considering a number of modal characterizations of the essential/accidental distinction that have been articulated and discussed since the early 20th century, as well as some of the challenges that they face

Language in the Ontology Room

The way we answer questions about what there is crucially depends on the language and the logic in which they are framed. This entry introduces the orthodox view on how to carry out such debates, as was formulated by W. V. O. Quine, as well as a number of influential alternatives. A further issue that is explored is whether disagreement about what there is turns on mind-independent features of reality, or it is an artifact of language