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Sebastian Murgueitio Ramirez

@murgue

Philosopher of physics, cycling fan, Colombian, 2 cats

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11.10.2023
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Latest posts by Sebastian Murgueitio Ramirez @murgue

I see! Yeah, I just think that if I were to genuinely believe this, I wouldn’t be able to think of myself or the world in the same way.

07.03.2026 03:08 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

At the very least, I would be very anxious and confused… I wouldn’t even know how to think of my identity over time nor of my decisions and my plans for the future. I also would probably worry about the well-being of my β€œcopies” quite a bit, perhaps as much or more than a very close relative, etc

07.03.2026 02:34 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

To me that sounds a bit closer to many worlds (defenders of it don’t act as if they really believed that there are multiple copies of themselves after any measurement).

06.03.2026 01:48 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Green Lion Press: Newton's Principia: The Central Argument Newton's Principia: The Central Argument (Third Edition) -- Translation, Notes, and Expanded Proofs

The Principia is a very hard book for sure. I think this commentary is conceptually very good and makes a great effort at presenting the main arguments in their original geometrical formulation with no calculus: www.greenlion.com/books/Newton...

29.01.2026 02:37 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

He also says that the proofs of Cor V and Cor VI are based on the 2nd law. Newton does say that they are (hence β€œcorollary”), but scholars of Newton usually think they don’t follow and that’s a mistake on Newton part.

29.01.2026 02:37 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks for the reference! I did a quick search and I was surprised all he said about it was that β€œthis shows that Newton’s laws hold even in some accelerated frames”. Perhaps it was obvious to him the connection to Einstein’s equivalence principle and didn’t feel the need to elaborate.

29.01.2026 02:37 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Sorry for the Typos: β€œβ€¦ as if they were not acted on by those forces.” In short, we have an important element of General relativity already in Newton :) But Einstein (and many others) never cited this corollary, so probably it was unknown to him.

28.01.2026 22:20 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Newton used this corollary to apply his laws of motion to Jupiter’s moons. After all, the force of gravity on Jupiter and the moons produced roughly the same acceleration on both, and so one can then neglect the Sun’s influence and pretend the Jupiter-moon system is isolated!

28.01.2026 22:16 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

It reads β€œ if bodies are moving in any way whatsoever with respect to one another, and are urged by equal accelerative forces along parallel lines, they will all continue to move with respect to one another in the same way as they would if they were not active home by those forces.”

28.01.2026 22:16 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

My favorite example is Newton’s corollary 6 to the laws in the Principia. He essentially states Einstein’s equivalence principle more than 200 years before Einstein! This is very rarely noted in physics, and even in the history of physics tends to be neglected. 1/

28.01.2026 22:16 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks. what I meant to ask is if some of the axiomatic approaches you listed seems to be making more progress, in your view, towards the interacting 4d case (by β€œstruggles” I meant there is no known construction in AQFT that gives raise to interactions or β€œrealistic physics” if that makes sense).

10.01.2026 02:19 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks for clarifying. I know algebraic QFT really struggles with interactions. In your view, which of those other options has done a better job of recovering interactions and getting β€œcloser” to the qft of physics classes?

09.01.2026 22:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

My β€œmathematician QFT” do you mean algebraic QFT or a different thing ? I confess I never heard of β€œconstructive QFT”!

09.01.2026 19:02 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

In fact, some simple classical systems are not even Galilean covariant! The symmetries for the differential equation of a simple classical wave such as a string attached to two fixed points are Lorentz’, not Galileo’s (fixing the tension and the density is formally just like a light wave).

09.01.2026 18:50 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

On the history and philosophy behind some of these discussions, I recommend several papers by Rynasiewicz including this one: β€˜Absolute vs. Relational Spacetime: An Outmoded Debate?’, Journal of Phi-
losophy

09.01.2026 18:44 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

These things are related to the question of what exactly the relativity principle says (it is less clear than what many seem to think). I talk about its history and some philosophical aspects of it here (curious to hear your thoughts!) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/APRFMK...

09.01.2026 18:38 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Working with Us Call for Applications: Postdoctoral Fellowship The University of Geneva offers a 2-year fully funded postdoctoral fellowship within Baptiste Le Bihan’s SNSF Starting Grant project Space, Time and C…

Deadline for applying to a postdoc position on my projet in less than a month. Looking for candidates with a PhD in metaphysics or philosophy of physics.
spaceqg.com/visit-us/

17.10.2025 06:45 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

A fantastic kickoff tonight of the Boston Network for History & Philosophy of Physics, organized by @miguelohn.bsky.social & featuring talk by Peter Galison on his work with the Black Hole Initiative. #HPS βš›οΈ

19.09.2025 02:29 πŸ‘ 38 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

There is a mistake regarding the title of my paper with Nic Teh (the paper listed there is not ours). Thanks :)

16.06.2025 20:46 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I am very sorry Helen. Thanks for all the wonderful things you have done for philosophy, academia and the world more widely.

12.05.2025 19:14 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I am very happy to share this popular piece about relative motion, from Galileo to Einstein! It is roughly based on my recent research on the topic! I am thankful to @iai.tv and Dan Walker for reaching out, and for their great editorial work !

20.03.2025 14:31 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Galileo, Einstein, and the unexpected origins of relativity | SebastiΓ‘n Murgueitio RamΓ­rez

How Galileo cracked the problem of relative motion. | iai.tv/articles/gal...

@murgue.bsky.social argues that distinguishing between "internal" and "external" versions of the principle highlights Galileo's forward-thinking.

#philsky βš›οΈ πŸ§ͺ

20.03.2025 12:00 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

And fighting Squirrel!

23.02.2025 20:29 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Graduate Admissions season is here!
Philosofriends, encourage your students looking for programs to put Purdue on their lists. We're a big, active department on the rise, where students get broad training and good support.
Our application deadline is one month away: Jan 6, 2025
#philsky

06.12.2024 18:26 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2

I am very sorry to hear this ❀️ I also wanted to share that one of the things that my students liked the most this semester (in a version of a great books class) was discussing some of the thought experiments from your β€œphilosophy illustrated” book. I think some want to take philosophy classes now

06.12.2024 18:16 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This is such an interesting story!

01.12.2024 03:22 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It's nice to see that Purdue Philosophy is now recognized as one of the top departments to do philosophy of cognitive science.
Undergrad/MA mentors: get the word out to your students! Especially if they're interested in memory, AI, rationality, moral psych, norms, cultural evolution, or x-phi.

20.11.2024 20:57 πŸ‘ 33 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Some auroras in Lafayette!

11.10.2024 03:14 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Bright red, white and pale green northern lights fill a night sky. The black silhouettes of three cows look up at them

Bright red, white and pale green northern lights fill a night sky. The black silhouettes of three cows look up at them

obsessed with this photo of cows watching the northern lights. it's the scene in a muppet movie that's so surprisingly touching you start to cry

(photographer: @ChrisReichert3 on twitter)

08.10.2024 17:23 πŸ‘ 5840 πŸ” 1095 πŸ’¬ 63 πŸ“Œ 59
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Galileo's ship and the relativity principle It is widely acknowledged that the Galilean Relativity Principle, according to which the laws of classical systems are the same in all inertial frames in relative motion, has played an important role...

I am very happy that my paper on philosophical and historical aspects of the Galilean relativity principle is officially published (open access) here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

18.09.2024 01:12 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0