Högskolan i Skövde

These are the proceedings of Physics and Reality 2024, International Conference on Philosophy of Physics, held at University of Helsinki, Finland, 4-6 June 2024.

The conference was organised by the research project Appearance and Reality in Physics and Beyond that started in June 2023. The project is located in the Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies, University of Helsinki.

The conference explored central themes in philosophy of physics, including interpretations of quantum theory, geometric vs. dynamic approaches to relativistic phenomena, the project of unifying quantum theory and general relativity, and extending quantum theory to new domains, such as cognition and free will. The conference provided a platform for representing well-informed novel ideas, which are needed as the theoretical foundations of physics are not ready. Moreover, it is to be noted that the greatest 20th century philosophers of science —Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend— reminded us that rival theories are needed to fully understand the weaknesses of a paradigmatic theory.