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Reductionism Emergence And Levels Of Reality
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Book Synopsis Reductionism, Emergence and Levels of Reality by : Sergio Chibbaro
Download or read book Reductionism, Emergence and Levels of Reality written by Sergio Chibbaro and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature? Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis?
Author :Richard H. Jones Publisher :Createspace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN 13 :9781481988988 Total Pages :0 pages Book Rating :4.9/5 (889 download)
Book Synopsis Analysis & the Fullness of Reality by : Richard H. Jones
Download or read book Analysis & the Fullness of Reality written by Richard H. Jones and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the world nothing but matter pushing matter in a void? Are humans nothing but soulless machines for the survival of genes? Is the mind nothing but the brain? Is all science reducible to physics? Must scientists restrict the substance and structure of reality to physical forces? Does society consist merely of individuals or are holistic forces also at work? Is God really no more than a projection of nature, society, or our psyche? Or in each case do new realities emerge that cannot be reduced? Virtually every scholarly and popular book and magazine article on the mind, science, or religion touches on these issues of reductionism. But for all the interest in the topic, no in-depth introduction of the subject exists. The objective of this philosophical work is to fill that void. This book attempts to provide one common framework for studying how the issue of reduction versus emergence arises in each of the areas in which it comes up - the natural sciences, philosophy of mind, the social sciences, and religion. It tries to resolve some of the disputes by a new analysis: differentiating five types of reductionism and antireductionism - ontological, structural, theoretical, conceptual, and methodological. To help clarify the issues, a brief history of how reductionism and emergentism have developed in Western philosophy is also presented. By distinguishing different types of reductionism and by examining the issues in all the areas of philosophical interest collectively rather than limiting the discussion to just one area, the general issues surrounding reduction versus emergence become clearer. This approach brings together many of the most interesting questions today in philosophy, science, and religious studies. The attempt throughout the work is to present the reductionists' and emergentists' strongest case on each issue and to identify problems with both sides. But it is argued that in the end the reductionists in each area currently have the weaker position. The work concludes with a discussion of the centrality of nonreducible features in reality and asks whether science under a reductionist vision can ever explain the emergence of higher levels of phenomena.
Book Synopsis The Fabric of Reality by : David Deutsch
Download or read book The Fabric of Reality written by David Deutsch and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-04-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary and challenging synthesis of ideas uniting Quantum Theory, and the theories of Computation, Knowledge and Evolution, Deutsch's extraordinary book explores the deep connections between these strands which reveal the fabric of realityin which human actions and ideas play essential roles.
Download or read book Mind and Cosmos written by Thomas Nagel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
Book Synopsis Untying the Gordian Knot by : Timothy E. Eastman
Download or read book Untying the Gordian Knot written by Timothy E. Eastman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context, Timothy E. Eastman proposes a new creative synthesis, the Logoi framework—which is radically inclusive and incorporates both actuality and potentiality—to show how the fundamental notions of process, logic, and relations, woven with triads of input-output-context and quantum logical distinctions, can resolve a baker’s dozen of age-old philosophic problems. Further, Eastman leverages a century of advances in quantum physics and the Relational Realism interpretation pioneered by Michael Epperson and Elias Zafiris and augmented by the independent research of Ruth Kastner and Hans Primas to resolve long-standing issues in understanding quantum physics. Adding to this, Eastman makes use of advances in information and complex systems, semiotics, and process philosophy to show how multiple levels of context, combined with relations—including potential relations—both local and local-global, can provide a grounding for causation, emergence, and physical law. Finally, the Logoi framework goes beyond standard ways of knowing—that of context independence (science) and context focus (arts, humanities)—to demonstrate the inevitable role of ultimate context (meaning, spiritual dimension) as part of a transformative ecological vision, which is urgently needed in these times of human and environmental crises.
Book Synopsis Without Hierarchies by : Mariam Thalos
Download or read book Without Hierarchies written by Mariam Thalos and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that there is causation at every scale of measurement - countering the philosophical position that causation, or "activity," occurs only at the minutest scales of measurement (the scale of microphysics). Thalos's scale-free model, as she shows, is much more hospitable to the models of physicists than are the single-scale models proposed by both reductionists and emergentists.
Book Synopsis Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings by : William C. Wimsatt
Download or read book Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings written by William C. Wimsatt and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analytic philosophers once pantomimed physics, trying to understand the world by breaking it down. Thinkers from the Darwinian sciences now pose alternatives to such reductionism. Wimsatt argues that today’s scientists seek to atomize phenomena only to understand how entities, events, and processes articulate at different levels.
Download or read book Emergence written by Mariusz Tabaczek and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last several decades, the theories of emergence and downward causation have become arguably the most popular conceptual tools in scientific and philosophical attempts to explain the nature and character of global organization observed in various biological phenomena, from individual cell organization to ecological systems. The theory of emergence acknowledges the reality of layered strata or levels of systems, which are consequences of the appearance of an interacting range of novel qualities. A closer analysis of emergentism, however, reveals a number of philosophical problems facing this theory. In Emergence, Mariusz Tabaczek offers a thorough analysis of these problems and a constructive proposal of a new metaphysical foundation for both the classic downward causation-based and the new dynamical depth accounts of emergence theory, developed by Terrence Deacon. Tabaczek suggests ways in which both theoretical models of emergentism can be grounded in the classical and the new (dispositionalist) versions of Aristotelianism. This book will have an eager audience in metaphysicians working both in the analytic and the Thomistic traditions, as well as philosophers of science and biology interested in emergence theory and causation.
Book Synopsis The Problem of Reductionism in Science by : E. Agazzi
Download or read book The Problem of Reductionism in Science written by E. Agazzi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The topic to which this book is devoted is reductionism, and not reduction. The difference in the adoption of these two denominations is not, contrary to what might appear at first sight, just a matter of preference between a more abstract (reductionism) or a more concrete (reduction) terminology for indicating the same sUbject matter. In fact, the difference is that between a philosophical doctrine (or, perhaps, simply a philosophical tenet or claim) and a scientific procedure. Of course, this does not mean that these two fields are separated; they are only distinct, and this already means that they are also likely to be interrelated. However it is useful to consider them separately, if at least to better understand how and why they are interconnected. Just to give a first example of difference, we can remark that a philosophical doctrine is something which makes a claim and, as such, invites controversy and should, in a way, be challenged. A scientific procedure, on the other hand, is something which concretely exists, and as such must be first of all described, interpreted, understood, defined precisely and analyzed critically; this work may well lead to uncovering limitations of this procedure, or of certain ways of conceiving or defining it, but it does not lead to really challenging it.
Book Synopsis What Is a Person? by : Christian Smith
Download or read book What Is a Person? written by Christian Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The task of understanding human beings, what we ourselves are, our constitution and condition, is a perennial problem in philosophy and related disciplines. Smith argues here that our understanding of human persons is threatened by technological development and capricious academic theories alike, seeking to deny or relativize the personhood of humanity. Smith's book puts a stake in the ground, in defense of a view of the human that is genuinely humanistic in the traditional sense and capable of sustaining with intellectual coherence things like modern human rights and universal benevolence.
Book Synopsis Holism and Reductionism in Biology and Ecology by : Rick C. Looijen
Download or read book Holism and Reductionism in Biology and Ecology written by Rick C. Looijen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Holism and reductionism are traditionally seen as incompatible views or approaches to nature. Here Looijen argues that they should rather be seen as mutually dependent and hence co-operating research programmes. He sheds some interesting new light on the emergence thesis, its relation to the reduction thesis, and on the role and status of functional explanations in biology. He discusses several examples of reduction in both biology and ecology, showing the mutual dependence of holistic and reductionist research programmes. Ecologists are offered separate chapters, clarifying some major, yet highly and controversial ecological concepts, such as `community', `habitat', and `niche'. The book is the first in-depth study of the philosophy of ecology. Readership: Specialists in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology, biologists and ecologists interested in the philosophy of their discipline. Also of interest to other scientists concerned with the holism-reductionism issue.
Book Synopsis The Romance of Reality by : Bobby Azarian
Download or read book The Romance of Reality written by Bobby Azarian and published by BenBella Books. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we exist? For centuries, this question was the sole province of religion and philosophy. But now science is ready to take a seat at the table. According to the prevailing scientific paradigm, the universe tends toward randomness; it functions according to laws without purpose, and the emergence of life is an accident devoid of meaning. But this bleak interpretation of nature is currently being challenged by cutting-edge findings at the intersection of physics, biology, neuroscience, and information theory—generally referred to as “complexity science.” Thanks to a new understanding of evolution, as well as recent advances in our understanding of the phenomenon known as emergence, a new cosmic narrative is taking shape: Nature’s simplest “parts” come together to form ever-greater “wholes” in a process that has no end in sight. In The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains the science behind this new view of reality and explores what it means for all of us. In engaging, accessible prose, Azarian outlines the fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics at the heart of the old assumptions about the universe’s evolution, and shows us the evidence that suggests that the universe is a “self-organizing” system, one that is moving toward increasing complexity and awareness. Cosmologist and science communicator Carl Sagan once said of humanity that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” The Romance of Reality shows that this poetic statement in fact rests on a scientific foundation and gives us a new way to know the cosmos, along with a riveting vision of life that imbues existence with meaning—nothing supernatural required.
Book Synopsis A Different Universe by : Robert B Laughlin
Download or read book A Different Universe written by Robert B Laughlin and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-07-31 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Nobel-winning physicist argues that fundamental physical laws are found not in the world of atoms, but in the macroscopic world around us In this age of superstring theories and Big Bang cosmology, we're used to thinking of the unknown as impossibly distant from our everyday lives. But in A Different Universe, Nobel Laureate Robert Laughlin argues that the scientific frontier is right under our fingers. Instead of looking for ultimate theories, Laughlin considers the world of emergent properties-meaning the properties, such as the hardness and shape of a crystal, that result from the organization of large numbers of atoms. Laughlin shows us how the most fundamental laws of physics are in fact emergent. A Different Universe is a truly mind-bending book that shows us why everything we think about fundamental physical laws needs to change.
Download or read book Reductionism written by Richard H. Jones and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reductionism's approach brings together many of the most interesting questions today in philosophy (consciousness and computers) and in science (issues of complexity and self-organization). It also presents a brief history of how reductionism has developed in Western philosophy and religion, with reference to Indian philosophy on certain issues.
Book Synopsis There Is No Theory of Everything by : Lars Q. English
Download or read book There Is No Theory of Everything written by Lars Q. English and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-14 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main purpose of this book is to introduce a broader audience to emergence by illustrating how discoveries in the physical sciences have informed the ways we think about it. In a nutshell, emergence asserts that non-reductive behavior arises at higher levels of organization and complexity. As physicist Philip Anderson put it, “more is different.” Along the text's conversational tour through the terrain of quantum physics, phase transitions, nonlinear and statistical physics, networks and complexity, the author highlights the various philosophical nuances that arise in encounters with emergence. The final part of the book zooms out to reflect on some larger lessons that emergence affords us. One of those larger lessons is the realization that the great diversity of theories and models, and the great variety of independent explanatory frameworks, will always be with us in the sciences and beyond. There is no “Theory of Everything” just around the corner waiting to be discovered. One of the main benefits of this book is that it will make a number of exciting scientific concepts that are not normally covered at this level accessible to a broader audience. The overall presentation, including the use of examples, analogies, metaphors, and biographical interludes, is geared for the educated non-specialist.
Book Synopsis The Disorder of Things by : John Dupré
Download or read book The Disorder of Things written by John Dupré and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this manifesto, John Dupré systematically attacks the ideal of scientific unity by showing how its underlying assumptions are at odds with the central conclusions of science itself.
Book Synopsis Scientific Realism and International Relations by : J. Joseph
Download or read book Scientific Realism and International Relations written by J. Joseph and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-07-30 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical and scientific realism have emerged as important perspectives on international relations in recent years. The attraction of these approaches lies in the claim that they can transcend the positivism vs postpositivism divide. This book demonstrates the vitality of this approach and the difference that 'realism' makes.
