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Typicality Reasoning In Probability Physics And Metaphysics
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Book Synopsis Typicality Reasoning in Probability, Physics, and Metaphysics by : Dustin Lazarovici
Download or read book Typicality Reasoning in Probability, Physics, and Metaphysics written by Dustin Lazarovici and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-18 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive investigation into the concept of typicality and its significance for physics and the philosophy of science. It identifies typicality as a fundamental way of reasoning, central to how natural laws explain and are tested against phenomena. The book discusses various applications of typicality to foundational questions in physics and beyond.These include: a unified interpretation of objective probabilities in classical mechanics and quantum mechanics a detailed discussion of Boltzmann's statistical mechanics, entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics a novel account of the asymmetry of causation and the arrow of time Finally, the book turns to the question: "What are laws of nature"? It argues that typicality extends to a powerful way of reasoning in metaphysics that can and should inform our commitments about the fundamental ontology of the world. On this basis, it develops an argument against the Humean best system account, according to which laws of nature are merely an efficient summary of contingent regularities.
Author : Publisher :Oxford University Press ISBN 13 :0198907710 Total Pages :159 pages Book Rating :4.1/5 (989 download)
Download or read book written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Probabilities in Physics by : Claus Beisbart
Download or read book Probabilities in Physics written by Claus Beisbart and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many results of modern physics—those of quantum mechanics, for instance—come in a probabilistic guise. But what do probabilistic statements in physics mean? Are probabilities matters of objective fact and part of the furniture of the world, as objectivists think? Or do they only express ignorance or belief, as Bayesians suggest? And how are probabilistic hypotheses justified and supported by empirical evidence? Finally, what does the probabilistic nature of physics imply for our understanding of the world? This volume is the first to provide a philosophical appraisal of probabilities in all of physics. Its main aim is to make sense of probabilistic statements as they occur in the various physical theories and models and to provide a plausible epistemology and metaphysics of probabilities. The essays collected here consider statistical physics, probabilistic modelling, and quantum mechanics, and critically assess the merits and disadvantages of objectivist and subjectivist views of probabilities in these fields. In particular, the Bayesian and Humean views of probabilities and the varieties of Boltzmann's typicality approach are examined. The contributions on quantum mechanics discuss the special character of quantum correlations, the justification of the famous Born Rule, and the role of probabilities in a quantum field theoretic framework. Finally, the connections between probabilities and foundational issues in physics are explored. The Reversibility Paradox, the notion of entropy, and the ontology of quantum mechanics are discussed. Other essays consider Humean supervenience and the question whether the physical world is deterministic.
Book Synopsis The Probability Map of the Universe by : Barry Loewer
Download or read book The Probability Map of the Universe written by Barry Loewer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers debate the ideas and implications of one of the most important contemporary works in the philosophy of science, David Albert’s Time and Chance. In the twenty-odd years since its publication, David Albert’s Time and Chance has been recognized as one of the most significant contemporary contributions to the philosophy of science. Here, philosophers and physicists explore the implications of Albert’s arguments and debate his solutions to some of the most intractable problems in theoretical physics. Albert has attempted to make sense of the tension between our best scientific pictures of the fundamental physical structure of the world and our everyday empirical experience of that world. In particular, he is concerned with problems arising from causality and the direction of time: defying common sense, almost all our basic scientific ideas suggest that whatever can happen can just as naturally happen in reverse. Focusing on Newtonian mechanics, Albert provides a systematic account of the temporal irreversibility of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of the asymmetries in our epistemic access to the past and the future, and of our conviction that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past. He also generalizes the Newtonian picture to the quantum-mechanical case and suggests a deep potential connection between the problem of the direction of time and the quantum-mechanical measurement problem. The essays included in The Probability Map of the Universe develop, explore, and critique this account, while Albert himself replies. The result is an insightful discussion of the foundations of statistical mechanics and its relation to cosmology, the direction of time, and the metaphysical nature of laws and objective probability.
Book Synopsis Reasoning about Luck by : Vinay Ambegaokar
Download or read book Reasoning about Luck written by Vinay Ambegaokar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-07-13 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the reader to statistical reasoning and its use in physics. It differs from other treatments of physics for nonscientists in its wide-ranging use of quantitative methods, which assume only that the reader can add, subtract, multiply and divide with confidence. The author begins with a self-contained introduction to the everyday uses of probability, including the quantitative assessment of statistical information. The author develops the basic idea of mechanical motion, the molecular theory of gases, entropy as a measure of molecular agitation, limitations on the conversion of heat to work, the physics of the direction of time; chaos, and the role of probability in quantum mechanics. To aid self instruction, there are solved problems at the end of each chapter. This book is perfect for undergraduate physics students and nonscience majors.
Book Synopsis Probabilities, Causes and Propensities in Physics by : Mauricio Suárez
Download or read book Probabilities, Causes and Propensities in Physics written by Mauricio Suárez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-12-16 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume defends a novel approach to the philosophy of physics: it is the first book devoted to a comparative study of probability, causality, and propensity, and their various interrelations, within the context of contemporary physics -- particularly quantum and statistical physics. The philosophical debates and distinctions are firmly grounded upon examples from actual physics, thus exemplifying a robustly empiricist approach. The essays, by both prominent scholars in the field and promising young researchers, constitute a pioneer effort in bringing out the connections between probabilistic, causal and dispositional aspects of the quantum domain. The book will appeal to specialists in philosophy and foundations of physics, philosophy of science in general, metaphysics, ontology of physics theories, and philosophy of probability.
Book Synopsis Understanding Quantum Mechanics by : Detlef Dürr
Download or read book Understanding Quantum Mechanics written by Detlef Dürr and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-16 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the physical and mathematical foundations of modern quantum mechanics and three realistic quantum theories that John Stuart Bell called "theories without observers" because they do not merely speak about measurements but develop an objective picture of the physical world. These are Bohmian mechanics, the GRW collapse theory, and the Many Worlds theory. The book is ideal to accompany or supplement a lecture course on quantum mechanics, but also suited for self-study, particularly for those who have completed such a course but are left puzzled by the question: "What does the mathematical formalism, which I have so laboriously learned and applied, actually tell us about nature?”
Book Synopsis A Philosophical Guide to Chance by : Toby Handfield
Download or read book A Philosophical Guide to Chance written by Toby Handfield and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It is a commonplace that scientific inquiry makes extensive use of probabilities, many of which seem to be objective chances, describing features of reality that are independent of our minds. Such chances appear to have a number of paradoxical or puzzling features: they appear to be mind-independent facts, but they are intimately connected with rational psychology; they display a temporal asymmetry, but they are supposed to be grounded in physical laws that are time-symmetric; and chances are used to explain and predict frequencies of events, although they cannot be reduced to those frequencies. This book offers an accessible and non-technical introduction to these and other puzzles. Toby Handfield engages with traditional metaphysics and philosophy of science, drawing upon recent work in the foundations of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics to provide a novel account of objective probability that is empirically informed without requiring specialist scientific knowledge"--
Book Synopsis Statistical Mechanics And Scientific Explanation: Determinism, Indeterminism And Laws Of Nature by : Valia Allori
Download or read book Statistical Mechanics And Scientific Explanation: Determinism, Indeterminism And Laws Of Nature written by Valia Allori and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2020-04-22 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores several open questions in the philosophy and the foundations of statistical mechanics. Each chapter is written by a leading expert in philosophy of physics and/or mathematical physics. Here is a list of questions that are addressed in the book:
Book Synopsis The Emergent Multiverse by : David Wallace
Download or read book The Emergent Multiverse written by David Wallace and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Emergent Multiverse presents a striking new account of the 'many worlds' approach to quantum theory. The point of science, it is generally accepted, is to tell us how the world works and what it is like. But quantum theory seems to fail to do this: taken literally as a theory of the world, it seems to make crazy claims: particles are in two places at once; cats are alive and dead at the same time. So physicists and philosophers have often been led either to give up on the idea that quantum theory describes reality, or to modify or augment the theory. The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics takes the apparent craziness seriously, and asks, 'what would it be like if particles really were in two places at once, if cats really were alive and dead at the same time'? The answer, it turns out, is that if the world were like that—if it were as quantum theory claims—it would be a world that, at the macroscopic level, was constantly branching into copies—hence the more sensationalist name for the Everett interpretation, the 'many worlds theory'. But really, the interpretation is not sensationalist at all: it simply takes quantum theory seriously, literally, as a description of the world. Once dismissed as absurd, it is now accepted by many physicists as the best way to make coherent sense of quantum theory. David Wallace offers a clear and up-to-date survey of work on the Everett interpretation in physics and in philosophy of science, and at the same time provides a self-contained and thoroughly modern account of it—an account which is accessible to readers who have previously studied quantum theory at undergraduate level, and which will shape the future direction of research by leading experts in the field.
Book Synopsis Probability in Physics by : Yemima Ben-Menahem
Download or read book Probability in Physics written by Yemima Ben-Menahem and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-01-25 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role and meaning of probability in physical theory, in particular in two of the most successful theories of our age, quantum physics and statistical mechanics? Laws once conceived as universal and deterministic, such as Newton‘s laws of motion, or the second law of thermodynamics, are replaced in these theories by inherently probabilistic laws. This collection of essays by some of the world‘s foremost experts presents an in-depth analysis of the meaning of probability in contemporary physics. Among the questions addressed are: How are probabilities defined? Are they objective or subjective? What is their explanatory value? What are the differences between quantum and classical probabilities? The result is an informative and thought-provoking book for the scientifically inquisitive.
Book Synopsis Actual Causality by : Joseph Y. Halpern
Download or read book Actual Causality written by Joseph Y. Halpern and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new approach for defining causality and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degrees of blame, and causal explanation. Causality plays a central role in the way people structure the world; we constantly seek causal explanations for our observations. But what does it even mean that an event C “actually caused” event E? The problem of defining actual causation goes beyond mere philosophical speculation. For example, in many legal arguments, it is precisely what needs to be established in order to determine responsibility. The philosophy literature has been struggling with the problem of defining causality since Hume. In this book, Joseph Halpern explores actual causality, and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. The goal is to arrive at a definition of causality that matches our natural language usage and is helpful, for example, to a jury deciding a legal case, a programmer looking for the line of code that cause some software to fail, or an economist trying to determine whether austerity caused a subsequent depression. Halpern applies and expands an approach to causality that he and Judea Pearl developed, based on structural equations. He carefully formulates a definition of causality, and building on this, defines degree of responsibility, degree of blame, and causal explanation. He concludes by discussing how these ideas can be applied to such practical problems as accountability and program verification. Technical details are generally confined to the final section of each chapter and can be skipped by non-mathematical readers.
Book Synopsis Physics and Chance by : Lawrence Sklar
Download or read book Physics and Chance written by Lawrence Sklar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawrence Sklar offers a comprehensive, non-technical introduction to statistical mechanics and attempts to understand its foundational elements.
Book Synopsis Probabilities, Causes and Propensities in Physics by : Mauricio Suárez
Download or read book Probabilities, Causes and Propensities in Physics written by Mauricio Suárez and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-12-06 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume defends a novel approach to the philosophy of physics: it is the first book devoted to a comparative study of probability, causality, and propensity, and their various interrelations, within the context of contemporary physics -- particularly quantum and statistical physics. The philosophical debates and distinctions are firmly grounded upon examples from actual physics, thus exemplifying a robustly empiricist approach. The essays, by both prominent scholars in the field and promising young researchers, constitute a pioneer effort in bringing out the connections between probabilistic, causal and dispositional aspects of the quantum domain. The book will appeal to specialists in philosophy and foundations of physics, philosophy of science in general, metaphysics, ontology of physics theories, and philosophy of probability.
Book Synopsis Causal Reasoning in Physics by : Mathias Frisch
Download or read book Causal Reasoning in Physics written by Mathias Frisch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-09 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues, partly through detailed case studies, for the importance of causal reasoning in physics.
Book Synopsis New Directions in the Philosophy of Science by : Maria Carla Galavotti
Download or read book New Directions in the Philosophy of Science written by Maria Carla Galavotti and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume sheds light on still unexplored issues and raises new questions in the main areas addressed by the philosophy of science. Bringing together selected papers from three main events, the book presents the most advanced scientific results in the field and suggests innovative lines for further investigation. It explores how discussions on several notions of the philosophy of science can help different scientific disciplines in learning from each other. Finally, it focuses on the relationship between Cambridge and Vienna in twentieth century philosophy of science. The areas examined in the book are: formal methods, the philosophy of the natural and life sciences, the cultural and social sciences, the physical sciences and the history of the philosophy of science.
Download or read book Time and Chance written by David Z Albert and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an attempt to get to the bottom of an acute and perennial tension between our best scientific pictures of the fundamental physical structure of the world and our everyday empirical experience of it. The trouble is about the direction of time. The situation (very briefly) is that it is a consequence of almost every one of those fundamental scientific pictures--and that it is at the same time radically at odds with our common sense--that whatever can happen can just as naturally happen backwards. Albert provides an unprecedentedly clear, lively, and systematic new account--in the context of a Newtonian-Mechanical picture of the world--of the ultimate origins of the statistical regularities we see around us, of the temporal irreversibility of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of the asymmetries in our epistemic access to the past and the future, and of our conviction that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past. Then, in the final section of the book, he generalizes the Newtonian picture to the quantum-mechanical case and (most interestingly) suggests a very deep potential connection between the problem of the direction of time and the quantum-mechanical measurement problem. The book aims to be both an original contribution to the present scientific and philosophical understanding of these matters at the most advanced level, and something in the nature of an elementary textbook on the subject accessible to interested high-school students.
