Econophysics is a new and exciting cross-disciplinary research field that applies models and modelling techniques from statistical physics to economic systems. It is not, however, without its critics: prominent figures in more mainstream economic theory have criticized some elements of the methodology of econophysics. One of the main lines of criticism concerns the nature of the modelling assumptions and idealizations involved, and a particular target are ‘kinetic exchange’ approaches used to model the emergence of inequality within the distribution of individual (...) monetary income. This article will consider such models in detail, and assess the warrant of the criticisms drawing upon the philosophical literature on modelling and idealization. Our aim is to provide the first steps towards informed mediation of this important and interesting interdisciplinary debate, and our hope is to offer guidance with regard to both the practice of modelling inequality, and the inequality of modelling practice. _1_ Introduction _1.1_ Econophysics and its discontents _1.2_ Against burglar economics _2_ Modelling Inequality _2.1_ Mainstream economic models for income distribution _2.2_ Econophysics models for income distribution _3_ Idealizations in Kinetic Exchange Models _3.1_ Binary interactions _3.2_ Conservation principles _3.3_ Exchange dynamics _ 4 _ Fat Tails and Savings _ 5 _ Evaluation. (shrink)

The paper is an overview of the connections between scientific psychology and religion. The thesis that scientific psychology, which deals with empirical research of all manifestations of spirituality and religiousness within the different principles and contexts of culture, cannot refer to the doctrine of religion, but it should take into account in its research the cultural aspects of the religion without valuing them at the individual human level and their influence on the "fate" of the world, is being discussed. Conclusion: (...) Against the background of the twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon psychology, based on the positivist paradigm, there is no place on the basis of valid methodological canons for building a direct relationship between scientific psychology and religion. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics and physicists have long been intrigued by the analogies and disanalogies between gravitational theories and gauge theories. Indeed, repeated attempts to collapse these disanalogies have made us acutely aware that there are fairly general obstacles to doing so. Nonetheless, there is a special case space-time dimensions) in which gravity is often claimed to be identical to a gauge theory. I subject this claim to philosophical scrutiny in this article. In particular, I analyse how the standard disanalogies can (...) be overcome in dimensions, and consider whether really licenses the interpretation of gravity as a gauge theory. Our conceptual analysis reveals more subtle disanalogies between gravity and gauge, and connects these to interpretive issues in classical and quantum gravity. 1 Introduction1.1 Motivation1.2 Prospectus2 Disanalogies3 Three-dimensional gravity and gauge3.1 gravity3.2 Chern–Simons3.2.1 Cartan geometry3.2.2 Overcoming obst-gauge via Cartan connections3.3 Disanalogies collapsed4 Two More Disanalogies4.1 What about the symmetries?4.2 The phase spaces of the two theories5 Summary and Conclusion. (shrink)

We give a derivation of exclusion principles for the elementary particles of the standard model, using simple mathematical principles arising from a set theory of identical particles. We apply the theory of permutation group actions, stating some theorems which are proven elsewhere, and interpreting the results as a heuristic derivation of Pauli's Exclusion Principle (PEP) which dictates the formation of elements in the periodic table and the stability of matter, and also a derivation of quark confinement. We arrive at these (...) properties by using a symmetry property of collections of the particles themselves as compared for example to the symmetry property of their wave function under interchange of two particles. (shrink)

This paper expands on, and provides a qualified defence of, Arthur Fine's selective interactions solution to the measurement problem. Fine's approach must be understood against the background of the insolubility proof of the quantum measurement. I first defend the proof as an appropriate formal representation of the quantum measurement problem. The nature of selective interactions, and more generally selections, is then clarified, and three arguments in their favour are offered. First, selections provide the only known solution to the measurement problem (...) that does not relinquish any of the explicit premises of the insolubility proofs. Second, unlike some no-collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics, selections suffer no difficulties with non-ideal measurements. Third, unlike most collapse interpretations, selections can be independently motivated by an appeal to quantum propensities. IntroductionThe problem of quantum measurement2.1 The ignorance interpretation of mixtures2.2 The eigenstate–eigenvalue link2.3 The quantum theory of measurementThe insolubility proof of the quantum measurement3.1 Some notation3.2 The transfer of probability condition (TPC)3.3 The occurrence of outcomes condition (OOC)A defence of the insolubility proof4.1 Stein's critique4.2 Ignorance is not required4.3 The problem of quantum measurement is an idealisationSelections5.1 Representing dispositional properties5.2 Selections solve the measurement problem5.3 Selections and ignoranceNon-ideal selections6.1 No-collapse interpretations and non-ideal measurements6.2 Exact and approximate measurements6.3 Selections for non-ideal interactions6.4 Approximate selections6.5 Implications for ignoranceSelective interactions test quantum propensities7.1 Equivalence classes as physical ‘aspects’: a critique7.2 Quantum dispositions7.3 Selections as a propensity modal interpretation7.4 A comparison with Popper's propensity interpretation. (shrink)

Does the Bayesian theory of confirmation put real constraints on our inductive behavior? Or is it just a framework for systematizing whatever kind of inductive behavior we prefer? Colin Howson (Hume's Problem) has recently championed the second view. I argue that he is wrong, in that the Bayesian apparatus as it is usually deployed does constrain our judgments of inductive import, but also that he is right, in that the source of Bayesianism's inductive prescriptions is not the Bayesian machinery itself, (...) but rather what David Lewis calls the ``Principal Principle''. (shrink)

Hans Reichenbach’s posthumous book The Direction of Time ends somewhere between Socratic aporia and historical irony. Prompted by Feynman’s diagrammatic formulation of quantum electrodynamics, Reichenbach eventually abandoned the delicate balancing between the macroscopic foundation of the direction of time and microscopic descriptions of time order undertaken throughout the previous chapters in favor of an exclusively macroscopic theory that he had vehemently rejected in the 1920s. I analyze Reichenbach’s reasoning against the backdrop of the history of Feynman diagrams and the current (...) practice of particle physics. Building upon the debates about processes and conserved quantities between Wesley Salmon and Phil Dowe in the 1990s, and the exchange between Reichenbach and the gestalt theorist Kurt Lewin during the 1920s about topology and genidentity, I investigate whether the aporia about local time order could be avoided by following a strategy that Reichenbach adopted elsewhere in the book and develop a notion of functional genidentity that captures the practice of present-day elementary particle physics and the fact that Feynman diagrams have to be understood in the context of a complex mathematical description of scattering processes. (shrink)

I explain and assess here Huygens’ concept of relative motion. I show that it allows him to ground most of the Law of Inertia, and also to explain rotation. Thereby his concept obviates the need for Newton’s absolute space. Thus his account is a powerful foundation for mechanics, though not without some tension.

Bayesian model selection has frequently been the focus of philosophical inquiry (e.g., Forster, Br J Philos Sci 46:399–424, 1995; Bandyopadhyay and Boik, Philos Sci 66:S390–S402, 1999; Dowe et al., Br J Philos Sci 58:709–754, 2007). This paper argues that Bayesian model selection procedures are very diverse in their inferential target and their justification, and substantiates this claim by means of case studies on three selected procedures: MML, BIC and DIC. Hence, there is no tight link between Bayesian model selection and (...) Bayesian philosophy. Consequently, arguments for or against Bayesian reasoning based on properties of Bayesian model selection procedures should be treated with great caution. (shrink)

A system whose expected state changes with time cannot have both a forward-directed translationally invariant probabilistic law and a backward-directed translationally invariant law. When faced with this choice, science seems to favor the former. An asymmetry between cause and effect may help to explain why temporally oriented laws are usually forward-directed.

The Higgs mechanism is an essential but elusive component of the Standard Model of particle physics. Without it Yang‐Mills gauge theories would have been little more than a warm‐up exercise in the attempt to quantize gravity rather than serving as the basis for the Standard Model. This article focuses on two problems related to the Higgs mechanism clearly posed in Earman’s recent papers (Earman 2003, 2004a, 2004b): what is the gauge‐invariant content of the Higgs mechanism, and what does it mean (...) to break a local gauge symmetry? (shrink)

Sklar ([1974]) claimed that relationalism about ontology-the doctrine that space and time do not exist-is compatible with Newtonian mechanics. To defend this claim he sketched a relationalist interpretation of Newtonian mechanics. In his interpretation, absolute acceleration is a fundamental, intrinsic property of material bodies; that a body undergoes absolute acceleration does not entail that space and time exist. But Sklar left his proposal as just a sketch; his defense of relationalism succeeds only if the sketch can be filled in. I (...) argue that this cannot be done. There can be no (relationalist) dynamical laws of motion based on Sklar's proposal that capture the content of Newton's theory. So relationalists must look elsewhere for a relationalist interpretation of Newtonian mechanics. (shrink)

Ethical reductionism is the best version of naturalistic moral realism. Reductionists regard moral properties as identical to properties appearing in successful scientific theories. Nonreductionists, including many of the Cornell Realists, argue that moral properties instead supervene on scientific properties without identity. I respond to two arguments for nonreductionism. First, nonreductionists argue that the multiple realizability of moral properties defeats reductionism. Multiple realizability can be addressed in ethics by identifying moral properties uniquely or disjunctively with properties of the special sciences. Second, (...) nonreductionists argue that irreducible moral properties explain empirical phenomena, just as irreducible special-science properties do. But since irreducible moral properties don't successfully explain additional regularities, they run the risk of being pseudoscientific properties. Reductionism has all the benefits of nonreductionism, while also being more secure against anti-realist objections because of its ontological simplicity. (shrink)

In no possible world does a time traveler succeed in killing herearlier self before she ever enters a time machine. So if many,many time travelers went back in time trying to kill theirunprotected former selves, the time travelers would fail inmany strange, coincidental ways, slipping on bananapeels, killing the wrong victim, and so on. Such cases producedoubts about time travel. How could ``coincidences'' beguaranteed to happen? And wouldn't the certainty of coincidentalfailure imply that time travelers are not free to killtheir (...) earlier selves? But if so, what would inhibit theirfreedom? Despite initial appearances, these and other doubtsmay be answered: the possibility of time travel survives yetanother challenge. (shrink)

Costa and Shrapnel have recently proposed an interventionist theory of quantum causation. The formalism generalizes the classical methods of Pearl and allows for the discovery of quantum causal structure via localized interventions. Classical causal structure is presented as a special case of this more general framework. I introduce the account and consider whether this formalism provides a causal explanation for the Bell correlations.

We describe a possible physical device that computes a function that cannot be computed by a Turing machine. The device is physical in the sense that it is compatible with General Relativity. We discuss some objections, focusing on those which deny that the device is either a computer or computes a function that is not Turing computable. Finally, we argue that the existence of the device does not refute the Church–Turing thesis, but nevertheless may be a counterexample to Gandy's thesis.

Following the standard practice in sociology, cultural anthropology and history, sociologists, historians of science and some philosophers of science define scientific communities as groups with shared beliefs, values and practices. In this paper it is argued that in real cases the beliefs of the members of such communities often vary significantly in important ways. This has rather dire implications for the convergence defense against the charge of the excessive subjectivity of subjective Bayesianism because that defense requires that communities of Bayesian (...) inquirers share a significant set of modal beliefs. The important implication is then that given the actual variation in modal beliefs across individuals, either Bayesians cannot claim that actual theories have been objectively confirmed or they must accept that such theories have been confirmed relative only to epistemically insignificant communities. (shrink)

Following Nancy Cartwright and others, I suggest that most (if not all) theories incorporate, or depend on, one or more idealizing assumptions. I then argue that such theories ought to be regimented as counterfactuals, the antecedents of which are simplifying assumptions. If this account of the logic form of theories is granted, then a serious problem arises for Bayesians concerning the prior probabilities of theories that have counterfactual form. If no such probabilities can be assigned, the the posterior probabilities will (...) be undefined, as the latter are defined in terms of the former. I argue here that the most plausible attempts to address the problem of probabilities of conditionals fail to help Bayesians, and, hence, that Bayesians are faced with a new problem. In so far as these proposed solutions fail, I argue that Bayesians must give up Bayesianism or accept the counterintuitive view that no theories that incorporate any idealizations have ever really been confirmed to any extent whatsoever. Moreover, as it appears that the latter horn of this dilemma is highly implausible, we are left with the conclusion that Bayesianism should be rejected, at least as it stands. (shrink)

Under the normal assumptions of quantum field theory, Haag’s theorem states that any field unitarily equivalent to a free field must itself be a free field. Unfortunately, the derivation of the Dyson series perturbation expansion relies on the use of the interaction picture, in which the interacting field is unitarily equivalent to the free field but must still account for interactions. Thus, the traditional perturbative derivation of the scattering matrix in quantum field theory is mathematically ill defined. Nevertheless, perturbative quantum (...) field theory is currently the only practical approach for addressing scattering for realistic interactions, and it has been spectacularly successful in making empirical predictions. This paper explains this success by showing that Haag’s Theorem can be avoided when quantum field theory is formulated using an invariant, fifth path parameter in addition to the usual four position parameters, such that the Dyson perturbation expansion for the scattering matrix can still be reproduced. As a result, the parameterized formalism provides a consistent foundation for the interpretation of quantum field theory as used in practice and, perhaps, for better dealing with other mathematical issues. (shrink)

This article describes abductions as special patterns of inference to the best explanation whose structure determines a particularly promising abductive conjecture and thus serves as an abductive search strategy. A classification of different patterns of abduction is provided which intends to be as complete as possible. An important distinction is that between selective abductions, which choose an optimal candidate from given multitude of possible explanations, and creative abductions, which introduce new theoretical models or concepts. While selective abduction has dominated the (...) literature, creative abductions are rarely discussed, although they are essential in science. The article introduces several kinds of creative abductions, such as theoretical model abduction, common cause abduction and statistical factor analysis, and illustrates them by various real case examples. It is suggested to demarcate scientifically fruitful abductions from purely speculative abductions by the criterion of causal unification. (shrink)

An important distinction is that between selective abductions, which select an optimal candidate from given multitude of possible explanations, and creative abductions, which introduce new theoretical concepts and models. The article focuses on creative abductions, which are essential for scientific progress, although they are rarely discussed in the literature. Scientifically, fruitful creative abductions are demarcated from purely speculative abductions by means of three virtues which are possessed by the former but not by the latter: (i) providing unification, (ii) detecting common (...) causes and (iii) generating novel predictions by means of which they can be independently tested. Based on historical examples it is demonstrated that common cause abduction from correlated dispositions is the fundamental abductive operation by which new theoretical concepts and models are scientifically generated. Statistical factor analysis can be regarded as a statistical generalization of common cause abduction. (shrink)

This paper combines two ideas: (1) That the Lewisian best system analysis of lawhood (BSA) can cope with laws that have exceptions (cf. Braddon-Mitchell in Noûs 35(2):260–277, 2001; Schrenk in The metaphysics of ceteris paribus laws. Ontos, Frankfurt, 2007). (2) That a BSA can be executed not only on the mosaic of perfectly natural properties but also on any set of special science properties (cf., inter alia, Schrenk 2007, Selected papers contributed to the sections of GAP.6, 6th international congress of (...) the society for analytical philosophy. Mentis, Paderborn/Münster, 2008; Cohen and Callender in Philos Stud 145:1–34, 2009, Erkenntnis 73:427–447, 2010). Bringing together (1) and (2) results in an analysis of special science ceteris paribus laws. (shrink)

I wish to discuss a supposed implication of one sort of time travel. The sort of time travel is time travel into one’s past along a closed timelike curve. The implication is that in spacetimes with CTCs there can be no temporal passage or “flow” of time. I will argue that the implication does not hold.

It is widely accepted that the notion of an inertial frame is central to Newtonian mechanics and that the correct space-time structure underlying Newton’s methods in Principia is neo-Newtonian or Galilean space-time. I argue to the contrary that inertial frames are not needed in Newton’s theory of motion, and that the right space-time structure for Newton’s Principia requires the notion of parallelism of spatial directions at different times and nothing more. Only relative motions are definable in this framework, never absolute (...) ones. (shrink)

A relationist will account for the use of ‘left’ and ‘right’ in terms of relative orientations, and other properties and relations invariant under mirroring. This analysis will apply whenever mirroring is a symmetry, so it certainly applies to classical mechanics; we argue it applies to any physical theory formulated on a manifold: it is in this sense an a priori symmetry. It should apply in particular to parity violating theories in quantum mechanics; mirror symmetry is only broken in such theories (...) as a special symmetry. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...) room for the possibility of changing laws. (shrink)

Currently, the most popular views about how to update de se or self-locating beliefs entail the one-third solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem.2 Another widely held view is that an agent‘s credences should be countably additive.3 In what follows, I will argue that there is a deep tension between these two positions. For the assumptions that underlie the one-third solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem entail a more general principle, which I call the Generalized Thirder Principle, and there are situations (...) in which the latter principle and the principle of Countable Additivity cannot be jointly satisfied. The most plausible response to this tension, I argue, is to accept both of these principles, and to maintain that when an agent cannot satisfy them both, she is faced with a rational dilemma. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the relationship between general relativity and the theory of Einstein algebras. We show that according to a formal criterion for theoretical equivalence recently proposed by Halvorson and Weatherall, the two are equivalent theories.

This paper defends the claim that there is a deep tension between the principle of countable additivity and the one-third solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem. The claim that such a tension exists has recently been challenged by Brian Weatherson, who has attempted to provide a countable additivity-friendly argument for the one-third solution. This attempt is shown to be unsuccessful. And it is argued that the failure of this attempt sheds light on the status of the principle of indifference that (...) underlies the tension between countable additivity and the one-third solution. (shrink)

I argue that there are no physical singularities in space–time. Singular space–time models do not belong to the ontology of the world, because of a simple reason: they are concepts, defective solutions of Einstein’s field equations. I discuss the actual implication of the so-called singularity theorems. In remarking the confusion and fog that emerge from the reification of singularities I hope to contribute to a better understanding of the possibilities and limits of the theory of general relativity.

I describe a problem about the relations among symmetries, laws and measurable quantities. I explain why several ways of trying to solve it will not work, and I sketch a solution that might work. I discuss this problem in the context of Newtonian theories, but it also arises for many other physical theories. The problem is that there are two ways of defining the space-time symmetries of a physical theory: as its dynamical symmetries or as its empirical symmetries. The two (...) definitions are not equivalent, yet they pick out the same extension. This coincidence cries out for explanation, and it is not clear what the explanation could be. The Puzzle: Symmetries, Measurability and Invariance 1.1 The symmetries and the measurable quantities of Newtonian mechanics 1.2 The puzzle Two Easy Answers Another Unsuccessful Solution: Appeal to Geometrical Symmetries Locating the Puzzle The Relation between Laws and Measurability A Possible Solution CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Reichenbach's principles of a probabilistic common cause of probabilistic correlations is formulated in terms of relativistic quantum field theory, and the problem is raised whether correlations in relativistic quantum field theory between events represented by projections in local observable algebrasA(V1) andA(V2) pertaining to spacelike separated spacetime regions V1 and V2 can be explained by finding a probabilistic common cause of the correlation in Reichenbach's sense. While this problem remains open, it is shown that if all superluminal correlations predicted by the (...) vacuum state between events inA(V1) andA(V2) have a genuinely probabilistic common cause, then the local algebrasA(V1) andA(V2) must be statistically independent in the sense of C*-independence. (shrink)

This paper is meant to link the philosophical debate concerning the underdetermination of theories by evidence with a rather significant socio-political issue that has been taking place in Canada over the past few years: the so-called ‘death of evidence’ controversy. It places this debate within a broader philosophical framework by discussing the connection between evidence and theory; by bringing out the role of epistemic values in the so-called scientific method; and by examining the role of social values in science. While (...) it should be admitted that social values play an important role in science, the key question for anyone who advocates this view is: what and whose values? The way it is answered makes an important epistemic difference to how the relation between evidence and theory is appraised. I first review various arguments for the claim that evidence underdetermines theory and shows their presuppositions and limitations, using conceptual analysis and historical examples. After broaching the relation between evidence and method in science by highlighting the need to incorporate epistemic values into the scientific method, my discussion focuses on recent arguments for the role of social values in science. Finally, I address the implications of the approach outlined for the current ‘death of evidence’ debate in Canada. (shrink)

This article intends to show that Plantinga’s criticism against Bayesianism as an account of what is involved in rationality does not apply to all forms of Bayesianism. Swinburne’s version, based on a logical theory of probability, is an example of Bayesianism not hit by Plantinga’s criticism. In addition, the article argues that the problem of dwindling probabilities – pointed out by Plantinga in Warranted Christian Belief (2000) – vanishes in a Bayesian approach. So, even if it is not a sufficient (...) account of rationality, Bayesianism helps to understand important elements of inductive reasoning, especially those relative to cumulative cases. (shrink)

The cosmic singularity provides negligible evidence for creation in the finite past, and hence theism. A physical theory might have no metric or multiple metrics, so a ‘beginning’ must involve a first moment, not just finite age. Whether one dismisses singularities or takes them seriously, physics licenses no first moment. The analogy between the Big Bang and stellar gravitational collapse indicates that a Creator is required in the first case only if a Destroyer is needed in the second. The need (...) for and progress in quantum gravity and the underdetermination of theories by data make it difficult to take singularities seriously. The singularity exemplifies the sort of gap that is likely to be closed by scientific progress, obviating special divine action. The apparent irrelevance of cardinality to practices of counting infinite sets in classical field theory and Fourier analysis is noted. Introduction The Doctrine of Creation and Its Warrant Cardinality and Sizes of Infinity Modern Cosmology and Creation Tolerance or Intolerance toward Singularities? Leibniz against Incompetent Watchmaker? Induction from Earlier Theories' Breakdown? Stellar Collapse Implies Theistic Destroyer Stacking the Deck for GTR Quantum Gravity Tends to Resolve Singularities Vicious God-of-the-Gaps Character Fluctuating or Inaccessible Warrant Big Bang Cosmology Not Especially Congenial to Faith CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

If Einstein's equations are to describe a field theory of gravity in Minkowski spacetime, then causality requires that the effective curved metric must respect the flat background metric's null cone. The kinematical problem is solved using a generalized eigenvector formalism based on the Segré classification of symmetric rank 2 tensors with respect to a Lorentzian metric. Securing the correct relationship between the two null cones dynamically plausibly is achieved using the naive gauge freedom. New variables tied to the generalized eigenvector (...) formalism reduce the configuration space to the causality-respecting part. In this smaller space, gauge transformations do not form a group, but only a groupoid. The flat metric removes the difficulty of defining equal-time commutation relations in quantum gravity and guarantees global hyperbolicity. (shrink)

A critical re-examination of the history of the concepts of space (including spacetime of general relativity and relativistic quantum field theory) reveals a basic ontological elusiveness of spatial extension, while, at the same time, highlighting the fact that its epistemic primacy seems to be unavoidably imposed on us (as stated by A.Einstein “giving up the extensional continuum … is like to breathe in airless space”). On the other hand, Planck’s discovery of the atomization of action leads to the fundamental recognition (...) of an ontology of non-spatial, abstract entities (Quine) for the quantum level of reality (QT), as distinguished from the necessarily spatio-temporal, experimental revelations (measurements). The elementary quantum act (measured by Planck’s constant) has neither duration nor extension, and any genuinely quantum process literally does not belong in the Raum and time of our experience. As Heisenberg stresses: “Während also die klassische Physik ein objectives Geschehen in Raum and Zeit zum Gegenstand hat, für dessen Existenz seine Beobachtung völlig irrelevant war, behandelt die Quantentheorie Vorgänge, die sozusagen nur in den Momenten der Beobachtung als raumzeitliche Phänomene aufleuchten, und über die in der zwischenzeit anschaulische physikalische Aussagen sinloss sind”. An admittedly speculative, hazardous conjecture is then advanced concerning the relation of such quantum ontology with the role of the pre-phenomenal continuum (Husserl) in the perception of macroscopically distinguishable objects in the Raum and time of our experience. Although rather venturesome, it brings together important philosophical issues. Coherently with recent general results in works on the foundations of QT, it is assumed that the linearity of quantum dynamical evolution does not apply to the central nervous system of living beings at a certain level of the evolutionary ramification and at the pre-conscious stage of subjectivity. Accordingly, corresponding to the onset of a non-linear dynamic evolution, a ‘primary spatial’ reduction is ‘continually’ taking place, thereby constituting the neural precondition for the experience of distinguishable macroscopic objects in the continuous spatial extension. While preventing the theoretically possible quantum superpositions of macroscopic objects from being perceivable by living beings, the ‘primary reduction’ has no effect on the standard processes concerning quantum level entities involved in laboratory man-made experiments. In this connection, an experimental check which might falsify the conjecture is briefly discussed. The approach suggested here, if sound, leads to a naturalization of that part of Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetics than can survive the Euclidean catastrophe. According to such naturalized transcendentalism, “space can well be transcendental without the axioms being so”, in agreement with a well-known statement by Boltzman. Finally, as far as QT is concerned, the conjecture entails that a scheme for quantum measurement of the von Neumann type cannot even ‘leave the ground’, vindicating Bohr’s viewpoint. A quantum theory of measurement, in a proper sense, turns out to be unnecessary and in fact impossible. (shrink)

1. Characterizing randomness. Consider a physical process that, if suitably idealized, generates an indefinite sequence of independent random bits. One such process might be radioactive decay of a lump of uranium whose mass is kept at just the level needed to ensure that the probability is one-half that no alpha particle is emitted in the nth microsecond of the experiment. Let us think of the bits as drawn from {0, 1} and denote the resulting sequence by x with coordinates x0, (...) x1, . . .. Now wouldn’t it be odd if there were a computer program P with the following property? (shrink)

What is the contribution of Duhem’s work to the modern historiography? His interpreters have been discussing this question and ordinarily have recognized that the main aspect in his extensive work is connected with his research of medieval science. It has become customary to speak of the “discovery of medieval science” as his foremost historiographic achievement. This paper aims to discuss some aspects of Duhem’s historiography more for its promotion of a new historical perspective than for its results. Duhem’s legacy for (...) modern historiography can be investigated from the characteristics that mark this new perspective, as regarded by Thomas Kuhn. (shrink)

Kuhn’s famous thesis that there is ‘no unique algorithm’ for choosing between rival scientific theories is analysed using the machinery of social choice theory. It is shown that the problem of theory choice as posed by Kuhn is formally identical to a standard social choice problem. This suggests that analogues of well-known results from the social choice literature, such as Arrow’s impossibility theorem, may apply to theory choice. If an analogue of Arrow’s theorem does hold for theory choice this would (...) refute Kuhn’s thesis, but it would also pose a threat to the rationality of science, a threat that is if anything more worrying than that posed by Kuhn. Various possible ‘escape routes’ from Arrow’s impossibility result are examined, in particular Amartya Sen’s idea of ‘enriching the informational basis’. It is shown that Sen’s idea can be applied to the problem of theory choice in science. This in turn sheds light on two well-known approaches to inductive inference in philosophy of science: Bayesianism and statistical model selection. (shrink)

It is customary to distinguish experimental from purely observational sciences. The former include physics and molecular biology, the latter astronomy and palaeontology. Experiments involve actively intervening in the course of nature, as opposed to observing events that would have happened anyway. When a molecular biologist inserts viral DNA into a bacterium in his laboratory, this is an experiment; but when an astronomer points his telescope at the heavens, this is an observation. Without the biologist’s handiwork the bacterium would never have (...) contained foreign DNA; but the planets would have continued orbiting the sun whether or not the astronomer had directed his telescope skyward. The observational/experimental distinction would probably be difficult to make precise 1, as the notion of an ‘intervention’ is not easily defined, but it is intuitively fairly clear, and is frequently invoked by scientists and historians of science. Experimentation, or ‘putting questions to nature’, is often cited as a hallmark of the modern scientific method, something that permitted the enormous advances of the last 350 years. And it is sometimes said that the social sciences lag behind the natural because controlled experiments cannot be done so readily in the former. Moreover in certain sciences, e.g. epidemiology, students are explicitly taught that experimental data is preferable to observational data, particularly for doing causal inference. So the distinction between observational and experimental science has quite wide currency, and is often regarded as methodologically significant. Surprisingly, mainstream philosophy of science has had rather little to say about the observational/experimental distinction. 2 For example, discussions of confirmation usually invoke a notion of ‘evidence’, to be contrasted with ‘theory’ or ‘hypothesis’; the aim is to understand how the evidence bears on the hypothesis. But whether this ‘evidence’ comes from observation or experiment generally plays no role in the discussion; this is true …. (shrink)

Accounts of the evolutionary past have as much in common with works of narrative history as they do with works of science. Awareness of the narrative character of evolutionary writing leads to the discovery of a host of fascinating and hitherto unrecognized problems in the representation of evolutionary history, problems associated with the writing of narrative. These problems include selective attention, narrative perspective, foregrounding and backgrounding, differential resolution, and the establishment of a canon of important events. The narrative aspects of (...) evolutionary writing, however, which promote linearity and cohesiveness in conventional stories, conflict with the underlying chronicle of evolution, which is not linear, but branched, and which does not cohere, but diverges. The impulse to narrate is so great, however, and is so strongly reinforced by traditional schemes of taxonomic attention, that natural historians have more often abandoned the diverging tree than they have abandoned the narrative mode of representation. If we are to understand the true nature of the evolutionary past then we must adopt tree thinking, and develop new and creative ways, both narrative and non-narrative, of telling the history of life. (shrink)

The Hole Argument was originally formulated by Einstein and it haunted him as he struggled to understand the meaning of spacetime coordinates in the context of the diffeomorphism invariance of general relativity. This argument has since been put to philosophical use by Earman and Norton to argue against a substantival conception of spacetime. In the present work I demonstrate how Earman and Norton’s Hole Argument can be extended to exclude everything and not merely substantival manifolds. These casualties of the hole (...) demonstrate that the Hole Argument hinges essentially on our notion of determinism and not on the diffeomorphic freedom of general relativity. Just as Earman and Norton argue that we should not let our metaphysics run roughshod over the structure of our physical theories, so I will argue that, in particular, we should not uncritically allow our metaphysics to dictate what our physical theories must determine. The central conviction which drives the arguments of this paper is that deterministic theories are not required to determine for future moments what they cannot determine for any present or past moments. I provide two arguments to the effect that a physically informed notion of determinism does not require general relativity to determine substantival facts. Consequently the Hole Argument cannot be used against substantival spacetime. The position that I advocate is an instance of “sophisticated determinism.”. (shrink)

Newton’s equations of motion tell us that a mass at rest at the apex of a dome with the shape specified here can spontaneously move. It has been suggested that this indeterminism should be discounted since it draws on an incomplete rendering of Newtonian physics, or it is “unphysical,” or it employs illicit idealizations. I analyze and reject each of these reasons. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (...) 15260; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)