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  1. Quantum Mechanics in a Time-Asymmetric Universe: On the Nature of the Initial Quantum State.Eddy Keming Chen - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (4):1155–1183.
    In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, we postulate a low-entropy boundary condition to account for the temporal asymmetry. In this paper, I show that the Past Hypothesis also contains enough information to simplify the quantum ontology and define a unique initial condition in such a world. First, I introduce Density Matrix Realism, the thesis that the quantum universe is described by a fundamental density matrix that represents something objective. This stands in sharp contrast to Wave Function (...)
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  • Realism about the wave function.Eddy Keming Chen - 2019 - Philosophy Compass 14 (7):e12611.
    A century after the discovery of quantum mechanics, the meaning of quantum mechanics still remains elusive. This is largely due to the puzzling nature of the wave function, the central object in quantum mechanics. If we are realists about quantum mechanics, how should we understand the wave function? What does it represent? What is its physical meaning? Answering these questions would improve our understanding of what it means to be a realist about quantum mechanics. In this survey article, I review (...)
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  • Strong Determinism.Eddy Keming Chen - 2024 - Philosophers' Imprint 24 (1).
    A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), "it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed, according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time.” Such an extraordinary feature may appear unattainable in a world like ours. In this paper, I show that it can be achieved in a simple way and (...)
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  • Two accounts of laws and time.Barry Loewer - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 160 (1):115-137.
    Among the most important questions in the metaphysics of science are "What are the natures of fundamental laws and chances?" and "What grounds the direction of time?" My aim in this paper is to examine some connections between these questions, discuss two approaches to answering them and argue in favor of one. Along the way I will raise and comment on a number of issues concerning the relationship between physics and metaphysics and consequences for the subject matter and methodology of (...)
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  • Fundamental Nomic Vagueness.Eddy Keming Chen - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (1):1-49.
    If there are fundamental laws of nature, can they fail to be exact? In this paper, I consider the possibility that some fundamental laws are vague. I call this phenomenon 'fundamental nomic vagueness.' I characterize fundamental nomic vagueness as the existence of borderline lawful worlds and the presence of several other accompanying features. Under certain assumptions, such vagueness prevents the fundamental physical theory from being completely expressible in the mathematical language. Moreover, I suggest that such vagueness can be regarded as (...)
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  • The Past Hypothesis and the Nature of Physical Laws.Eddy Keming Chen - 2023 - In Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake & Eric B. Winsberg, The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert’s _Time and Chance_. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 204-248.
    If the Past Hypothesis underlies the arrows of time, what is the status of the Past Hypothesis? In this paper, I examine the role of the Past Hypothesis in the Boltzmannian account and defend the view that the Past Hypothesis is a candidate fundamental law of nature. Such a view is known to be compatible with Humeanism about laws, but as I argue it is also supported by a minimal non-Humean "governing'' view. Some worries arise from the non-dynamical and time-dependent (...)
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  • Towards a Best Predictive System Account of Laws of Nature.Chris Dorst - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (3):877-900.
    This article argues for a revised best system account of laws of nature. David Lewis’s original BSA has two main elements. On the one hand, there is the Humean base, which is the totality of particular matters of fact that obtain in the history of the universe. On the other hand, there is what I call the ‘nomic formula’, which is a particular operation that gets applied to the Humean base in order to output the laws of nature. My revised (...)
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  • Robustness, Reliability, and Overdetermination (1981).William C. Wimsatt - 2012 - In Lena Soler, Characterizing the robustness of science: after the practice turn in philosophy of science. New York: Springer Verlag. pp. 61-78.
    The use of multiple means of determination to “triangulate” on the existence and character of a common phenomenon, object, or result has had a long tradition in science but has seldom been a matter of primary focus. As with many traditions, it is traceable to Aristotle, who valued having multiple explanations of a phenomenon, and it may also be involved in his distinction between special objects of sense and common sensibles. It is implicit though not emphasized in the distinction between (...)
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  • How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction: Frequency formats.Gerd Gigerenzer & Ulrich Hoffrage - 1995 - Psychological Review 102 (4):684-704.
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  • Making best systems best for us.Christian Loew & Siegfried Jaag - 2018 - Synthese 197 (6):2525-2550.
    Humean reductionism about laws of nature appears to leave a central aspect of scientific practice unmotivated: If the world’s fundamental structure is exhausted by the actual distribution of non-modal properties and the laws of nature are merely efficient summaries of this distribution, then why does science posit laws that cover a wide range of non-actual circumstances? In this paper, we develop a new version of the Humean best systems account of laws based on the idea that laws need to organize (...)
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  • Twilight of the perfect model model.Paul Teller - 2001 - Erkenntnis 55 (3):393-415.
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  • Time's Arrow in a Quantum Universe: On the Status of Statistical Mechanical Probabilities.Eddy Keming Chen - 2020 - In Valia Allori, Statistical Mechanics and Scientific Explanation: Determinism, Indeterminism and Laws of Nature. Singapore: World Scientific. pp. 479–515.
    In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, it is standard to postulate that the initial wave function started in a particular macrostate---the special low-entropy macrostate selected by the Past Hypothesis. Moreover, there is an additional postulate about statistical mechanical probabilities according to which the initial wave function is a ''typical'' choice in the macrostate. Together, they support a probabilistic version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: typical initial wave functions will increase in entropy. Hence, there are two (...)
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  • Stating structural realism: mathematics‐first approaches to physics and metaphysics.David Wallace - 2022 - Philosophical Perspectives 36 (1):345-378.
    I respond to the frequent objection that structural realism fails to sharply state an alternative to the standard predicate-logic, object / property / relation, way of doing metaphysics. The approach I propose is based on what I call a ‘math-first’ approach to physical theories (close to the so-called ‘semantic view of theories') where the content of a physical theory is to be understood primarily in terms of its mathematical structure and the representational relations it bears to physical systems, rather than (...)
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  • Idealizations and scientific understanding.Moti Mizrahi - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 160 (2):237-252.
    In this paper, I propose that the debate in epistemology concerning the nature and value of understanding can shed light on the role of scientific idealizations in producing scientific understanding. In philosophy of science, the received view seems to be that understanding is a species of knowledge. On this view, understanding is factive just as knowledge is, i.e., if S knows that p, then p is true. Epistemologists, however, distinguish between different kinds of understanding. Among epistemologists, there are those who (...)
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  • Dimensions of scientific law.Sandra D. Mitchell - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (2):242-265.
    Biological knowledge does not fit the image of science that philosophers have developed. Many argue that biology has no laws. Here I criticize standard normative accounts of law and defend an alternative, pragmatic approach. I argue that a multidimensional conceptual framework should replace the standard dichotomous law/ accident distinction in order to display important differences in the kinds of causal structure found in nature and the corresponding scientific representations of those structures. To this end I explore the dimensions of stability, (...)
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  • From Time Asymmetry to Quantum Entanglement: The Humean Unification.Eddy Keming Chen - 2022 - Noûs 56 (1):227-255.
    Two of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics are (1) what gives rise to the arrow of time and (2) what the ontology of quantum mechanics is. I propose a unified 'Humean' solution to the two problems. Humeanism allows us to incorporate the Past Hypothesis and the Statistical Postulate into the best system, which we then use to simplify the quantum state of the universe. This enables us to confer the nomological status to the quantum state in (...)
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  • (1 other version)Bohmian mechanics.Sheldon Goldstein - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Bohmian mechanics, which is also called the de Broglie-Bohm theory, the pilot-wave model, and the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, is a version of quantum theory discovered by Louis de Broglie in 1927 and rediscovered by David Bohm in 1952. It is the simplest example of what is often called a hidden variables interpretation of quantum mechanics. In Bohmian mechanics a system of particles is described in part by its wave function, evolving, as usual, according to Schrödinger's equation. However, the (...)
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  • On the reality of cognitive illusions.Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky - 1996 - Psychological Review 103 (3):582-591.
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  • A field guide to recent work on the foundations of statistical mechanics.Roman Frigg - 2008 - In Dean Rickles, The Ashgate Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Physics. Ashgate. pp. 99-196.
    This is an extensive review of recent work on the foundations of statistical mechanics.
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  • Can quantum probability provide a new direction for cognitive modeling?Emmanuel M. Pothos & Jerome R. Busemeyer - 2013 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (3):255-274.
    Classical (Bayesian) probability (CP) theory has led to an influential research tradition for modeling cognitive processes. Cognitive scientists have been trained to work with CP principles for so long that it is hard even to imagine alternative ways to formalize probabilities. However, in physics, quantum probability (QP) theory has been the dominant probabilistic approach for nearly 100 years. Could QP theory provide us with any advantages in cognitive modeling as well? Note first that both CP and QP theory share the (...)
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  • On the Supposed Evidence for Libertarian Paternalism.Gerd Gigerenzer - 2015 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6 (3):361-383.
    Can the general public learn to deal with risk and uncertainty, or do authorities need to steer people’s choices in the right direction? Libertarian paternalists argue that results from psychological research show that our reasoning is systematically flawed and that we are hardly educable because our cognitive biases resemble stable visual illusions. For that reason, they maintain, authorities who know what is best for us need to step in and steer our behavior with the help of “nudges.” Nudges are nothing (...)
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  • Entropy - A Guide for the Perplexed.Roman Frigg & Charlotte Werndl - 2011 - In Claus Beisbart & Stephan Hartmann, Probabilities in Physics. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 115-142.
    Entropy is ubiquitous in physics, and it plays important roles in numerous other disciplines ranging from logic and statistics to biology and economics. However, a closer look reveals a complicated picture: entropy is defined differently in different contexts, and even within the same domain different notions of entropy are at work. Some of these are defined in terms of probabilities, others are not. The aim of this chapter is to arrive at an understanding of some of the most important notions (...)
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  • Reconciling Fechner and Stevens: Toward a unified psychophysical law.Lester E. Krueger - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (2):251-267.
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  • Calling for explanation: the case of the thermodynamic past state.Dan Baras & Orly Shenker - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (3):1-20.
    Philosophers of physics have long debated whether the Past State of low entropy of our universe calls for explanation. What is meant by “calls for explanation”? In this article we analyze this notion, distinguishing between several possible meanings that may be attached to it. Taking the debate around the Past State as a case study, we show how our analysis of what “calling for explanation” might mean can contribute to clarifying the debate and perhaps to settling it, thus demonstrating the (...)
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  • Against digital ontology.Luciano Floridi - 2009 - Synthese 168 (1):151 - 178.
    The paper argues that digital ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is digital, and the universe is a computational system equivalent to a Turing Machine) should be carefully distinguished from informational ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is structural), in order to abandon the former and retain only the latter as a promising line of research. Digital vs. analogue is a Boolean dichotomy typical of our computational paradigm, but digital and analogue are only “modes of presentation” of Being (to paraphrase (...)
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  • The Time-Asymmetry of Causation.Huw Price & Brad Weslake - 2009 - In Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock & Peter Menzies, The Oxford Handbook of Causation. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 414-443.
    One of the most striking features of causation is that causes typically precede their effects – the causal arrow is strongly aligned with the temporal arrow. Why should this be so? We offer an opinionated guide to this problem, and to the solutions currently on offer. We conclude that the most promising strategy is to begin with the de facto asymmetry of human deliberation, characterised in epistemic terms, and to build out from there. More than any rival, this subjectivist approach (...)
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  • Typicality and Notions of Probability in Physics.Sheldon Goldstein - 2012 - In Yemima Ben-Menahem & Meir Hemmo, Probability in Physics. Springer. pp. 59--71.
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  • Concepts and Their Dynamics: A Quantum‐Theoretic Modeling of Human Thought.Diederik Aerts, Liane Gabora & Sandro Sozzo - 2013 - Topics in Cognitive Science 5 (4):737-772.
    We analyze different aspects of our quantum modeling approach of human concepts and, more specifically, focus on the quantum effects of contextuality, interference, entanglement, and emergence, illustrating how each of them makes its appearance in specific situations of the dynamics of human concepts and their combinations. We point out the relation of our approach, which is based on an ontology of a concept as an entity in a state changing under influence of a context, with the main traditional concept theories, (...)
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  • Integration psychophysics.Norman H. Anderson - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (2):268-269.
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  • Quantum Structure in Cognition: Human Language as a Boson Gas of Entangled Words.Diederik Aerts & Lester Beltran - 2020 - Foundations of Science 25 (3):755-802.
    We model a piece of text of human language telling a story by means of the quantum structure describing a Bose gas in a state close to a Bose–Einstein condensate near absolute zero temperature. For this we introduce energy levels for the words used in the story and we also introduce the new notion of ‘cogniton’ as the quantum of human thought. Words are then cognitons in different energy states as it is the case for photons in different energy states, (...)
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  • Metaphysics of the principle of least action.Vladislav Terekhovich - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 62:189-201.
    Despite the importance of the variational principles of physics, there have been relatively few attempts to consider them for a realistic framework. In addition to the old teleological question, this paper continues the recent discussion regarding the modal involvement of the principle of least action and its relations with the Humean view of the laws of nature. The reality of possible paths in the principle of least action is examined from the perspectives of the contemporary metaphysics of modality and Leibniz's (...)
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  • From overt behavior to hypothetical behavior to memory: Inference in the wrong direction.Howard Rachlin - 1994 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (1):147-148.
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  • Psychophysical law: Keep it simple.Lester E. Krueger - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (2):299-320.
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  • Can conditioning on the “past hypothesis” militate against the reversibility objections?Eric Winsberg - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (4):489-504.
    In his recent book, Time and Chance, David Albert claims that by positing that there is a uniform probability distribution defined, on the standard measure, over the space of microscopic states that are compatible with both the current macrocondition of the world, and with what he calls the “past hypothesis”, we can explain the time asymmetry of all of the thermodynamic behavior in the world. The principal purpose of this paper is to dispute this claim. I argue that Albert's proposal (...)
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  • Thermodynamic asymmetry in time.Craig Callender - 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Thermodynamics is the science that describes much of the time asymmetric behavior found in the world. This entry's first task, consequently, is to show how thermodynamics treats temporally ‘directed’ behavior. It then concentrates on the following two questions. (1) What is the origin of the thermodynamic asymmetry in time? In a world possibly governed by time symmetric laws, how should we understand the time asymmetric laws of thermodynamics? (2) Does the thermodynamic time asymmetry explain the other temporal asymmetries? Does it (...)
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  • Typicality, Irreversibility and the Status of Macroscopic Laws.Dustin Lazarovici & Paula Reichert - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (4):689-716.
    We discuss Boltzmann’s probabilistic explanation of the second law of thermodynamics providing a comprehensive presentation of what is called today the typicality account. Countering its misconception as an alternative explanation, we examine the relation between Boltzmann’s H-theorem and the general typicality argument demonstrating the conceptual continuity between the two. We then discuss the philosophical dimensions of the concept of typicality and its relevance for scientific reasoning in general, in particular for understanding the reduction of macroscopic laws to microscopic laws. Finally, (...)
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  • Sensory scaling: Unanswered questions.Michel Treisman - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (2):293-294.
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  • Psychophysics and metaphysics.David J. Weiss - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (2):298-299.
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  • The Metaphysics of Ceteris Paribus Laws.Markus Schrenk - 2007 - ontos.
    INTRODUCTION I. CETERIS PARIBUS LAWS An alleged law of nature—like Newton's law of gravitation—is said to be a ceteris paribus law if it does not hold under ...
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  • The emergence of value: human norms in a natural world.Lawrence Cahoone - 2023 - Albany: State University of New York Press.
    Argues that truth, moral right, political right, and aesthetic value may be understood as arising out of a naturalist account of humanity, if naturalism is rightly conceived.
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  • Time in Thermodynamics.Jill North - 2011 - In Craig Callender, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press. pp. 312--350.
    Or better: time asymmetry in thermodynamics. Better still: time asymmetry in thermodynamic phenomena. “Time in thermodynamics” misleadingly suggests that thermodynamics will tell us about the fundamental nature of time. But we don’t think that thermodynamics is a fundamental theory. It is a theory of macroscopic behavior, often called a “phenomenological science.” And to the extent that physics can tell us about the fundamental features of the world, including such things as the nature of time, we generally think that only fundamental (...)
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  • There Is No Puzzle about the Low Entropy Past.Craig Callender - 2004 - In Christopher Hitchcock, Contemporary debates in philosophy of science. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 240-255.
    Suppose that God or a demon informs you of the following future fact: despite recent cosmological evidence, the universe is indeed closed and it will have a ‘final’ instant of time; moreover, at that final moment, all 49 of the world’s Imperial Faberge eggs will be in your bedroom bureau’s sock drawer. You’re absolutely certain that this information is true. All of your other dealings with supernatural powers have demonstrated that they are a trustworthy lot.
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  • A dialogue concerning two world systems: Info-computational vs. mechanistic.Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic & Vincent C. Müller - 2011 - In Gordana Dodig Crnkovic & Mark Burgin, Information and computation: Essays on scientific and philosophical understanding of foundations of information and computation. World Scientific. pp. 149-184.
    The dialogue develops arguments for and against a broad new world system - info-computationalist naturalism - that is supposed to overcome the traditional mechanistic view. It would make the older mechanistic view into a special case of the new general info-computationalist framework (rather like Euclidian geometry remains valid inside a broader notion of geometry). We primarily discuss what the info-computational paradigm would mean, especially its pancomputationalist component. This includes the requirements for a the new generalized notion of computing that would (...)
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  • Making Knowledge in Synthetic Biology: Design Meets Kludge.Maureen A. O’Malley - 2009 - Biological Theory 4 (4):378-389.
    Synthetic biology is an umbrella term that covers a range of aims, approaches, and techniques. They are all brought together by common practices of analogizing, synthesizing, mechanicizing, and kludging. With a focus on kludging as the connection point between biology, engineering, and evolution, I show how synthetic biology’s successes depend on custom-built kludges and a creative, “make-it-work” attitude to the construction of biological systems. Such practices do not fit neatly, however, into synthetic biology’s celebration of rational design. Nor do they (...)
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  • Plural metaphysical supervaluationism.Robert Michels, Cristian Mariani & Giuliano Torrengo - 2021 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (6):2005-2042.
    It has been argued that quantum mechanics forces us to accept the existence of metaphysical, mind-independent indeterminacy. In this paper we provide an interpretation of the indeterminacy involved in the quantum phenomena in terms of a view that we call Plural Metaphysical Supervaluationism. According to it, quantum indeterminacy is captured in terms of an irreducibly plural relation between the actual world and various misrepresentations of it.
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  • Probability and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.Arthur Fine - 1973 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 24 (1):1-37.
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  • International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching.Michael R. Matthews (ed.) - 2014 - Springer.
    This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...)
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  • Is Identity Really so Fundamental?Décio Krause & Jonas R. Becker Arenhart - 2019 - Foundations of Science 24 (1):51-71.
    We critically examine the claim that identity is a fundamental concept. According to those putting forward this thesis, there are four related reasons that can be called upon to ground the fundamental character of identity: identity is presupposed in every conceptual system; identity is required to characterize individuality; identity cannot be defined; the intelligibility of quantification requires identity. We address each of these points and argue that none of them advances compelling reasons to hold that identity is fundamental; in fact, (...)
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  • The Humean pragmatic turn and the case for revisionary best systems accounts.Toby Friend - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (1):1-26.
    Lewis’s original Best Systems Account of laws was not motivated much by pragmatics. But recent commentary on his general approach to laws has taken a ‘pragmatic turn’. This was initiated by Hall’s defence against the charge of ‘ratbag idealism’ which maintained that best systems accounts should be admired rather than criticised for the inherent pragmatism behind their choice of desiderata for what counts as ‘best’. Emboldened by Hall’s pragmatic turn, recent commentators have proposed the addition of pragmatically motivated desiderata to (...)
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  • The Necessity of Gibbsian Statistical Mechanics.David Wallace - unknown
    In discussions of the foundations of statistical mechanics, it is widely held that the Gibbsian and Boltzmannian approaches are incompatible but empirically equivalent; the Gibbsian approach may be calculationally preferable but only the Boltzmannian approach is conceptually satisfactory. I argue against both assumptions. Gibbsian statistical mechanics is applicable to a wide variety of problems and systems, such as the calculation of transport coefficients and the statistical mechanics and thermodynamics of mesoscopic systems, in which the Boltzmannian approach is inapplicable. And the (...)
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