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Switch to: References
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Why do we have records of the past and not the future? Entropic explanations for this ‘record asymmetry’ have been popular ever since Boltzmann. Foremost amongst these is Albert and Loewer’s account, which explains the record asymmetry using a low-entropy initial macrostate plus an initial probability distribution. However, the details of how this initial state underpins the record asymmetry are not fully specified. In this paper I attempt to plug this explanatory gap in two steps. First, I suggest the record (...) |
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It is commonly thought that the statistical mechanical reversibility objection implies that our putative records of the past are more likely to have arisen as spontaneous fluctuations from equilibrium states than through causal processes that correctly indicate past states of affairs. Hence, so the story goes, without some further assumption that solves the reversibility objection, such as the past hypothesis, all our beliefs about the past would almost surely be false. This claim is disputed and it is argued that at (...) |
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This pair of articles provides a critical commentary on contemporary approaches to statistical mechanical probabilities. These articles focus on the two ways of understanding these probabilities that have received the most attention in the recent literature: the epistemic indifference approach, and the Lewis-style regularity approach. These articles describe these approaches, highlight the main points of contention, and make some attempts to advance the discussion. The first of these articles provides a brief sketch of statistical mechanics, and discusses the indifference approach (...) |
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One of the most popular arguments in favor of dualism is the zombie-conceivability argument. It is often argued that the possibility of zombies would entail that mental properties are epiphenomenal. This paper attempts to defuse the argument, offering a model of dualist mental causation which can serve as a basis for a modified, interactionist-friendly zombie argument. |
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I argue against the claim, advanced by David Albert and Barry Loewer, that all non-fundamental laws can be derived from those required to underwrite the second law of thermodynamics. |
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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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This is an extensive review of recent work on the foundations of statistical mechanics. |
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