The "usual story" regarding molecular chemistry is that it is roughly an application of quantum mechanics. That is to say, quantum mechanics supplies everything necessary and sufficient, both ontologically and epistemologically, to reduce molecular chemistry to quantum mechanics. This is a reductive story, to be sure, but a key explanatory element of molecular chemistry, namely molecular structure, is absent from the quantum realm. On the other hand, typical characterizations of emergence, such as the unpredictability or inexplicability of molecular structure based (...) on quantum mechanics, do not characterize the relationship between molecular chemistry and quantum mechanics well either. A different scheme for characterizing reduction and emergence is proposed that accommodates the relationship between quantum mechanics and molecular chemistry and some initial objections to the scheme are considered. (shrink)

There has been a long-standing debate about the relationship of predictability and determinism. Some have maintained that determinism implies predictability while others have maintained that predictability implies determinism. Many have maintained that there are no implication relations between determinism and predictability. This summary is, of course, somewhat oversimplified and quick at least in the sense that there are various notions of determinism and predictability at work in the philosophical literature. In this essay I will focus on what I take to (...) be the Laplacean vision for determinism and predictability. While many forms of predictability are inconsistent with this vision, I argue that a suitably restricted notion of predictability, consistent with the practice of physicists, is implied by the Laplacean notion of determinism. It is argued that limitations on predictability are of an in principle nature in the Appendix. (shrink)

Kellert (In the Wake of Chars, University of Chicago press, Chicago, 1993) has argued that Laplacean determinism in classical physics is actually a layered concept, where various properties or layers composing this form of determinism can be peeled away. Here, I argue that a layered conception of determinism is inappropriate and that we should think in terms of different deterministic models applicable to different kinds of systems. The upshot of this analysis is that the notion of state is more closely (...) tied to the kind of system being investigated than is usually considered in discussions of determinism. So when investigating determinism corresponding changes to the appropriate notion of state – and, perhaps, the state space itself – also need to be considered. (shrink)

This paper considers definitions of classical dynamical chaos that focus primarily on notions of predictability and computability, sometimes called algorithmic complexity definitions of chaos. I argue that accounts of this type are seriously flawed. They focus on a likely consequence of chaos, namely, randomness in behavior which gets characterized in terms of the unpredictability or uncomputability of final given initial states. In doing so, however, they can overlook the definitive feature of dynamical chaos--the fact that the underlying motion generating the (...) behavior exhibits extreme trajectory instability. I formulate a simple criterion of adequacy for any definition of chaos and show how such accounts fail to satisfy it. (shrink)

An overview of chaos, indeterminism, free will and the relationship between physics and free will.

The study of similarity is fundamental to biological inquiry. Many homology concepts have been formulated that function successfully to explain similarity in their native domains, but fail to provide an overarching account applicable to variably interconnected and independent areas of biological research despite the monistic standpoint from which they originate. The use of multiple, explicitly articulated homology concepts, applicable at different levels of the biological hierarchy, allows a more thorough investigation of the nature of biological similarity. Responsible epistemological pluralism as (...) advocated herein is generative of fruitful and innovative biological research, and is appropriate given the metaphysical pluralism that underpins all of biology. (shrink)

Explaining Chaos provides both a succinct and accurate introduction to the physics and mathematics of chaotic dynamical systems along with a number of pertinent philosophical commentaries on the scientific results. The book provides the clearest and most sensible treatment of chaos theory from a philosophical perspective available in the literature.

Laplacean determinism remains a popular theory among philosophers and scientists alike, in spite of the fact that the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, with which it is inconsistent, has been around for more than fifty years. There are a number of reasons for its continuing popularity. One, recently articulated by Honderich, is that there are too many possible interpretations of quantum mechanics, and the subject is too controversial even among physicists to be an adequate basis for overturning determinism. Nevertheless, quantum (...) mechanics is an enormously successful theory, considering the quantity and variety of its predictions which have been verified under conditions never dreamt of by its originators; and the Copenhagen Interpretation is the only widely accepted interpretation of it. Although a hidden variable theory consistent with the results of quantum mechanics is not impossible, one of its major advocates admits that it is highly speculative, and far from adequately developed. Yet such a theory would be needed to reconcile Laplacean determinism with quantum mechanics; most of the controversies alluded to by Honderich are irrelevant. (shrink)

Chaotic dynamics has been hailed as the third great scientific revolution in physics this century, comparable to relativity and quantum mechanics. In this book, Peter Smith takes a cool, critical look at such claims. He cuts through the hype and rhetoric by explaining some of the basic mathematical ideas in a clear and accessible way, and by carefully discussing the methodological issues which arise. In particular, he explores the new kinds of explanation of empirical phenomena which modern dynamics can deliver. (...) Explaining Chaos will be compulsory reading for philosophers of science and for anyone who has wondered about the conceptual foundations of chaos theory. (shrink)

Robert Kane provides a critical overview of debates about free will of the past half century, relating this recent inquiry to the broader history of the free will issue and to vital currents of twentieth century thought. Kane also defends a traditional libertarian or incompatibilist view of free will, employing arguments that are both new to philosophy and that respond to contemporary developments in physics and biology, neuro science, and the cognitive and behavioral sciences.

The context of an operational description is given by the distinction between what we consider as relevant and what as irrelevant for a particular experiment or observation. A rigorous description of a context in terms of a mathematically formulated context-independent fundamental theory is possible by the restriction of the domain of the basic theory and the introduction of a new coarser topology. Such a new topology is never given by first principles, but depends in a crucial way on the abstractions (...) made by the cognitive apparatus or the pattern recognition devices used by the experimentalist. A consistent mathematical formulation of a higher-level theory requires the closure of the restriction of the basic theory in the new contextual topology. The validity domain of the so constructed higher-level theory intersects nontrivially with the validity domain of the basic theory: neither domain is contained in the other. Therefore, higher-level theories cannot be totally ordered and theory reduction is not transitive. The emergence of qualitatively new properties is a necessary consequence of such a formulation of theory reduction (which does not correspond to the traditional one). Emergent properties are not manifest on the level of the basic theory, but they can be derived rigorously by imposing new, contextually selected topologies upon context-independent first principles. Most intertheoretical relations are mathematically describable as singular asymptotic expansions which do not converge in the topology of the primary theory, or by choosing one of the infinitely many possible, physically inequivalent representations of the primary theory (Gelfand–Naimark–Segal-construction of algebraic quantum mechanics). As examples we discuss the emergence of shadows, inductors, capacitors and resistors from Maxwell’s electrodynamics, the emergence of order parameters in statistical mechanics, the emergence of mass as a classical observable in Galilei-relativistic theories, the emergence of the shape of molecules in quantum mechanics, the emergence of temperature and other classical observables in algebraic quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Finite systems of deterministic ordinary nonlinear differential equations may be designed to represent forced dissipative hydrodynamic flow. Solutions of these equations can be identified with trajectories in phase space. For those systems with bounded solutions, it is found that nonperiodic solutions are ordinarily unstable with respect to small modifications, so that slightly differing initial states can evolve into considerably different states. Systems with bounded solutions are shown to possess bounded numerical solutions.A simple system representing cellular convection is solved numerically. All (...) of the solutions are found to be unstable, and almost all of them are nonperiodic.The feasibility of very-long-range weather prediction is examined in the light of these results. (shrink)

A re-examination of determinism and compatibilism and incompatibilism in free will debates.