Results for 'far from thermodynamic equilibrium'

962 found
Order:
  1. (1 other version)Information, Constraint and Meaning from Pre-biotic World to a possible Post-human one. An Evolutionary Approach (MDPI Proceedings).Christophe Menant - 2017 - Mdpi Proceeedings 1 (3).
    The presentation proposes to complement an existing development on meaning generation for animals, humans and artificial agents by looking at what could have existed at pre-biotic times and what could be a post-human meaning generation. The core of the approach is based on an existing model for meaning generation: the Meaning Generator System (MGS). The MGS is part of an agent submitted to an internal constraint. The MGS generates a meaning when it receives information that has a connection with the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Life, Local Constraints and Meaning Generation. An Evolutionary Approach to Cognition (2015).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    The relations between life and cogntion have been addressed through different perspectives [Stewart 1996, Boden 2001, Bourgine and Stewart 2004, van Duijn & all 2006, Di Paolo 2009]. We would like here to address that subject by relating life to cognition through a process of meaning generation. Life emerged on earth as a far from thermodynamic equilibrium performance that had to maintain herself. Life is charactertized by a ‘stay alive’ constraint that has to be satisfied (such constraint (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  3. Meaning generation for constraint satisfaction. An evolutionary thread for biosemiotics (Biosemiotics Gatherings 2016).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    One of the mains challenges of biosemiotics is ‘to attempt to naturalize biological meaning’ [Sharov & all 2015]. That challenge brings to look at a possible evolutionary thread for biosemiotics based on meaning generation for internal constraint satisfaction, starting with a pre-biotic entity emerging from a material universe. Such perspective complements and extends previous works that used a model of meaning generation for internal constraint satisfaction (the Meaning Generator System) [Menant 2003a, b; 2011]. We propose to look at such (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  4. Constraints on the origin of coherence in far-from-equilibrium systems.Joseph E. Earley - 2003 - In Timothy E. Eastman & Henry Keeton (eds.), Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience. Albany, USA: State University of New York Press. pp. 63-73.
    Origin of a dissipative structure in a chemical dynamic system: occurs under the following constraints: 1) Affinity must be high. (The system must be far from equilibrium.); 2) There must be an auto-catalytic process; 3) A process that reduces the concentration of the auto-catalyst must operate; 4) The relevant parameters (rate constants, etc.) must lie in a range corresponding to a limit cycle trajectory. That is, there must be closure of the network of reaction such that a state (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. A Fundamentally Irreversible World as an Opportunity towards a Consistent Understanding of Quantum and Cosmological Contexts.Tributsch Helmut Helmuttributsch@Aliceit - 2016 - Lournal of Modern Physics 7:1455-1482.
    In a preceding publication a fundamentally oriented and irreversible world was shown to be de- rivable from the important principle of least action. A consequence of such a paradigm change is avoidance of paradoxes within a “dynamic” quantum physics. This becomes essentially possible because fundamental irreversibility allows consideration of the “entropy” concept in elementary processes. For this reason, and for a compensation of entropy in the spread out energy of the wave, the duality of particle and wave has to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. Brain activity and cognition: a connection from thermodynamics and information theory.Guillem Collell & Jordi Fauquet - 2015 - Frontiers in Psychology 6.
    The connection between brain and mind is an important scientific and philosophical question that we are still far from completely understanding. A crucial point to our work is noticing that thermodynamics provides a convenient framework to model brain activity, whereas cognition can be modeled in information-theoretical terms. In fact, several models have been proposed so far from both approaches. A second critical remark is the existence of deep theoretical connections between thermodynamics and information theory. In fact, some well-known (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  7. Reconceptualizing the Organism: From Complex Machine to Flowing Stream.Daniel J. Nicholson - 2018 - In Daniel J. Nicholson & John Dupré (eds.), Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    This chapter draws on insights from non-equilibrium thermodynamics to demonstrate the ontological inadequacy of the machine conception of the organism. The thermodynamic character of living systems underlies the importance of metabolism and calls for the adoption of a processual view, exemplified by the Heraclitean metaphor of the stream of life. This alternative conception is explored in its various historical formulations and the extent to which it captures the nature of living systems is examined. Following this, the chapter (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   34 citations  
  8. Using neurons to maintain autonomy: Learning from C. elegans.William Bechtel & Leonardo Bich - 2023 - Biosystems 232:105017.
    Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous—maintain themselves far from equilibrium through their own activities—requires understanding how they regulate those activities. In multicellular animals, such control can be exercised either via endocrine signaling through the vasculature or via neurons. In C. elegans this control is exercised by a well-delineated relatively small but distributed nervous system that relies on both chemical and electric transmission of signals. This system provides resources to integrate information from multiple sources as needed to maintain (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Why did life emerge?Arto Annila & Annila E. Annila A. - 2008 - International Journal of Astrobiology 7 (3-4):293–300.
    Many mechanisms, functions and structures of life have been unraveled. However, the fundamental driving force that propelled chemical evolution and led to life has remained obscure. The second law of thermodynamics, written as an equation of motion, reveals that elemental abiotic matter evolves from the equilibrium via chemical reactions that couple to external energy towards complex biotic non-equilibrium systems. Each time a new mechanism of energy transduction emerges, e.g., by random variation in syntheses, evolution prompts by punctuation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  10. Black Hole Paradoxes: A Unified Framework for Information Loss.Saakshi Dulani - 2024 - Dissertation, University of Geneva
    The black hole information loss paradox is a catch-all term for a family of puzzles related to black hole evaporation. For almost 50 years, the quest to elucidate the implications of black hole evaporation has not only sustained momentum, but has also become increasingly populated with proposals that seem to generate more questions than they purport to answer. Scholars often neglect to acknowledge ongoing discussions within black hole thermodynamics and statistical mechanics when analyzing the paradox, including the interpretation of Bekenstein-Hawking (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Interactive agential dynamics.Nick Brancazio - 2023 - Synthese 201 (6):1-20.
    The study of active matter systems demonstrates how interactions might co-constitute agential dynamics. Active matter systems are comprised of self-propelled independent entities which, en masse, take part in complex and interesting collective group behaviors at a far-from-equilibrium state (Menon, 2010 ; Takatori & Brady, 2015 ). These systems are modelled using very simple rules (Vicsek at al. 1995), which reveal the interactive nature of the collective behaviors seen from humble to highly complex entities. Here I show how (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  12. Where to Look for Emergent Properties.Agustín Vicente - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (2):156.
    Recent years have seen renewed interest in the emergence issue. The contemporary debate, in contrast with that of past times, has to do not so much with the mind–body problem as with the relationship between the physical and other domains; mostly with the biological domain. One of the main sources of this renewed interest is the study of complex and, in general, far-from-equilibrium self-preserving systems, which seem to fulfil one of the necessary conditions for an entity to be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  13. Quantum transport and utilization of free energy in protein α-helices.Danko D. Georgiev & James F. Glazebrook - 2020 - Advances in Quantum Chemistry 82:253-300.
    The essential biological processes that sustain life are catalyzed by protein nano-engines, which maintain living systems in far-from-equilibrium ordered states. To investigate energetic processes in proteins, we have analyzed the system of generalized Davydov equations that govern the quantum dynamics of multiple amide I exciton quanta propagating along the hydrogen-bonded peptide groups in α-helices. Computational simulations have confirmed the generation of moving Davydov solitons by applied pulses of amide I energy for protein α-helices of varying length. The stability (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  14.  13
    Biological Organization.Leonardo Bich - 2024 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Living systems are complex systems made of components that tend to degrade, but nonetheless they maintain themselves far from equilibrium. This requires living systems to extract energy and materials from the environment and use them to build and repair their parts. They do so by regulating their activities on the basis of their internal and external conditions in ways that allow them to keep living. The philosophical and theoretical approach discussed in this book aims to explain these (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Political liberalism, the internal conception, and the problem of public dogma.Thomas M. Besch - 2012 - Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 2 (1):153-177.
    According to the “internal” conception (Quong), political liberalism aims to be publicly justifiable only to people who are reasonable in a special sense specified and advocated by political liberalism itself. One advantage of the internal conception allegedly is that it enables liberalism to avoid perfectionism. The paper takes issue with this view. It argues that once the internal conception is duly pitched at its fundamental, metatheoretical level and placed in its proper discursive context, it emerges that it comes at the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  16. Who's Afraid of Maxwell's Demon—and Which One?Craig Callender - 2002 - AIP Conference Proceedings 643.
    In 1866 J.C. Maxwell thought he had discovered a Maxwellian demon—though not under that description, of course [1]. He thought that the temperature of a gas under gravity would vary inversely with the height of the column. From this he saw that it would then be possible to obtain energy for work from a cooling gas, a clear violation of Thompson’s statement of the second law of thermodynamics. This upsetting conclusion made him worry that “there remains as far (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. A Psychological Perspective Comparing the Views of Dai Zhen (戴 震) and Zhu Xi (朱 熹) On Human Nature.Ali Far - 2014 - GSTF Journal of Psychology 1 (2).
    The objective of this paper is to provide a psychological perspective on Zhu Xi (ZX) and Dai Zhen (DZ) views about human nature, by comparing the potential implications of their views on an agent's moral cultivation. To help frame this objective, I will ask and answer the following question: if one commits to ZX who holds the view that human nature is innately good, although obscured, versus if one holds DZ's view that while human nature has the potential for good (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. (1 other version)Conceptuality of Unreflective Actions in Flow: McDowell-Dryfus Debate.Ali Far - 2015 - GSTF Journal of General Philosophy 1 (2):1-7.
    The objective of this paper is to supplement Gottlieb’s challenge to Dryfus who claims that concepts are not operative in expert’s unreflective actions. First, concepts that an agent develops over time with practice, starting from the stage of novelty, become deeply rooted and persist through his expertise stage, according to common sense. It is unlikely that such rooted concepts become inoperative just when it is time for the agent to put them to use during the time that he is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Selection in a Complex World: Deriving Causality from Stable Equilibrium.Hugh Desmond - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (2):265-286.
    It is an ongoing controversy whether natural selection is a cause of population change, or a mere statistical description of how individual births and deaths accumulate. In this paper I restate the problem in terms of the reference class problem, and propose how the structure of stable equilibrium can provide a solution in continuity with biological practice. Insofar natural selection can be understood as a tendency towards equilibrium, key statisticalist criticisms are avoided. Further, in a modification of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  20. On the possibility of stable regularities without fundamental laws.Aldo Filomeno - 2014 - Dissertation, Autonomous University of Barcelona
    This doctoral dissertation investigates the notion of physical necessity. Specifically, it studies whether it is possible to account for non-accidental regularities without the standard assumption of a pre-existent set of governing laws. Thus, it takes side with the so called deflationist accounts of laws of nature, like the humean or the antirealist. The specific aim is to complement such accounts by providing a missing explanation of the appearance of physical necessity. In order to provide an explanation, I recur to fields (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  21. In Support of Theory of Appearing: Defending Langsam against Djukic’s Critique.Ali Far - 2015 - GSTF Journal of General Philosophy 1 (2):1-6.
    The purpose of this paper is to defend Langsam’s Theory of Appearing (TA) against Djukic et al’s critique. In strengthening Langsam’s defense of TA, I adopt some of Le Morvan's arguments in defending Direct Realism. TA states that experiences are relations between material object and mind, and that phenomenal features are appearances of relations held between material objects and mind. Djukic objects to TA on three grounds of Hallucination, Causal Principle (CP), and Time-Gap: First, Djukic objects to TA on the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. Trasformazione e germinazione: per una nuova filosofia della nascita.Guido Cusinato - 2017 - Thaumàzein 4.
    The thesis of this paper is that – in order to avoid trivializations – a Philosophy of Birth needs to elaborate a precise concept of transformation and distinguish it carefully from that of adaptation. While transformation goes beyond the limited self-referential perspective of an individual and, on the social level, of the gregarious identity, adaptation aims at strengthening or preserving the old self-referential equilibrium. Transformation is driven by what Zambrano has called, with an exceptionally happy expression, the “hunger (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. Geometry for a Brain. Optimal Control in a Network of Adaptive Memristors.Ignazio Licata & Germano Resconi - 2013 - Adv. Studies Theor. Phys., (no.10):479-513.
    In the brain the relations between free neurons and the conditioned ones establish the constraints for the informational neural processes. These constraints reflect the systemenvironment state, i.e. the dynamics of homeocognitive activities. The constraints allow us to define the cost function in the phase space of free neurons so as to trace the trajectories of the possible configurations at minimal cost while respecting the constraints imposed. Since the space of the free states is a manifold or a non orthogonal space, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. AI Rights for Human Safety.Peter Salib & Simon Goldstein - manuscript
    AI companies are racing to create artificial general intelligence, or “AGI.” If they succeed, the result will be human-level AI systems that can independently pursue high-level goals by formulating and executing long-term plans in the real world. Leading AI researchers agree that some of these systems will likely be “misaligned”–pursuing goals that humans do not desire. This goal mismatch will put misaligned AIs and humans into strategic competition with one another. As with present-day strategic competition between nations with incompatible goals, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Malthus and Ricardo on Economic Methodology.Sergio Volodia Marcello Cremaschi & Marcelo Dascal - 1996 - History of Political Economy 28 (3):475-511.
    The paper is a comparative study of the methodologies of Malthus and Ricardo. Its claims are: (i) economic laws almost always admit of exceptions for Malthus; for Ricardo even contingent predictions allow no exception apart from random temporary variations; (ii) both rely on the prestigious Newtonian paradigm, while interpreting it according to two distinct methodological traditions (the one deriving from MacLaurin, the other from Priestley); (iii) the choice of stressing what happens during intervals or in permanent states (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  26. Vietnam’s trade policy: a developing nation assessment.Steven Clarke, Mohammamadreza Akbari & Shagheyegh Maleki Far - 2017 - International Journal of Community Development and Management Studies 1 (1):13-37.
    Aim/PurposeThis paper is a review of the progress of the Vietnam socio-economic and development plan and an assessment of the extent to which Vietnam is putting in place the critical social and economic development structures that will enable it to reach the status of “developed nation” in the time set (2020) by its national strategic plan. The research will identify and review trade patterns, trade policy and the effect of foreign aid on Vietnam’s plan to transform its economy and society (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. What's wrong with exploitation?Justin Schwartz - 1995 - Noûs 29 (2):158-188.
    Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  28. Historical and Conceptual Foundations of Information Physics.Anta Javier - 2021 - Dissertation, Universitat de Barcelona
    The main objective of this dissertation is to philosophically assess how the use of informational concepts in the field of classical thermostatistical physics has historically evolved from the late 1940s to the present day. I will first analyze in depth the main notions that form the conceptual basis on which 'informational physics' historically unfolded, encompassing (i) different entropy, probability and information notions, (ii) their multiple interpretative variations, and (iii) the formal, numerical and semantic-interpretative relationships among them. In the following, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. (1 other version)Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017.Michael Starks - 2017 - Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press.
    This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and edited to bring them up to date (2017). The copyright page has the date of the edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. (2 other versions)The Fundamental Interrelationships Model – An Alternative Approach to the Theory of Everything, Part 1.Gavin Huang - 2022 - In Huang Gavin (ed.), Behind Civilization: the fundamental rules in the universe. Sydney, Australia: Gavin Huang. pp. 400-.
    The quest for a unified “Theory of Everything” that explains the fundamental nature of the universe has long been a holy grail for scientists and philosophers, dating back to the ancient Greeks’ search for Arche. -/- So far, the mainstream of research on A Theory of Everything primarily focuses on the lifeless phenomena and laws of physics while ignores the realm of biology. However, a fundamentally different approach to the ToE has been put forward, presenting a viable alternative to address (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE POSSIBLE BASICS OF COSMOLOGY IN THE 22nd CENTURY, AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR RELIGION.Rodney Bartlett - manuscript
    This article’s conclusion is that the theories of Einstein are generally correct and will still be relevant in the next century (there will be modifications necessary for development of quantum gravity). Those Einsteinian theories are Special Relativity, General Relativity, and the title of a paper he published in 1919 which asked if gravitation plays a role in the composition of elementary particles of matter. This paper was the bridge between General Relativity and the Unified Field Theory he sought during the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  32. Explaining Thermodynamic-Like Behavior in Terms of Epsilon-Ergodicity.Roman Frigg & Charlotte Werndl - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (4):628-652.
    Gases reach equilibrium when left to themselves. Why do they behave in this way? The canonical answer to this question, originally proffered by Boltzmann, is that the systems have to be ergodic. This answer has been criticised on different grounds and is now widely regarded as flawed. In this paper we argue that some of the main arguments against Boltzmann's answer, in particular, arguments based on the KAM-theorem and the Markus-Meyer theorem, are beside the point. We then argue that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   29 citations  
  33. Reality in a Few Thermodynamic Reference Frames: Statistical Thermodynamics From Boltzmann via Gibbs to Einstein.Vasil Penchev - 2020 - Philosophy of Science eJournal (Elsevier: SSRN) 13 (33):1-14.
    The success of a few theories in statistical thermodynamics can be correlated with their selectivity to reality. These are the theories of Boltzmann, Gibbs, and Einstein. The starting point is Carnot’s theory, which defines implicitly the general selection of reality relevant to thermodynamics. The three other theories share this selection, but specify it further in detail. Each of them separates a few main aspects within the scope of the implicit thermodynamic reality. Their success grounds on that selection. Those aspects (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Is Time a Physical Unit?Yang I. Pachankis - 2022 - Science Set Journal of Physics 1 (1):1-4.
    The article approaches the epistemological question on the concept of time from an anthropological psychology perspective. The differentiation between imminent perceptions and existence beyond imminent perception has been the earliest conceptualization of time found so far in the traces of human civilizations. The research differentiated psychological time from modern physics and astronomy as the basic hypothesis in the inquiries on the concept of time in physics and modern astronomy – is the physical unit of time an ontological existence (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. From Near to Far: Maria Short and the Places and Spaces of Science in Edinburgh from 1736 to 1850.Alison Reiko Loader - 2014 - Teorie Vědy / Theory of Science 36 (1):15-47.
    A relatively unknown woman named Maria Theresa Short opened a popular observatory in 1835 in Ed inburgh - a time and place where men of science and property had long failed to make a viable space for astronomy. She exhibited scientific instruments to a general public, along with a great telescope and a walk-in camera obscura that projected live views of the city and continues to delight audiences to this day. To better understand Short's accomplishments, achieved as scientific and public (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  36. Practical Equilibrium: A Way of Deciding What to Think about Morality.Ben Eggleston - 2010 - Mind 119 (475):549-584.
    Practical equilibrium, like reflective equilibrium, is a way of deciding what to think about morality. It shares with reflective equilibrium the general thesis that there is some way in which a moral theory must, in order to be acceptable, answer to one’s moral intuitions, but it differs from reflective equilibrium in its specification of exactly how a moral theory must answer to one’s intuitions. Whereas reflective equilibrium focuses on a theory’s consistency with those intuitions, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  37. Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics: A Maxwellian view.Wayne C. Myrvold - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (4):237-243.
    One finds, in Maxwell's writings on thermodynamics and statistical physics, a conception of the nature of these subjects that differs in interesting ways from the way that they are usually conceived. In particular, though—in agreement with the currently accepted view—Maxwell maintains that the second law of thermodynamics, as originally conceived, cannot be strictly true, the replacement he proposes is different from the version accepted by most physicists today. The modification of the second law accepted by most physicists is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  38. Reflective Equilibrium.Kauppinen Antti & Jaakko Hirvelä - forthcoming - In David Copp, Tina Rulli & Connie Rosati (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Normative Ethics. Oxford University Press.
    How can we figure out what’s right or wrong, if moral truths are neither self-evident nor something we can perceive? Very roughly, the method of reflective equilibrium (RE) says that we should begin moral inquiry from what we already confidently think, seeking to find a a match between our initial convictions and general principles that are well-supported by background theories, mutually adjusting both until we reach a coherent outlook in which our beliefs are in harmony (the equilibrium (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. Equilibrium in Nash´s mind.Vasil Penchev - 2020 - Philosophy of Action eJournal 13 (8):1-11.
    Donald Capps (2009: 145) suggested the hypothesis that “the Nash equilibrium is descriptive of the normal brain, whereas the game theory formulated by John van Neumann, which Nash’s theory challenges, is descriptive of the schizophrenic brain”. The paper offers arguments in its favor. They are from psychiatry, game theory, set theory, philosophy and theology. The Nash equilibrium corresponds to wholeness, stable emergent properties as well as to representing actual infinity on a material, limited and finite organ as (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  40. Probabilifying reflective equilibrium.Finnur Dellsén - 2024 - Synthese 203 (2):1-24.
    This paper aims to flesh out the celebrated notion of reflective equilibrium within a probabilistic framework for epistemic rationality. On the account developed here, an agent's attitudes are in reflective equilibrium when there is a certain sort of harmony between the agent's credences, on the one hand, and what the agent accepts, on the other hand. Somewhat more precisely, reflective equilibrium is taken to consist in the agent accepting, or being prepared to accept, all and only claims (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. (2 other versions)When does a Boltzmannian equilibrium exist?Charlotte Werndl & Roman Frigg - 2016 - In Charlotte Werndl & Roman Frigg (eds.).
    The received wisdom in statistical mechanics is that isolated systems, when left to themselves, approach equilibrium. But under what circumstances does an equilibrium state exist and an approach to equilibrium take place? In this paper we address these questions from the vantage point of the long-run fraction of time definition of Boltzmannian equilibrium that we developed in two recent papers. After a short summary of Boltzmannian statistical mechanics and our definition of equilibrium, we state (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  42. The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Psychological Arrow of Time.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (1):85-107.
    Can the second law of thermodynamics explain our mental experience of the direction of time? According to an influential approach, the past hypothesis of universal low entropy also explains how the psychological arrow comes about. We argue that although this approach has many attractive features, it cannot explain the psychological arrow after all. In particular, we show that the past hypothesis is neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the psychological arrow on the basis of current physics. We propose two necessary (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  43. The Nineteenth-Century Thomist from the Far East: Cardinal Zeferino González, OP (1831–1894).Levine Andro Lao - 2021 - Philippiniana Sacra 56 (167):277-306.
    This article reintroduces Fr. Zeferino González, OP (1831-1894) to scholars of Church history, philosophy, and cultural heritage. He was an alumnus of the University of Santo Tomás in Manila, a Cardinal, and a champion of the revival of Catholic Philosophy that led to the promulgation of Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris. Specifically, this essay presents, firstly, the Cardinal’s biography in the context of his experience as a missionary in the Far East; secondly, the intellectual tradition in Santo Tomás in Manila, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Does reflective equilibrium help us converge?Andreas Freivogel - 2023 - Synthese 202 (6):1-22.
    I address the worry that reflective equilibrium is too weak as an account of justification because it fails to let differing views converge. I take up informal aspects of convergence and operationalise them in a formal model of reflective equilibrium. This allows for exploration by the means of computer simulation. Findings show that the formal model does not yield unique outputs, but still boosts agreement. I conclude from this that reflective equilibrium is best seen as a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. How Far Does the European Union Reach? Foreign Land Acquisitions and the Boundaries of Political Communities.Torsten Menge - 2019 - Land 8 (3).
    The recent global surge in large-scale foreign land acquisitions marks a radical transformation of the global economic and political landscape. Since land that attracts capital often becomes the site of expulsions and displacement, it also leads to new forms of migration. In this paper, I explore this connection from the perspective of a political philosopher. I argue that changes in global land governance unsettle the congruence of political community and bounded territory that we often take for granted. As a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  46. Relativism, Particularism and Reflective Equilibrium.Howard Sankey - 2014 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (2):281-292.
    In previous work, I have sought to show that the basic argument for epistemic relativism derives from the problem of the criterion that stems from ancient Pyrrhonian scepticism. Because epistemic relativism depends upon a sceptical strategy, it is possible to respond to relativism on the basis of an anti-sceptical strategy. I argue that the particularist response to scepticism proposed by Roderick Chisholm may be combined with a naturalistic and reliabilist conception of epistemic warrant as the basis for a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  47. Far-Persons.Gary Comstock - 2017 - In Woodhall Andrew & Garmendia da Trindade Gabriel (eds.), Ethics and/or Politics: Approaching the Issues Concerning Nonhuman Animals. Palgrave. pp. 39-71.
    I argue for the moral relevance of a category of individuals I characterize as far-persons. Following Gary Varner, I distinguish near-persons, animals with a " robust autonoetic consciousness " but lacking an adult human's " biographical sense of self, " from the merely sentient, those animals living "entirely in the present." I note the possibility of a third class. Far-persons lack a biographical sense of self, possess a weak autonoetic consciousness, and are able to travel mentally through time a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  48. Quantum Foundations of Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics.Orly Shenker - 2022 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics. London, UK: Routledge. pp. Ch. 29.
    Statistical mechanics is often taken to be the paradigm of a successful inter-theoretic reduction, which explains the high-level phenomena (primarily those described by thermodynamics) by using the fundamental theories of physics together with some auxiliary hypotheses. In my view, the scope of statistical mechanics is wider since it is the type-identity physicalist account of all the special sciences. But in this chapter, I focus on the more traditional and less controversial domain of this theory, namely, that of explaining the (...) phenomena.What are the fundamental theories that are taken to explain the thermodynamic phenomena? The lively research into the foundations of classical statistical mechanics suggests that using classical mechanics to explain the thermodynamic phenomena is fruitful. Strictly speaking, in contemporary physics, classical mechanics is considered to be false. Since classical mechanics preserves certain explanatory and predictive aspects of the true fundamental theories, it can be successfully applied in certain cases. In other circumstances, classical mechanics has to be replaced by quantum mechanics. In this chapter I ask the following two questions: I) How does quantum statistical mechanics differ from classical statistical mechanics? How are the well-known differences between the two fundamental theories reflected in the statistical mechanical account of high-level phenomena? II) How does quantum statistical mechanics differ from quantum mechanics simpliciter? To make our main points I need to only consider non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Most of the ideas described and addressed in this chapter hold irrespective of the choice of a (so-called) interpretation of quantum mechanics, and so I will mention interpretations only when the differences between them are important to the matter discussed. (shrink)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  49. Mass Hypnoses: The Rise of the Far Right from an Adornian and Freudian Perspective.Claudia Leeb - 2018 - Berlin Journal of Critical Theory 2 (3):59-82.
    Why did millions of people respond to the failures of neoliberal capitalism by voting in leaders that further undermine their existence? In this article, I combine the insights of the early Frankfurt School Critical Theory (Theodor W. Adorno) with the insights of psychoanalytic theory (Sigmund Freud) to show how economic factors interact with psychological factors in the rise of the far-right today. The propaganda techniques used by far-right leaders create conditions in masses that are akin to hypnoses. Such techniques induce (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. How Anti-Humeans Can Embrace a Thermodynamic Reduction of Time’s Causal Arrow.Eli I. Lichtenstein - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):1161-1171.
    Some argue that time’s causal arrow is grounded in an underlying thermodynamic asymmetry. Often, this is tied to Humean skepticism that causes produce their effects, in any robust sense of ‘produce’. Conversely, those who advocate stronger notions of natural necessity often reject thermodynamic reductions of time’s causal arrow. Against these traditional pairings, I argue that ‘reduction-plus-production’ is coherent. Reductionists looking to invoke robust production can insist that there are metaphysical constraints on the signs of objects’ velocities in any (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
1 — 50 / 962