Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
The author or concept searched is found in the following 41 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic Principle | Gould | IV 314 Anthropic Principle/Gould: (physicist Freeman Dyson took this term from an opponent): Dyson: "I don't feel like a stranger in this universe; I find more and more evidence that the universe somehow must have known we were coming".(1) Only evidence: there are some laws of nature that would have prevented life if the initial conditions had been a little different. Example Dyson: "Suppose the distances of the galaxies were 10 times smaller (than an average of 32 trillion km), then it would be very likely that in the 3.5 billion years at least one celestial body would have come so close that it would have directed the Earth out of orbit around the Sun and destroyed all life."(2) Dyson: "The special harmony between the structure of the universe and the needs of life and intelligence is a manifestation of the meaning of the mind in the scheme of things".(3) IV 315 GouldVsAnthropic principle: that is an argument that has already been moth-eaten. Central error: results from the nature of history: every complex historical event represents a summation of improbabilities and thus becomes absolutely improbable itself. But something must always happen, even if a certain "something" amazes us by its improbability. We could look at any event and say, "Isn't that amazing?" For example, let us assume that the universe consists of little more than diprotons. Would that be bad? Would we have to conclude that some God looked or loved like coupled hydrogen nuclei, or that no God or Spirit existed at all? But if there is a God, why does he have to prefer a cosmos that creates a life like ours? Why should diprotons not be witnesses of a pre-existent intelligence, even if no chronicler could be found? Does all intelligence have to have an uncontrollable urge to embody itself in a universe of its choice? 1. F. Dyson,. (1979). Disturbing the universe. New York: Harper and Row. 2. F. Dyson, ibid. 3. F. Dyson, ibid. |
Gould I Stephen Jay Gould The Panda’s Thumb. More Reflections in Natural History, New York 1980 German Edition: Der Daumen des Panda Frankfurt 2009 Gould II Stephen Jay Gould Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes. Further Reflections in Natural History, New York 1983 German Edition: Wie das Zebra zu seinen Streifen kommt Frankfurt 1991 Gould III Stephen Jay Gould Full House. The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, New York 1996 German Edition: Illusion Fortschritt Frankfurt 2004 Gould IV Stephen Jay Gould The Flamingo’s Smile. Reflections in Natural History, New York 1985 German Edition: Das Lächeln des Flamingos Basel 1989 |
| Behavior | Benkler | Benkler I 386 Behavior/Institutional Ecology/Law/Society/Equilibrium/Path Dependence/Benkler: First, law affects human behavior on a micro-motivational level and on a macro-social organizational level. This is in contradistinction to, on the one hand, the classical Marxist claim that law is epiphenomenal, and, on the other hand, the increasingly rare simple economic models that ignore transaction costs and institutional barriers and simply assume that people will act in order to maximize their welfare, irrespective of institutional arrangements. >Epiphenomenalism. Second, the causal relationship between law and human behavior is complex. Simple deterministic models of the form “if law X, then behavior Y” have been used as assumptions, but these are widely understood as, and criticized for being, oversimplifications for methodological purposes. However, they also shape social norms with regard to behaviors, psychological attitudes toward various behaviors, the cultural understanding of actions, and the politics of claims about behaviors and practices. Some push back and nullify the law, some amplify its I 387 effects; it is not always predictable which of these any legal change will be. Third, and as part of the complexity of the causal relation, the effects of law differ in different material, social, and cultural contexts. The same law introduced in different societies or at different times will have different effects. It may enable and disable a different set of practices, and trigger a different cascade of feedback and counter-effects. Fourth, the process of lawmaking is not exogenous to the effects of law on social relations and human behavior. One can look at positive political theory or at the history of social movements to see that the shape of law itself is contested in society because it makes (through its complex causal mechanisms) some behaviors less attractive, valuable, or permissible and others more so. Different societies will differ in initial conditions and their historically contingent first moves in response to similar perturbations, and variances will emerge in their actual practices (…). The term “institutional ecology” refers to this context-dependent, causally complex, feedback-ridden, path-dependent process. I 388 The possibility of multiple stable equilibria alongside each other evoked by the stories of radio and print media is a common characteristic to both ecological models and analytically tractable models of path dependency. Both methodological approaches depend on feedback effects and therefore suggest that for any given path divergence, there is a point in time where early actions that trigger feedbacks can cause large and sustained differences over time. >Path dependence. |
Benkler I Yochai Benkler The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom New Haven 2007 |
| Causal Explanation | Fraassen | Schurz I 228 Causality/van Fraassen: Thesis: the concept of causal process is theory-dependent. Schurz: ditto. Schurz: (1990a(1), 277) Proposal: to explicate the causality relation by reference to the maximal complete causal model ; M(A, E I W). (W: knowledge of circumstances initial conditions, etc.). >Theory dependence. Event/explanation/Schurz: in a deductive-nomological event explanation must. (i) the general premises must be law-like (ii) the conjunction A of antecedent premises must be a cause of E acceptable in the epistemic background system W. >Deductive-nomological explanation. 1. Schurz, G. (1990a). "Was ist wissenschaftliches Verstehen?". In: Schurz (1990, ed.) 235-267. |
Fr I B. van Fraassen The Scientific Image Oxford 1980 Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
| Causes | Mayr | I 101 Cause/Bbiology: it can be difficult or even impossible to find the exact the cause for an interaction of complex systems. >Causality, >Effect. I 102 Strict causality: can usually be determined by considering the selected option at each step of the action chain in retrospect. In retrospect, even randomly chosen components can be regarded as causal. >Causal explanation. I 102 Causes/Mayr: Every phenomenon is the result of two causes, an indirect one ("why, genetic program") and an direct one (functional, "how"). I 103 Cause: in the inanimate world there is only one kind of causes, that of the natural laws (often in combination with random processes). >Laws of nature, >Random, >Necessity, >Initial conditions. I 162 Cause: E.g. "Indirect cause": choice of a moderate time of year for the rearing of the offspring. Indirect: abundance of food direct cause: length of days. I 163 Cause/Paul Weiss/Mayr: all biological systems have two sides: they are both causal mechanisms and products of evolution.(1) 165 Cause/Biology: direct: affect the phenotype: morphology and behavior, mechanically, here and now, decoding a genetic code discovery by experiments Indirect: affect the genotype - probabilistic - effective and emerged over long periods of time, emergence and alteration of genetic programs discovery by conclusions from historical representations. >Terminology/Mayr. 1. P. Weiss (1947). The Place of Physiology in the Biological Sciences. In: Federation Proceedings 6, p. 523-525. |
Mayr I Ernst Mayr This is Biology, Cambridge/MA 1997 German Edition: Das ist Biologie Heidelberg 1998 |
| Conditions | Duhem | I 186 Initial conditions/Duhem: if the initial conditions are not given, questions have no sense at all. E.g. Whether the planetary movements will continue this way for evermore. >Initial conditions, >Explanation/Hempel. |
Duh I P. Duhem La théorie physique, son objet et sa structure, Paris 1906 German Edition: Ziel und Struktur der physikalischen Theorien Hamburg 1998 |
| Conditions | Genz | II 59 Initial conditions/Newton/Genz: Newton was the first to distinguish between initial conditions and the laws of nature. >Laws/Newton. II 195 Initial conditions/initial states/nature/gas: in nature there are countless initial states. But a Turing machine could not list them all, because it could not represent them all differently. >Initial conditions, >Turing machine, cf. >Determinism. |
Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Conditions | Spinoza | Genz II 312 Natural laws/Initial conditions/Spinoza/Genz: Spinoza does not distinguish between laws and initial conditions. Or he recognizes only one initial condition of the universe and assigns law character to it. >Understanding, >Sense, >Hermeneutics, >Initial conditions, >Determinism, >Order, >Laws, >Laws of nature, >History. |
Spinoza I B. Spinoza Spinoza: Complete Works Indianapolis 2002 Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Contingency | Luhmann | Reese-Schäfer II 100 "Double Contingency"/Parsons/Reese-Schäfer: no action can ensue if Alter makes his action dependent on how Ego acts and Ego wants to connect its behavior to Alter. Solution: time dimension. Double contingency inevitably leads to the formation of social systems. >Time/Luhmann, >Action/Luhmann, >Action system/Luhmann. AU Cass 10 Double Contingency/Luhmann: I have to think about what I'm doing, so that you do what I want you to do. AU Cass 14 Double Contingency/Parsons: the social order already exists before the contracts, family before family law, church before dogmatism, etc. Cf. >Beginning. Luhmann: question: how is an optimal way found if everybody can contribute their effort, but also their denial? - Two actors are assumed - Alter/Ego. Contingency: two dimensions: 1) Dependency on something 2) It might be different. Common values are secondary. The common values are not even recognized in the beginning. - Pure temporality - One acts first - thus he breaks through a circle. - ("I do what you want if you ..."). cf. >Circular reasoning. Question: what was first, the double contingency or the system? >System/Luhmann. AU Cass 14 Double Contingency/Luhmann: conflict resolution - existence only in execution, no history, no initial conditions. |
AU I N. Luhmann Introduction to Systems Theory, Lectures Universität Bielefeld 1991/1992 German Edition: Einführung in die Systemtheorie Heidelberg 1992 Lu I N. Luhmann Die Kunst der Gesellschaft Frankfurt 1997 Reese-Schäfer II Walter Reese-Schäfer Luhmann zur Einführung Hamburg 2001 |
| Covering Laws | Dray | Schurz I 224 Covering law/Dray/Schurz: (Dray 1957)(1): simplest case of a deductive nomological explanation: here antecedent and explanandum are implicatively connected by a single law. logical form: (x)(Ax > Ex), Aa/Ea. HempelVsDray/HempelVscovering law: its own model includes more complex explanations e.g. planet positions explained from initial conditions plus laws of nature. >Models, >Theories, >Explanations. 1. Dray, W. (1957). Laws and Explanation in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Dray I W. Dray Laws and Explanation in History Westport 1979 Dray I W. H. Dray Perspectives on History Sydney 1980 Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
| Darwinism | Huxley | Danto III 197 Darwinism/NietzscheVsDarwinism/Nietzsche/DantoVsNietzsche/Danto: all too often Nietzsche falls into the stupidest misconceptions of Darwinism by equating survival with excellence. >F. Nietzsche, >Evolution. Nietzsche overlooks what Th. H. Huxley has already noticed: Evolution/Darwinism/Huxley, Th. H.: the slightest change in the chemical composition of our atmosphere is enough to ensure that perhaps only a few lichens survive and thus become the masters of the world. >Fitness, >Survival, >Selection, >Initial conditions, >Life. |
HuxleyA I Aldous Huxley Science, Liberty and Peace London 1946 HuxleyTh I Thomas Henry Huxley Lectures On Evolution Whitefish, MT 2010 Danto I A. C. Danto Connections to the World - The Basic Concepts of Philosophy, New York 1989 German Edition: Wege zur Welt München 1999 Danto III Arthur C. Danto Nietzsche as Philosopher: An Original Study, New York 1965 German Edition: Nietzsche als Philosoph München 1998 Danto VII A. C. Danto The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (Columbia Classics in Philosophy) New York 2005 |
| Deductive-nomological Explanation | Schurz | I 223 Deductive-nomological explanation/Hempel/Schurz: (Hempel 1942(1), Hempel/Oppenheim 1948(2), Vs: Stegmüller 1969(3), Salmon 1989(4)). Deductive-nomological: Explanans: set of premises: from strictly general propositions G and antecedent A (singular propositions). Explanandum: conclusion E. (sing proposition). Consequence condition: E is a deductive consequence of G and A. Ex G: All metals conduct electricity A: This vase is metallic E: Therefore it conducts electricity. Law: law premises are never definitely verifiable. Model: therefore the epistemic model version is more important. I.e. it is about acceptance and not about truth against a background knowledge. >Background, >Knowledge, >Models, >Model theory. I 224 Potential Explanation/Hempel: Here merely logical consistency of the premises is required. This is important when evaluating hypotheses in terms of their explanatory power. >Best explanation. I 224 Covering law/Dray/Schurz: (Dray 1957)(5): simplest case of a deductive nomological explanation: here antecedent and explanandum are implicatively connected by a single law. Logical form: (x)(Ax > Ex), Aa/Ea. >Covering laws. HempelVsDray/HempelVsCovering law: Hempel's own model includes more complex explanations. Ex. planetary positions explained from initial conditions plus laws of nature. I 228 Law/Explanation/Schurz: Deductive-nomological explanation of law by higher-level theories cannot be directly applied to the causality requirement. ((s) Schurz/(s): laws are explained by higher-level theories). Law of nature/problem/Schurz: A law is not a spatiotemporally localized fact and can therefore not be the subject of a causal relation. Law/causality/explanation/Schurz: Many laws are not causal: E.g. the laws of evolution are not causal. Also in physics: Explanation due to symmetry principles, Ex many explanations in quantum mechanics. >Explanation/Hempel, >Explanation/Hegel, >Explanation/Scriven, >Causality, >Causal explanations, >Laws, >Law-likeness, >Laws of nature. 1. Hempel, C. (1942). "The Function of General Laws in History". In: The Journal of Philosophy 39, (abgedruckt in ders. 1965, 221-243.) 2. Hempel, C. & Oppenheim, P. (1948). "Studies in the Logic of Explanation", >Philosophy of Science 39, 135-175. 3. Stegmüller, W. (1969). Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Philosophie. Band I:Wissenschaftliche Erklärung und Begründung. Berlin: Springer. 4. Salmon, W. (1989). Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 5. Dray, W. (1957). Laws and Explanation in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
| Dependence | Bigelow | I 312 Functional dependence/Counterfactual conditional/Lewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: For example, an icon on the screen obeys the movements of a joystick. We formulate this with counterfactual conditionals. Counterfactual dependence: is expressed by a series of counterfactual conditionals: p1 would> be q1 p2 would be> q2 ... pi would be > would be qi E.g. Joystick: the four directions p1 - p4. There can also be an infinite series of alternatives. E.g. Acceleration. Logical form: Px would be > would be q f(x) Natural laws/Bigelow/Pargetter. Many are in reality equations, which together with initial conditions contain series of counterfactual conditionals expressing counterfactual dependence. >Counterfactual conditional, >Counterfactual dependency, >Natural Laws, >Equations. I 313 Counterfactual conditionals/natural laws/Bigelow/Pargetter: the counterfactual conditionals are thus in a connection with the laws of nature. It may be that e.g. the joystick does not work properly. Nobody would come to the idea to say that the movement of the icon is legally related to the stick. This only happens when the device is in good condition. Solution/Bigelow/Pargetter: With the establishment of the series of counterfactual conditionals, we set up only conditions for laws. Counterfactual dependence/Bigelow/Pargetter: (series of counterfactual conditionals) provides indirect information about laws. And thus provide information about causes. And ultimately, why explanations. --- I 314 E.g. p1 would be > would be q1 p2 would be > would be q2 p3 would be > would be q3 p4 would be > would be q4 Let p3 be true and q3 true. Then we can say that q3 is true because p3 is true. The icon moves in this direction because the stick has been moved in this direction. >Causality, >Causal explanation. In the context of the alternatives we can also say q3 is true instead of q1, q2, or q4. Why Explanation/Bigelow/Pargetter: E.g. a priest asked a bank robber why he was robbing banks - "Because there is the money". Explanations: often serve to exclude alternatives. Objectivity/explanation/objective/Bigelow/Pargetter: what is objective is whether counterfactual conditionals are true or false in a given row (expressing the counterfactual dependence). >Why-Questions. Why-Questions/Context/Counterfactual dependence/Explanation/Bigelow/Pargetter: thus, the counterfactual dependence also takes into account the context dependency in the case of why explanations. >Context dependency. I 315 Why explanation: but is limited to prominent possibilities. Counterfactual Conditional/Bigelow/Pargetter: restrict the laws Laws: restrict the causes. >Cause, >Effect. |
Big I J. Bigelow, R. Pargetter Science and Necessity Cambridge 1990 |
| Derivability | Genz | II 216 Derivability/natural laws/physics/Genz: for physicists it is nothing new that some sentences are not derivable: they constantly add sentences about new initial conditions or new laws. Gödel: has at best shown them that this process can never be completed. Decidability/Genz: a discovery can decide a previously undecidable statement. >Physics, >Mathematics, >Derivation, >Decidability, >Decision theory. |
Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Determinism | Barrow | I 232 Determinism / Barrow: what except the present, should determine the future? >Initial conditions, >Past, >Present, >Future, >Time, >Causality, >Path dependence. I 420 BarrowVsDeterminism: a weakness of the usual determinism: it often forgets what we need to know about the elasticity in the image of the great billiards game. |
B I John D. Barrow Warum die Welt mathematisch ist Frankfurt/M. 1996 B II John D. Barrow The World Within the World, Oxford/New York 1988 German Edition: Die Natur der Natur: Wissen an den Grenzen von Raum und Zeit Heidelberg 1993 B III John D. Barrow Impossibility. The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits, Oxford/New York 1998 German Edition: Die Entdeckung des Unmöglichen. Forschung an den Grenzen des Wissens Heidelberg 2001 |
| Determinism | Davidson | McGinn I 135 Domestication Theory/McGinn: The decision connection only applies as a special case of domestication attempts, of a natural connection of a different kind, whereas the modality concerned is not fundamentally different from other modalities. Approximation to an independent model of the course of action. Such reductivist experiments can a) be deterministic (Davidson) or b) indeterministic. McGinn I 135 Davidson/Domestication Theory/McGinn: previous world conditions are a causally sufficient condition for a specific decision. Freedom is then a certain kind of causal series, namely, in which there is a corresponding set of mental precursors. >Initial conditions, >Free will, >Anomalous monism. Freedom is that desires and beliefs cause causal effects. McGinnVsDavidson: makes no sense to the concept of freedom of action, for it looks as if it is of the same kind as any other causality. The corresponding causality is then not an "event causality" but an "action causality". >Actions/Davidson. |
Davidson I D. Davidson Der Mythos des Subjektiven Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (a) Donald Davidson "Tho Conditions of Thoughts", in: Le Cahier du Collège de Philosophie, Paris 1989, pp. 163-171 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (b) Donald Davidson "What is Present to the Mind?" in: J. Brandl/W. Gombocz (eds) The MInd of Donald Davidson, Amsterdam 1989, pp. 3-18 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (c) Donald Davidson "Meaning, Truth and Evidence", in: R. Barrett/R. Gibson (eds.) Perspectives on Quine, Cambridge/MA 1990, pp. 68-79 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (d) Donald Davidson "Epistemology Externalized", Ms 1989 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (e) Donald Davidson "The Myth of the Subjective", in: M. Benedikt/R. Burger (eds.) Bewußtsein, Sprache und die Kunst, Wien 1988, pp. 45-54 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson II Donald Davidson "Reply to Foster" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 Davidson III D. Davidson Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford 1980 German Edition: Handlung und Ereignis Frankfurt 1990 Davidson IV D. Davidson Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford 1984 German Edition: Wahrheit und Interpretation Frankfurt 1990 Davidson V Donald Davidson "Rational Animals", in: D. Davidson, Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, Oxford 2001, pp. 95-105 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 McGinn I Colin McGinn Problems in Philosophy. The Limits of Inquiry, Cambridge/MA 1993 German Edition: Die Grenzen vernünftigen Fragens Stuttgart 1996 McGinn II C. McGinn The Mysteriouy Flame. Conscious Minds in a Material World, New York 1999 German Edition: Wie kommt der Geist in die Materie? München 2001 |
| Determinism | Deutsch | I 264 Determinism/Deutsch: Determinism would not even in principle lead to complete predictability, because we would have to know what has happened in all universes, but each of us can only perceive one universe directly. >Quantum mechanics, >Initial conditions, cf.>Motion/Deutsch. |
Deutsch I D. Deutsch Fabric of Reality, Harmondsworth 1997 German Edition: Die Physik der Welterkenntnis München 2000 |
| Determinism | Feynman | I 540 Determinism/Knowledge/Indeterminateness/Feynman: even if the world were consistently classically determined (QM did not apply), we could not predict the behavior of the individual particles: the smallest initial error quickly becomes a great uncertainty. If any precision is given, no matter how accurate, then you can specify a time that is long enough that our predictions are not valid for such a long time. For example, with an accuracy of 1 to a billion, it is not about millions of years, time only depends on the error logarithmically. We will lose all information after a very short time. >Initial conditions. It is therefore not fair to say that we should have realized from the freedom of the human mind that "quantum mechanics" would have meant the redemption from a mechanistic universe. >Quantum mechanics. Uncertainty Principle/Indeterminacy/Feynman: in practical terms it already existed in classical physics. >Uncertainty relation. |
Feynman I Richard Feynman The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Vol. I, Mainly Mechanics, Radiation, and Heat, California Institute of Technology 1963 German Edition: Vorlesungen über Physik I München 2001 Feynman II R. Feynman The Character of Physical Law, Cambridge, MA/London 1967 German Edition: Vom Wesen physikalischer Gesetze München 1993 |
| Determinism | Inwagen | Pauen I 273 Determinism/Peter van Inwagen/Pauen: determinism is not an implication of physicalism. The principle of causal closure refers to the fact that only physical explanations may be used. This does not mean that the cause/effect ratio must always be deterministic. The principle of physical determination does not make a statement about the necessity of certain causal chains but only requires that there is a physically describable change for every change that can be described in a higher level. van Inwagen: determinism thus stands for the thesis that the state of the world can be derived anytime later from a complete description and knowledge of the state of affair. >Initial conditions. Pauen: it is more than controversial that the determinism applies to our physical reality. --- Lewis V 296 Determinism/VsSoft determinism/VsCompatibilism/van InwagenVsLewis: (against the soft determinism which I pretend to represent): E.g. supposed to reductio that I could have lifted my hand, though determinism would be true. Then follows from four premises which I cannot deny that I could have produced a false conjunction HL from a proposition H over a time before my birth and a certain proposition about a law L. Premise 5: if so, then I could have falsified L. Premise 6: but I could not have falsified L (contradiction). LewisVsInwagen: 5 and 6 are not both true. Which one is true depends on what Inwagen means by "could have falsified". But not in the ordinary language but in Inwagen's artificial language. Even there it does not matter what Inwagen himself means! What is important is whether we can give a sense to this at all, which makes all premisses valid without circularity. Inwagen: (verbally) third meaning for "could have falsified": namely, and only if the acting person could have arranged things the way that his/her acting plus the whole truth about the prehistory together imply the nontruth of the proposition. Then, premise 6 says that I could not have arranged things the way that I was predestined not to arrange them like that. Lewis: but it is not at all instructive to see that soft determinism has to reject premise 6 that was interpreted in that way. V 297 Falsification/action/free will/Lewis: provisional definition: an event falsifies a proposition only if it is necessary that in the case that the event happens, then the proposition is false. But my act of throwing a rock would not itself falsify the proposition that the window in the course remains intact. Everything that is true, is that my act invokes another event that would falsify the proposition. The act itself does not falsify any law. It would falsify only a conjunction of prehistory and law. Everything that is true, is that my act precedes another act - the miracle - and this falsifies the law. Weak: let us state that I would be able to falsify a proposition in the weak sense if and only if I do something, the proposition would be falsified (but not necessarily by my act and not necessarily by any event evoked by my act). (Lewis pro "weak thesis" (soft determinism)). Strong: if the proposition is falsified either by my act itself or by an event which has been evoked by my act. Inwagen/Lewis: the first part of his thesis stands, no matter whether we represent the strong or weak thesis: If I could lift my hand although determinism is true and I have not lifted it then it is true in the weak and strong sense that I could have falsified the conjunction HL (propositions on the prehistory and the natural laws). But I could have falsified the proposition L in the weak sense although I could not have falsified it in the strong sense. Lewis: if we represent the weak sense, I deny premise 6. If we represent the strong sense, I deny premise 5. Inwagen: represents both premises by considering analogous cases. LewisVsInwagen: I believe that the cases are not analogous: they are cases in which the strong case and the weak case do not diverge at all: Premise 6/Inwagen: he asks us to reject the idea that a physicist could accelerate a particle faster than the light. LewisVsInwagen: but that does not help to support premise 6 in the weak sense,... V 298 ...because the rejected presumption is that the physicist could falsify a natural law in the strong sense. Premise 5/Inwagen: here we are to reject the assumption that a traveler might falsify a conjunction of propositions about the prehistory and one about his/her future journey differently than by falsifying the nonhistorical part. LewisVsInwagen: you can reject the assumption completely which does nothing to support premise 5 in the strong sense. What would follow if one could falsify the conjunction in the strong sense? That one could falsify the non-historical part in the strong sense? This is what premise 5 would support in the strong sense. Or would only follow (what I think) that the non-historical part could be rejected in the weak sense? The example of the traveler does not help here because a proposition about future journeys could be falsified in the weak as well as the strong sense! Cf. >Strength of theories. |
Inwagen I Peter van Inwagen Metaphysics Fourth Edition Pauen I M. Pauen Grundprobleme der Philosophie des Geistes Frankfurt 2001 Lewis I David K. Lewis Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989 Lewis I (a) David K. Lewis An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (b) David K. Lewis Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (c) David K. Lewis Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980 In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis II David K. Lewis "Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Lewis IV David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983 Lewis V David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986 Lewis VI David K. Lewis Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969 German Edition: Konventionen Berlin 1975 LewisCl Clarence Irving Lewis Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970 LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 |
| Determinism | Pauen | Pauen I 274 Determinism/Van Inwagen/Pauen: the principle of the causal closure says that only physical explanation may be used. - It is not about a need for certain causal chains. Only requirement: that for any higher order describable change there is a physically describable change. Thesis: from full description later states can be derived. >Initial conditions, >Levels/order, >Levels of description, >Description, >Causality, >Causal explanation, >Causal dependence, >P. van Inwagen. Pauen: determinism is more than controversial. I 275 Determinism/freedom/Moore: determinism does not entitle us to the conclusion that nothing else could have happened. >Freedom, >Freedom of will, >Actions, cf. >Anomalous monism. Ambiguity of "can": a) possible actions b) physical impossibility. G.E. Moore: For the purposes of a) it is possible to say "I could have decided otherwise" - ("conditional analysis"). VsMoore: Example he would falsely call psychological coercion "free". >Coercion. |
Pauen I M. Pauen Grundprobleme der Philosophie des Geistes Frankfurt 2001 |
| Determinism | Sokal | I 162 Determinism/Bricmont/Sokal: here one has to distinguish between determinism and predictability. >Predictions, >Theories. Determinism: depends on how nature behaves and is independent of us. >Despendency, >Independence, >observer relative. Predictability: depends partly on nature and partly on us. For example, the movement of the clock is unpredictable for us because we do not know the initial state. However, it would be wrong to claim that the movement of the watch is therefore no longer deterministic. >Initial conditions. E.g. Pendulum: without external force its movement is deterministic and not chaotic. If you exercise a periodic force, its movement can become chaotic and therefore much harder to predict - but is it no longer deterministic? >Chaos. |
Sokal I Alan Sokal Jean Bricmont Fashionabel Nonsense. Postmodern Intellectuals Abuse of Science, New York 1998 German Edition: Eleganter Unsinn. Wie die Denker der Postmoderne die Wissenschaften missbrauchen München 1999 Sokal II Alan Sokal Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science New York 1999 |
| Explanation | Chalmers | I 50 Explanation/Chalmers: a good explanation is often one that covers many cases. Problem: whether the individual case is satisfied. Cf. >Strength of theories, >Stronger/weaker. Solution: in biological phenomena it is often the case that similar cases have a related background. >Phenomena, >Similarity, >Conditions, >Causal explanation, >Initial conditions. I 84 Explanation/Explication/Chalmers/(s): Chalmers distinguishes between explication and explanation. The latter is used in the context of reduction as a reductive explanation, e.g., of phenomenal properties, while he reserves explication for conceptual explanations. >Concepts, >Reduction. E.g. The property of being Rolf Harris does not constitute a phenomenon that needs an explanation, as opposed to an explication. I 121 Explanation/Consciousness/Chalmers: even if we refined our explanations more and more, they would only provide more refined explanations of cognitive functions, but not explanations of our conscious experience. >Consciousness/Chalmers. I 122 The existence of consciousness will always be an additional fact to our structural and dynamic facts. But we do not have to give up any explanation of consciousness. We just have to say goodbye to the idea that this explanation should be reductive. Cf. >Reductionism. I 177 Explanation/Consciousness/Paradoxy/Chalmers: Problem: Consciousness cannot be explained reductively, judgments about consciousness and phenomenal judgments (about experiences) must be explained, however, because they are in the field of psychology. >Experience. Paradoxically, consciousness is ultimately irrelevant to the explanation of phenomenal judgments. (Avshalom Elitzur (1989) (1), Roger Shepard (Psychologist, 1993) (2). I 178 Solution/Chalmers: the content of my experiences cannot be explained reductively. >Content. Problem: if we treat the judgments ("experience reports") of the zombies deflationistically ((s) as simple quotes), they can be explained reductively. >Zombies/Chalmers. Solution: it is often possible to use higher-level properties in order to make lower-level properties superfluous (e.g. molecular motion instead of heat). >Levels/order, >Description Levels. Problem: the higher-level properties are still logically supervenient on the physical. That is, when an action is explained neurophysiologically, this does not render the appeal to memory (as a phenomenal property) irrelevant. >Supervenience. I 179 This relevance is inherited by the logical supervenience. For example, if a single man has a need for female accompaniment, which is explained by the fact that he is male and unmarried, that does not make the fact that he is a bachelor irrelevant. In general, if two sets of properties are conceptually connected, an explanation in terms of the one set does not render the existence of an explanation in terms of the other set irrelevant. Solution: in physical explanations: when logical supervenience is involved, there is no explanatory irrelevancy: a description of a higher level is logically related to one of a lower level. Problem: the consciousness is not logically supervenient on the physical. There is therefore no conceptual dependence of the levels. >Levels/order, >Description Levels, >Dependency. I 188 Explanation/Consciousness/Chalmers: unlike the explanation of religious belief, where the assumption of divine existence is demanded for the explanation of other phenomena, the explanation of consciousness is different: here consciousness is already given and does not have to be added for an assumption. Consciousness is also not explained by judgments about conscious experience ("This is a red object"). >Experience, >Phenomena, >Qualia. I 191 Explanation/Consciousness/Chalmers: There are three ways to argue against the alleged irrelevancy of consciousness for the explanation of behavior. >Behavior. I 192 1. The argument from the self-knowledge/Chalmers: we know that we have conscious experiences ourselves. But it is hard to argue with this. >Self-knowledge, >Self-awareness. Solution: if experiences were by explanation irrelevant, we could not know that we have some. I 193 1st Argument from the Causal Theory of Knowledge: Problem: if experience is causally irrelevant, I cannot argue with it. Then I have no knowledge about my experiences. Shoemaker (1975)(3) thus argues for a materialism of consciousness and for a reductive functionalism. >Causal theory of knowledge, >S. Shoemaker, >Materialism, >Functionalism. Zombie/Shoemaker: for Shoemaker Zombies are logically impossible. >Zombies. Knowledge/Consciousness/Chalmers: a property dualist must argue that knowledge about conscious experiences is a different kind of knowledge than the knowledge about which one is talking about in the context of causation by objects. >Property dualism. I 194 Reliability Theory/Chalmers: is not appropriate in the case of our knowledge about ourselves. However, the phenomenal judgments of my zombie twins are not reliable. Therefore, one could assume that reliability is a distinguishing feature between me and the zombie. But my self-knowledge about consciousness is of a different kind: it is reflected. We are sure that we have a consciousness, which can be doubted at most "philosophically". >Reliability theory. I 195 Reliability/Chalmers: where is reliability missing? E.g. in situations like those of the brains in a vat. Such examples do not endanger our certainty that we have an awareness since there is no causality involved. >Brains in a vat. I 196 Our approach to our consciousness is quite direct, it is not mediated. >Self-consciousness. I 197 Uncorrigibility/Chalmers: uncorrigibility is not meant with this direct access! >Incorrigibility. I 198 Causation/Consciousness/Chalmers: we do not need any causality to explain our conscious experiences: our knowledge of this is based on a much more direct relationship. It's about how I know about it, not how my brain knows about it, so it's not about a physical relation. Cf. >Causality. Problem: beliefs could also form without experiences. >Beliefs. ChalmersVsVs: but then I have certainty about my beliefs. Zombie: would say exactly the same. I 199 ChalmersVsVs: Of course, from a third-person perspective, we do not know whether others have a consciousness (conscious experiences) anyway. But we know it from ourselves. >First person, >Other minds. Beliefs/Zombies: in the end, the zombie could have the same beliefs as I do. ChalmersVsVs: yes, but the evidence for my beliefs is much simpler: it is the experiences. They are the primary. >Experience, >Evidence. Deflationist/inflationist/Chalmers: our argumentation is here deflationary anyway, i.e. about the purely functional role of beliefs. Cf. >Deflationism. Inflationistically, beliefs themselves would be a part of the phenomenal experience. 1. A. Elitzur, Consciousness and the incompleteness of the physical explanation of behavior. Journal of Mind and Behavior 10, 1989,: pp. 1-20. 2. R. N. Shepard, On the physical baisis, ölinguistic representation and conscious experiences of colors. In: G. Harman (Ed) Conceptions of the human Mind: Essays in Honor of George A. Miller, Hillsdale NJ 1993. 3. Sydney Shoemaker, Functionalism and qualia, Philosophical Studies 27 (May):291-315 (1975). |
Cha I D. Chalmers The Conscious Mind Oxford New York 1996 Cha II D. Chalmers Constructing the World Oxford 2014 |
| Explanation | Hempel | Bigelow I 299 Explanation/tradition/laws/Hempel/Bigelow/Pargetter: (Representatives: Hempel and Oppenheim 1948(1), Hempel 1965(2), Mill 1843/50(3), Jevons 1877(4), Ducasse 1925(5), Feigl 1945(6), Popper 1945(7), Hospers 1946(8)). Hempel/terminology/spelling/Bigelow/Pargetter: O: result L: laws C: conditions (sets of sentences, as premises) Then "O" could also be seen as a set of sentences. But we are talking about compound sentences. Then we have: L C O Initial conditions/Hempel/Bigelow/Pargetter: initial conditions are sometimes not needed at all. Sometimes, however, the laws alone do not explain the case: for example, Halley's comet comes back in 60 years, for this we need information about certain facts, it does not only follow from the laws. The facts are contingent, of course. I 301 Non-statistical explanation/Hempel: thesis: if L and C explain O, then they must entail O logically. Otherwise, we have at best a sketch of the explanation that requires further assumptions. Bigelow/Pargetter: this does not yet fully express the idea of the explanation by "deriving from laws": the laws must be used and not only mentioned. In other words, there must be a reliance on laws. BigelowVsHempel/BigelowVsTradition: N.B.: but these are just apparant explanations! I 302 Just as quackers and magicians often provide an explanation with reference to prestigious natural laws, which turns out to be circular on closer inspection. Solution/Hempel: to exclude this, Hempel demands that additionally the premises must be true and O would not have followed if C alone had been without the laws (L). BigelowVsHempel/BigelowVsTradition: there are still a lot of refinements to be made and special cases to consider. Lewis would call that the "one patch per hole" method. Statistical explanation/probabilistic/Hempel/Bigelow/Pargetter: (Hempel 1965) here it is impossible to find laws that predict the exact result. However, it may be very likely in certain cases. Or more likely if the law is true than if it was not true. I 303 The statistical explanations are something like derivations from the thing to be explained. And indeed such derivatives, which originate from invalid conclusion. Logical form: the conclusion should be probable, given the premises. Variants: one can demand a high probability from the outset. Or it should be higher than O's without the premises or weaker: that O only has to be made to a certain degree likely, etc. (Lit: Salmon 1982). Bigelow/Pargetter: all this does not differ significantly from the non-statistical explanation. Statistical laws are also part of the set of laws. Explanation/Bigelow/Pargetter: with Hempel's help, we can now broaden our concept of explanation. I 304 If we get the probability of a result, we have explained the result a little bit as well. Statistical explanation/Hempel/Bigelow/Pargetter: in the end, it is all about whether a result comes out or is likely. We can summarize both cases. "Statistical"/Hempel/Bigelow/Pargetter: "statistical" is only served to attenuate the requirement of logical validity. Explanation/Hempel/Bigelow/Pargetter: thesis: an explanation is an open process. This is important. Both the initial conditions can be varied, as well as the laws derived from other laws. Kepler's laws, for example, have been traced back by Newton to deeper ones. These then logically entail the Kepler ones. I 305 Openness/Hempel: openness is that you may be able to find deeper and even deeper laws. Bigelow/Pargetter: that is one of the strengths of his theory. >Laws, >Natural laws. 1.Hempel, C.G. and P. Oppenheim: Studies in the Logic of Explanation PS, 1984, p. 15. 2.Hempel, C. G.: Aspects of Scientific Explanation, in: Aspects of Scientific Explanation in the Philosophy of Science. New York 1965: The Free Press. 3. Mill, J. St.: A System of Logic, 1843. 4. Stevons W. J.: The Principle of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method, 2nd edition London 1877: Macmillan Press. 5. Ducasse, C. J.: Explanation, Mechanism and Teleology. Journal of Philosophy 22. pp. 150-5. 6. Feigl, H.: Operationism and Scientific Method. Psychological Review 52, 1945, pp. 250-9, 284-8 7. Popper, K. R.: The Open Society and Its Enemies. London 1945. 8. Hospers, J.: On Explanation. Journal of Philosophy 43, 1946, pp. 337-56. Schurz I 224 Explanation/Law/Hempel: The law premises can often be omitted! Humanities/Hempel/Schurz: claimed to be able to provide explanations for them, too, by assuming that laws rule here, too. VsHempel: but these laws are not strict. Hempel: late: for it probabilistic explanation. Schurz I 224 Potential Explanation/Hempel: Here merely logical consistency of the premises is required. This is important when evaluating hypotheses in terms of their explanatory power. >Best explanation. Schurz I 225 Explanation/Hempel/Schurz: is the answer to a why-question. Why-question/Hempel: a) Explanation seeker: asks for causes. b) Justification seeker: asks for reasons of belief. I 226 Causes: can serve as reasons for justification. (Also vice versa!). >Causes, >Justification. Structural equality/prediction/explanation/Hempel/Schurz: (early and middle Hempel): Thesis: explanation and prediction are structurally equal. Popper: ditto: causality = prediction-eduction. Explanation and prediction differ only in the pragmatic time circumstances of the becoming known of premises and conclusion. Prediction: here only the premises are known first. Explanation: vice versa. (...) ex ante reasoning/Hempel: = prediction, potential explanation. Explanation: = ex ante reasoning. ManyVs: (...) >Structures, >Microstructure, >Causal explanation/Schurz, >Explanation/Schurz. |
Hempel I Carl Hempel "On the Logical Positivist’s Theory of Truth" in: Analysis 2, pp. 49-59 In Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk Frankfurt/M. 1977 Hempel II Carl Hempel Problems and Changes in the Empirist Criterion of Meaning, in: Revue Internationale de Philosophie 11, 1950 German Edition: Probleme und Modifikationen des empiristischen Sinnkriteriums In Philosophie der idealen Sprache, J. Sinnreich München 1982 Hempel II (b) Carl Hempel The Concept of Cognitive Significance: A Reconsideration, in: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 80, 1951 German Edition: Der Begriff der kognitiven Signifikanz: eine erneute Betrachtung In Philosophie der idealen Sprache, J. Sinnreich München 1982 Big I J. Bigelow, R. Pargetter Science and Necessity Cambridge 1990 Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
| Facts | Duhem | I XII Fact/Duhem: The concept of facts has lost its independence because facts are always impregnated in theory. Duhem seeks to control between Skylla of inductivism and the Charybdis of apriorism. The concept of the experimental law serves as a steering wheel. Symbols cannot be called true or false, at best appropriate. This also applies to theories as purely symbolic representations. Duhem, however, assigns empirical content to empirical laws, which purely theoretical laws cannot claim. An experimentum crucis (whose failure would disprove the whole theory) is rejected. (> Holism). I 180 By increasing the accuracy of measurement, we have reduced the set of theoretical facts. E.g. Geodetic lines on an infinite surface (I 182). There are those who return in themselves, and those who do not, although they do not move away infinitely (surface: infinitely extended ~ bullhorn) Nevertheless, theoretically, the initial conditions can be determined accurately without obtaining ambiguities, for example when a sphere is to move on a geodetic line. I 183 However, it is quite different when, instead of the theoretical, practical initial conditions are given. Unlimited set of different initial conditions. I 184 If the initial conditions are not mathematically known, but determined by physical methods, and even if they are exact, the question posed will remain unanswerable. I 199 Facts/Duhem: Concrete, very different facts can be confounded when interpreted by the theory that they are only form a single experiment and are represented by a single symbolic expression. One and the same theoretical fact can correspond to an infinite number of practical facts. But also the same practical fact can correspond to an infinite number of theoretical facts, which are logically incompatible with each other. (> Quine,> Quine-Duhem thesis). An experimenter might say: E.g. An increase of the pressure by 100 atmospheres increases the electromotive force by 0.085 volts. He could have said with the same authority: by 0.0844 or 0.0846 volts. For the mathematician the statements are contradictory. For the physicist, whose possibility of differentiation is limited because of the measurement accuracy, they have the same meaning. Difference between mathematics and physics: deviating measurement results are no formal contradiction. > distinction analytic/synthetic/Quine. |
Duh I P. Duhem La théorie physique, son objet et sa structure, Paris 1906 German Edition: Ziel und Struktur der physikalischen Theorien Hamburg 1998 |
| Free Will | Inwagen | Pauen I 280 Incompatibilism/Inwagen/Pauen: thesis: freedom and determinism are not compatible. Everything is already fixed before our birth. I 281 In the same scientific camp: Popper/Eccles, R. Chisholm, Ulrich Pothast, Eduard Dreher, Gottfried Seebaß. >Determinism, >Freedom, >Initial conditions. |
Inwagen I Peter van Inwagen Metaphysics Fourth Edition Pauen I M. Pauen Grundprobleme der Philosophie des Geistes Frankfurt 2001 |
| Inequalities | Rawls | I 100 Inequality/Rawls: there is a principle of remedy for individuals who are disadvantaged because of their natural endowment, at least for the first few years of school. I 101 To my knowledge, however, this principle has never been more than a prima facie principle(1)(2). Rawls: However, the principle of remedy must always be taken into account, no matter what other principles we follow. Difference principle/Rawls: secures resources, e. g. for the promotion of disadvantaged people. >Difference Principle/Rawls. It has the same intention as the principle of remedy. I 102 The basic structure (of a society to be built) can be arranged in such a way that natural inequalities, which cannot be changed, have an effect for the benefit of the most disadvantaged. Nature/natural distribution/Rawls: is neither fair nor unfair. What is fair or unfair are the institutions that deal with this distribution. In justice as fairness ((s) Rawl's approach), members agree to participate in the fate of others. I 103 VsRawls: now one could argue that the preferred ones expect a bigger gain for themselves if they agree to the arrangement. RawlsVsVs: however, this requires a cooperation scheme. I 104 It is nobody's merit to be able to take a certain position in a community through natural talent or disadvantage. Since no right to a certain cooperation scheme with advantages for the better follows from this, it is the difference principle that can be accepted by all. The concept of merit simply cannot be used here. >Income. I 171 Inequality/Economy/Economics/Mathematics/Rawls: we must not underestimate the continuing effect of our individual initial conditions, talents and our original place in society and trust that mathematically appealing solutions would at some point provide a balance. Resolution/Rawls: our principles of justice must remedy the situation. >Principles/Rawls. I 226 Inequality/politics/economy/Rawls: thesis: the effects of injustice in the political system are much more serious and long-lasting than market irregularities. Political power expands rapidly and becomes uneven. Those who take advantage of this can easily move into positions of power by taking advantage of the apparatus of state institutions and law. Equal suffrage is not a secure means of combating this(3). >Markets. 1. See H. Spiegelberg, "A Defense of Human Equality" Philosophical Review, vol 53,1944, pp. 101,113-123. 2. D. D. Raphael, "Justice and Liberty", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 51,1950-1951, pp. 187f. 3. See F. H. Knight, The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays, (New York, 1935) pp. 293-305. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Information | Monod | Dennett I 268 The information is present in the specific environmental conditions. Initial conditions ensure that one certain structure is selected from many possible ones. Through elimination ambiguity becomes clarity. ("Interpretation"). >Ambiguity, >Evolution, >Initial conditions, >Selection. --- Monod I 29 Information/Monod: information requires a sender. (Also within a living being). For example, crystal/life: the amount of information encoded in the crystal structure is several orders of size smaller than that which is transmitted from one generation to another in the most primitive creature. I 92 Information/Biology/Monod: the amount of information required to determine the three-dimensional structure of a protein is much greater than that required to establish the sequence. ElsässerVsMonod: Contradiction: On the one hand, the genome completely determines the function of a protein while the function is bound on the other hand to a three-dimensional structure whose information content is much greater than the direct genetic determination of the structure. Elsässer: sees instead in the macroscopic development of the living beings a phenomenon, which is physically not explainable, because it seems to testify an "enrichment without cause". >Emergence. MonodVsElsässer: the objection is dispensed with when investigating the molecular level of epigenesis: information enrichment results from the fact that the genetic information (represented by the sequence) is actually expressed only under precisely defined initial conditions (in aqueous phase within certain narrow limits of temperature, the ion composition, etc.) so that only a single one of all possible structures can be realized. Thus, the initial conditions contribute to the information that is finally contained in the globular structure, without specifying it! Thus, in the structuring process of a globular protein, the microscopic image and the cause of the self-active epigenetic development of the organism can be seen simultaneously. |
Mon I J. Monod Le hasard et la nécessité, Paris 1970 German Edition: Zufall und Notwendigkeit Hamburg 1982 Dennett I D. Dennett Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, New York 1995 German Edition: Darwins gefährliches Erbe Hamburg 1997 Dennett II D. Dennett Kinds of Minds, New York 1996 German Edition: Spielarten des Geistes Gütersloh 1999 Dennett III Daniel Dennett "COG: Steps towards consciousness in robots" In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Dennett IV Daniel Dennett "Animal Consciousness. What Matters and Why?", in: D. C. Dennett, Brainchildren. Essays on Designing Minds, Cambridge/MA 1998, pp. 337-350 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
| Laws | Genz | II 152 Things/laws/Genz: with mathematisation, the primacy of things over laws was broken and the laws of nature were at the beginning. II 248 Natural Laws/laws of nature/Genz: could it be that the laws of nature we consider necessary do not apply in other parts of the universe because other conditions are realized there? Then these laws of nature are not fundamental. System: a system is important for laws: e. g. Galileo's laws of falling bodies are only valid in the space close to earth. System: e.g. stone and earth together with their masses. Small G/constant/Galilei: g is the gravitational acceleration. It applies only in the space close to earth and it is part of the stone/Earth system itself. II 249 Large G/Newton: G is the gravitational constant. It applies also to a greater distance from Earth. Proximity to Earth/System/Newton: proximity to Earth is a characteristic of the system for Newton, not the system itself. >Laws/Newton. Natural Laws/laws/system/property/condition/Genz: when we speak of unknown laws, it is impossible to reliably distinguish between the system and its possible states and its initial conditions! Cf. >Regularities, >Natural laws. Phenomenal Laws/appearances/Law/Genz: phenomenal laws may have preconditions that are not lawful (e.g. initial conditions). >Laws/Cartwright, II 269 Definition laws of the first type/1st type/Eddington/Genz: laws of the first type are e. g. deterministic laws such as the Newtonian ones, the ones of the elastic shock, Maxwell's equations or laws of quantum mechanics. They ban things that are impossible. Definition laws of the second type/2nd type: laws of the second type are e.g. those of the kinetic gas theory (more general: of thermodynamics) and in particular the Second Principle. II 270 They forbid things that are so unlikely that they can never happen (statistical laws). II 274 Laws of the 1st type/Schrödinger/Genz: from the fact that there is such a 2nd type, one cannot conclude that there are laws of the 1st type at all. Regularless microscopic processes can also lead to the same macroscopic laws that result from averaging as they do. These averages show their own purely statistical regularity. This would also be present if it had come about through rolling a dice. Schrödinger: thesis: therefore, the microscopic processes do not actually run causally. Many authors: VsSchrödinger. >Quantum mechanics. |
Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Method | Pollock | Field II 373ff Epistemic Puzzles/Pollock/Putnam/Lewis/Field: Part 1: E.g. supposing we realize that our empirical methods in the past were not very reliable. - Then we also assume this for the future. - So we should change. Problem: the method due to which we may have found out this cannot be more reliable than our present basic method. - It uses itself for its investigation. Wrong solution: meta method. >Levels/order, >Description Levels. Part 2: Part 2 says, that part 1 is contradictory: how can our method say, we you should not follow it? Conclusion: 1. We cannot accept our methods as refutable 2. We even have to do it - FieldVs: new discoveries must not be an argument against the old rule. The old rule is not the most basic, but an induction. >Rules, >Induction, cf. >Measurements. Furthermore it would be double-counted when the new observation would both change the initial adoption and at the same time would also count as evidence along with a new assumption. - The most basic rule must be empirically irrefutable. >Observation, >Initial assumptions, >Hypotheses, cf. >Certainty, cf. >Axioms, cf. >Initial conditions, >Reference systems. |
Field I H. Field Realism, Mathematics and Modality Oxford New York 1989 Field II H. Field Truth and the Absence of Fact Oxford New York 2001 Field III H. Field Science without numbers Princeton New Jersey 1980 Field IV Hartry Field "Realism and Relativism", The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1982), pp. 553-67 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
| Models | Meteorology | Edwards I 371 Models/Meteorology/Climatology/Edwards: With ever more sophisticated interpolation algorithms and better methods for adjudicating differences between incoming data and the first-guess field, objective analysis became a modeling process in its own right.( >Weather forecasting/Edwards). Gridded analysis “products,” as they are known, constituted models of data, in Patrick Suppes’s well-known phrase(1): “structures into which data are embedded that add additional mathematical structure.”(2) The philosopher Ronald Giere once put the point as follows: . . . when testing the fit of a model with the world, one does not compare that model with data but with another model, a model of the data. . . .The actual data are processed in various ways so as to fit into a model of the Edwards I 372 data. It is this latter model, and not the data itself, that is used to judge the similarity between the higher level model and the world. . . . It is models almost all the way down.(3) >Climate data/Edwards. Weather forecasting: Traditionally, scientists and philosophers alike understood mathematical models as expressions of theory - as constructs that relate dependent and independent variables to one another according to physical laws. On this view, you make a model to test a theory (or one expression of a theory). You take some measurements, fill them in as values for initial conditions in the model, then solve the equations, iterating into the future. from the point of view of operational forecasting, the main goal of analysis is not to explain weather but to reproduce it. You are generating a global data image, simulating and observing at the same time, checking and adjusting your simulation and your observations against each other. As the philosopher Eric Winsberg has argued, simulation modeling of this sort doesn’t test theory; it applies theory. This mode—application, not justification, of theory - is “unfamiliar to most philosophy of science.”(4) Edwards I 394 Models/data/Edwards: Meanwhile, global data sets are produced by simulations, which are constrained but not determined by instrumental observations. In earlier work I described this relationship as “model-data symbiosis,” a mutually beneficial but also mutually dependent relationship.(5) This idea aligns with recent work by philosophers of science on “models as mediators” - a semi-autonomous “third force” in science, functioning in the spaces between the real world, instrumentation, and theory.(6) As Margaret Morrison and Mary Morgan argue, Scientific models have certain features which enable us to treat them as a technology. They provide us with a tool for investigation, giving the user the potential to learn about the world or about theories or both. Because of their characteristics of autonomy and representational power, and their ability to effect a relation between scientific theories and the world, they can act as a powerful agent in the learning process. That is to say, models are both a means to and a source of knowledge.(7) >Weather data/metereology, >Model bias/climatology. 1. P. Suppes, “Models of Data,” in Logic, Methodology, and the Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the 1960 Congress, ed. E. Nagel et al. (Stanford University Press, 1962). 2. F. Suppe, “Understanding Scientific Theories: An Assessment of Developments, 1969–8,” Philosophy of Science 67 (2000), 112. See also S. D. Norton and F. Suppe, “Why Atmospheric Modeling Is Good Science,” in Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance, ed. C. A. Miller and P. N. Edwards (MIT Press, 2001). 3. R. N. Giere, “Using Models to Represent Reality,” in Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery, ed. L. Magnani et al. (Springer, 1999), 55. 4. E. Winsberg, “Sanctioning Models: The Epistemology of Simulation,” Science in Context 12, no. 2 (1999), 275. 5. Edwards, “Global Climate Science, Uncertainty and Politics.” 6.. Morgan and Morrison, Models as Mediators. 7. M. Morrison and M. S. Morgan, “Models as Mediating Instruments,” in Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Sciences, ed. M. S. Morgan and M. Morrison (Cambridge University Press, 1999). |
Edwards I Paul N. Edwards A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming Cambridge 2013 |
| Natural Laws | Barrow | I 426 Law / Natural Law / Barrow: in practice, they are differential equations. They are solved when an expression is found that tells us which states are possible in the future for a given initial state and when and where they arise 1st algorithmic structure 2nd Initial conditions 3rd Constants of nature. The three components separate knowledge of non-knowledge - we can change the shape of the law (first component) even derive accurate if we do not know the initial conditions. >Initial conditions, >Structures, >Algorithms, >Natural constants, >Knowledge, >Equations, cf. >Determinism. |
B I John D. Barrow Warum die Welt mathematisch ist Frankfurt/M. 1996 B II John D. Barrow The World Within the World, Oxford/New York 1988 German Edition: Die Natur der Natur: Wissen an den Grenzen von Raum und Zeit Heidelberg 1993 B III John D. Barrow Impossibility. The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits, Oxford/New York 1998 German Edition: Die Entdeckung des Unmöglichen. Forschung an den Grenzen des Wissens Heidelberg 2001 |
| Natural Laws | Schurz | I 93 Natural Law/Schurz: Strict spatiotemporally unrestricted all propositions are candidates for natural laws. If they were true, they would express real laws of nature. They are called law-like. I 94 Law-like/Schurz: Spatiotemporally unrestricted Ex All bodies attract each other. Bsp All living beings must die once. Spatiotemporally limited: Bsp Mammals in polar regions have a rounder shape compared to conspecifics in warmer regions (Germann's law). Scientificity/Schurz: depends here on the size of the area. Allsatz/Schurz: In order to avoid gradual differences, one spoke of fundamental and derived Allsätze Def Fundamental All Theorem/Carnap/Hempel: contains no individual constants and no spatiotemporal restrictions. >Individual constants. Def Derived All Theorem/Carnap/Hempel: a derived all theorem can be derived from background knowledge from other all theorems together with singular initial conditions. >Initial conditions. I 95 Ernest NagelVsCarnap/NagelVsHempel: According to this, also an accidental all theorem can be a derived law: Ex "All screws on Smith's car are rusty". Solution/E. Nagel: Only fundamental all propositions can be laws. Hempel: conceded that, thus law-likeness remains gradual! Law-like/statistics/Schurz: also here there is law-likeness: Ex 50 % of all caesium 137 atoms have decayed after 30 years. Example 80 % of all lung cancer patients were heavy smokers. |
Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
| Prediction | Mayr | I 85 Prediction/Mayr: a prediction in logic differs significantly from the everyday prediction. >Initial conditions, >Determinism, >World/thinking, >Randomness, >Necessity, >Logic, >Knowledge, >Beliefs, >Laws of nature, >Physics, >Behavior, cf. >Anomalous Monism. |
Mayr I Ernst Mayr This is Biology, Cambridge/MA 1997 German Edition: Das ist Biologie Heidelberg 1998 |
| Principles | Genz | II 29 Irrevocability/principle/Genz: evolution explains why some principles seem irrevocable to us without being so. II 118 Understanding/principle/principles/Genz: a deeper understanding is achieved if one can show that a theory can be derived from principles. >Understanding, >Theories, >Derivation, >Derivability. Theory of Relativity/Einstein/Genz: Einstein has done this for the three theories of relativity. >Relativity theory. II 181 Principles/Genz: natural laws or laws of nature can be traced back to principles. >Natural laws. II 182 Principle/principles/explanation/Genz: final objective: is the explanation by principles. God is not a mathematician - but sticks to principles. Principle/Genz: for example, it could be that a successful physical theory defines a measured value which is clearly defined by the theory, but from its definition it follows that it cannot be calculated. >Measurements, >Definitions. II 228 Principle/laws/science/physics/mathematics/relativity theory/Genz: the relativity theories can be founded retrospectively by principles. Einstein himself found it. The most important principle of the general theory of relativity: Definition equivalence principle/Genz: the equivalence principle says that there is an indistinguishability of gravity and acceleration. >Equivalence principle. II 229 1. Principle for the derivation of the Special Theory of Relativity: light is - unlike sound - no vibration of a medium, resulting in the principle of the independence of the speed of light from the movement of the source (based on the physics of electricity and magnetism). 2. Principle for the derivation of special relativity: the laws of nature shall apply to all observers who move in the same direction with constant and equal speed. (Can be traced back to Galileo). >Special Relativity. II 231 Principles/universe/nature/Euan Squires/Genz: thesis: in the universe, principles apply that can be seen and formulated without mathematics. Mathematical laws of nature: are then nothing else but formalizations of these principles by more precise means. Explanation: however, it is the principles themselves that enable explanation and understanding. >Explanations. Description/measure/measurement/Relativity Theory/Squires/Genz: the General Relativity Theory declares it indispensable that we can describe the universe independently of the choice of variables for space and time. Here mathematics is even excluded! Principles/Elementary Particle Theory/Particle Theory/Standard Model/Genz: the standard model follows from the principle that observers can choose their conventions independently of each other without changing the laws at different locations and at different times: the same natural laws should apply everywhere. Framework: in which this demand is formulated: is the relativistic quantum field theory. However, this is mathematical in itself. >Reference systems. II 232 Principles/Genz: thesis: the laws of nature follow from simple, non-mathematical principles. For example, the Dirac equation has been found mathematically, but it is a realization of laws whose form is determined by non-mathematical principles such as symmetry. Mathematics/Genz: mathematics is like a servant here who separates equations that do not satisfy the principles. Principle/Genz: what principles allow seems to be realized, no matter whether it is mathematically simple or not. For example Hadrons: that Hadrons meet the requirements of group SU (3) seemed to follow first from a mathematical principle. Today it is known that hadrons are made up of quarks. II 233 Principle/Genz: for the purpose of application, it may be necessary to formulate a principle mathematically. For understanding, however, we need the non-mathematical principles. Progress/Genz: one can even say that in physics they are accompanied by the substitution of mathematical principles with non-mathematical principles. For example Plato tried to explain the structure of the cosmos with five regular bodies. Kepler recorded this, and later they were replaced by the assumption of random initial conditions. For example, spectrum of the hydrogen atom: was calculated exactly by a formula. Later this was understood by Bohr's atomic model. II 234 Principle/Newton/force/Genz: for example, the force exerted by one body on another is proportional to the reciprocal of the square of the distance between the bodies. That is mathematical. Newton himself could not base this assumption on principles. Only Einstein was able to do that. Principles of quantum mechanics: see >Quantum mechanics/Genz. |
Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Proofs | Heidegger | Cardorff II 56f Proof/Heidegger: We do not have to prove anything here. All proof is always a retrospective undertaking on the basis of prerequisites. Depending on how these are set, everything can be proven. Cf. >Provability, >Initial conditions, >Prerequisites. |
Hei III Martin Heidegger Sein und Zeit Tübingen 1993 Hei II Peter Cardorff Martin Heidegger Frankfurt/M. 1991 |
| Structures | Monod | Dennett I 268 Function/Structure/Monod: Problem: one can see a contradiction in the fact that on the one hand the one-dimensional structure completely determines the function of the protein, on the other hand its function is bound to a three-dimensional structure whose information content is greater. >Information, >Information content, >Unambiguity. Solution: the information is contained in the specific milieu conditions! Initial conditions ensure that a certain structure is selected from the many possible ones. Elimination thus becomes ambiguity ("interpretation"). >Ambiguity. |
Mon I J. Monod Le hasard et la nécessité, Paris 1970 German Edition: Zufall und Notwendigkeit Hamburg 1982 Dennett I D. Dennett Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, New York 1995 German Edition: Darwins gefährliches Erbe Hamburg 1997 Dennett II D. Dennett Kinds of Minds, New York 1996 German Edition: Spielarten des Geistes Gütersloh 1999 Dennett III Daniel Dennett "COG: Steps towards consciousness in robots" In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Dennett IV Daniel Dennett "Animal Consciousness. What Matters and Why?", in: D. C. Dennett, Brainchildren. Essays on Designing Minds, Cambridge/MA 1998, pp. 337-350 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
| Time | Newton | Genz II 250 Time/Newton/Mechanics/Genz: in the Newtonian mechanics, not only the earlier point in time determines the later one, but also the later one the earlier. Deterministic/Genz: we must distinguish between forward deterministic laws and forward and backward deterministic laws. >Laws of nature, >Physical laws, >Laws, >Determinism. II 251 Question: Are there also purely backward deterministic laws? Cf. >Initial conditions, cf. >Time reversal. |
PhysNewton I Isaac Newton The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Berkeley 1999 Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Time | Vollmer | II 51 Time/time direction/time reversal/Vollmer: the designation of a time direction is empirical and is made always only secondarily by additional assumptions. - E.g. initial conditions in the mechanics and thermodynamics - rediance conditions in electrodynamics. >Initial conditions. II 234 Time/logical form/Vollmer: temporal relationships can be expressed by real functions t(e1, e2) that are defined on event pairs. >Events. Asymmetry: is then a formal property of this function to change the sign at reversal. - This has nothing to do with reversibility of physical processes, also not with designation of one direction. >Asymmetry, >Symmetries. Time Reversal: Time Reversal is only a formal operation of changing the sign. >Equations, >Time reversal, cf. >Time travel, >Past, >Present, >Future. II 325 Invariant: a formula is invariant that does not change under time reversal. >Invariants. Time reversal invariance: So is a property of formulas or functions. - E.g. Newtonian equation of motion. >Formulas. On the other hand: The question of whether natural processes are reversible, relates to the real world. Problem: a T-invariant equation can describe both reversible and non-reversible processes. - If, then it does not yet contain complete information. II 236 Definition Time Arrow/time direction/Vollmer: so we will call the fact that there are chains of events, whose part events never happen in reverse order. Time direction is not a characteristic of the time, but of processes. >Processes. That there are different classes of irreversible processes, there are different arrows of time: the expansion of the universe, the electrodynamic of spherical waves - that a process is irreversible, one cannot see that in looking at it. - It can also never be proven. - Causality/cause/effect/VollmerVsReichenbach: cannot define the arrow of time. - Reversed: these are not to defined without time arrow. >Causality, >Cause, >Effect. II 238 Irreversibility/Physics/time reversal/time arrow/Vollmer: We expect that the fundamental equations, equations of motion, laws of force, field equations are T-invariant, that is, that they change with time reversal. II 252 Entropy/universe/Boltzmann/Vollmer: for him, the universe as a whole is in a thermodynamic equilibrium, so in the entropy maximum. II 253 VollmerVsBoltzmann: the observations state the contrary. If we advance into more distant parts of the universe, we can always find low entropy. >Entropy. If there were a region of space with decreasing entropy (increasing order), there would also be irreversible processes, but some time arrows would be reversed. |
Vollmer I G. Vollmer Was können wir wissen? Bd. I Die Natur der Erkenntnis. Beiträge zur Evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie Stuttgart 1988 Vollmer II G. Vollmer Was können wir wissen? Bd II Die Erkenntnis der Natur. Beiträge zur modernen Naturphilosophie Stuttgart 1988 |
| Time Reversal | Genz | II 254 Time reversal symmetric/Genz: for example, "angle of incidence" = "angle of reflection" is time reversal symmetric, i.e. it would not be possible to determine whether a film with billiard balls runs backwards. II 255 Reflection/time reversal/Genz: the same applies to all reflection processes, forward as well as backward deterministic n. >Symmetries. II 256 If there was a law: "angle of reflection = half angle of incidence", we would have no time reversal symmetry and we could see a film running backwards. II 256 Time inversion invariant/Genz: e.g. Newton's laws of planetary motion: the directions in which the planets move could be reversed. Therefore, a film running backwards would not be recognizable. >Laws/Newton. Quantum mechanics/not time inversion invariant/Genz: the laws for elementary particles are excellent in one direction. >Quantum mechanics. II 259 In the last 200 years, the Earth was 4 hours slow, if one wanted to calculate a solar eclipse. Eventually the moon will stand still for the earth in the sky. N.B.: in a backward running film, the tides would have the opposite effect that the earth rotates faster instead of slower! Thus the time directions have become distinguishable. By comparing the two processes. N.B.: but we cannot tell from them which one is the real one and which one is the manipulated one. Tides: the laws of the tides cannot be fundamental like those of the K mesons. They do not include the origin of deformations. They are not time-reversal symmetric. Time-reversal symmetric: are fundamental laws about the collisions of molecules. Time reversal symmetry/problem: how can symmetric laws of nature lead to processes that are not symmetric themselves? Asymmetry/Genz: it is not the laws that are responsible for them, but the initial conditions or circumstances. Order/Law/Genz: the superordinate law in such cases is that order cannot increase. >Order. II 258 Asymmetry/time reversal/Genz: asymmetry is much more pronounced in macroscopic (tides) than in microscopic (K mesons). Tides: the law that the rotation of the earth slows down is forward deterministic, but not backward deterministic! For example, because it is not possible to tell from a standstill how long ago the rotation came to rest. >Tidal force. There are many ways in which it has come to a standstill, but only one more to rest. The direction of time cannot be inferred from the observation of the standstill. II 260 This does not mean absolute rotation, which is marked by centrifugal forces, but relative to the moon. Friction/Genz: friction leads to time reversal asymmetry. (If you brake until standstill). Then we see in the backward running film a course of events prohibited by the laws of nature. II 261 Statistical fluctuation/Genz: statistical fluctuation does not indicate a time direction. |
Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Turing-Machine | Genz | II 192 Turing machine/Genz: e.g. instructions that correspond to a certain position can only be: Print 0. Print 1. Move the tape one square to the right. Move the tape one square to the left. If there is a 1 in the square, go to statement i. If there is a 0 in this square, go to the statement i. Stop. And that is all there is to it. II 193 Logic/mathematics/physics/Genz: if the laws of physics were different, it might be impossible to build a Turing machine. N.B.: it might be impossible to calculate the sum of two numbers! Proof/Genz: a proof is therefore dependent on natural laws. >Proofs, >Provability, >Natural laws. II 195 Initial conditions/initial states/nature/Genz: in nature there are countless initial states. But a training machine could not list them all, because it could not represent them all differently. II 195 Initial conditions/initial states/nature/Genz: in nature there are countless initial states. But a Turing machine could not list them all, because it could not represent them all differently. II 225 Holding Problem/Non-Hold-Theorem/Genz: could it be that a future physics (other than ours) allows to do infinite calculation steps within a finite time? Turing machine/Genz: a possible world in which more is possible than the logic allows could not be simulated by a Turing machine. Genz: thesis: I do not see that it has to be the case that in the updated world every sequence has to be simulated by a Turing machine. David DeutschVsGenz: (The Fabric of Reality)(1): David Deutsch assumes that everything in the actual world can be simulated by a Turing machine. From this he deduces that the universe collapses, because an infinitely growing universe cannot be simulated by a Turing machine. GenzVsDeutsch: reversed: the answer to the question of the ultimate fate of the universe, based on physical facts, will also determine whether this fate can be simulated by a Turing machine. 1. David Deutsch(1997). The Fabric of Reality. London: Viking Adult. |
Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
| Weather Data | Meteorology | Edwards I 394 Weather data/metereology/Edwards: Meanwhile, global data sets are produced by simulations, which are constrained but not determined by instrumental observations. In earlier work I described this relationship as “model-data symbiosis,” a mutually beneficial but also mutually dependent relationship.(1) This idea aligns with recent work by philosophers of science on “models as mediators”—a semi-autonomous “third force” in science, functioning in the spaces between the real world, instrumentation, and theory.(2) As Margaret Morrison and Mary Morgan argue, Scientific models have certain features which enable us to treat them as a technology. They provide us with a tool for investigation, giving the user the potential to learn about the world or about theories or both. Because of their characteristics of autonomy and representational power, and their ability to effect a relation between scientific theories and the world, they can act as a powerful agent in the learning process. That is to say, models are both a means to and a source of knowledge.(3) Edwards I 395 The concept of model-data symbiosis also supports the claims of the philosophers Stephen Norton and Frederick Suppe, who argue that “to be properly interpreted and deployed, data must be modeled.” Defining scientific methods essentially as ways of controlling for the possibility of artifactual results, Norton and Suppe argue that model-data symbiosis pervades all sciences—even the laboratory sciences, in which data modeling allows investigators to remove or correct for artifactual elements. “Even raw data,” they argue, “involve modeling built into the instrumentation.” One example is a thermoelectric probe, which derives ambient temperature from the current generated by two dissimilar metals joined inside the probe. Relating these currents to temperature requires parameters for each metal’s magnetic permeability. The probe’s temperature measurements must be understood as outputs of a physically instantiated mathematical model.(4) Edwards: If Norton and Suppe are right, seeking purity in either models (as theories) or data (as unmediated points of contact with the world) is not only misguided but impossible. Instead, the question is how well scientists succeed in controlling for the presence of artifactual elements in both theory and observation – Edwards I 396 and this is exactly how the iterative cycle of improving data assimilation systems (and the observing network) proceeds. Thus, in global climate science (and perhaps in every model-based science), neither pure data nor pure models exist. Not only are data “theory-laden”; models are “data-laden.” Today: Modern analysis models blend data and theory to render a smooth, consistent, comprehensive and homogeneous grid of numbers (…) a data image, rather than a data set. >Models/metereology. Edwards I 397 Models: Using models to make data global legitimized the possibility of alternative data images. The logic goes as follows: You will never get perfect knowledge of initial conditions. No practical observing mesh will ever be fine enough to do full justice to the atmosphere’s huge range of scales of energy and motion, from the molecular to the global. Furthermore, there will always be errors in the instruments, errors in the transmission, and errors in the analysis model. On top of that, the chaotic nature of weather physics means that tiny variations in initial conditions (here, read “analyzed global data”) often produce highly divergent outcomes. Therefore, using a single analyzed data set as input to a single deterministic forecast model will always entail a substantial margin of error, especially for periods longer than one or two days. Solution: In the early 1990s, forecasters began to turn this apparent defect in their method into an advantage. In a technique known as “ensemble forecasting,” for every forecast period they now generate an “ensemble” Edwards I 398 of slightly different data sets - different global data images, versions of the atmosphere—which collectively reflect the probable range of error. Typically the ensemble contains twelve or more such data sets. Forecasters then run the forecast model on each of these data sets, producing a corresponding ensemble of forecasts.(6) Edwards: Characterized statistically, the differences among these forecasts represent a forecast of the forecast error. >Climate data/climatology. 1. Edwards, “Global Climate Science, Uncertainty and Politics.” 2. Morgan and Morrison, Models as Mediators. 3. M. Morrison and M. S. Morgan, “Models as Mediating Instruments,” in Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Sciences, ed. M. S. Morgan and M. Morrison (Cambridge University Press, 1999). 4. Norton and Suppe, “Why Atmospheric Modeling Is Good Science,” 70, 72, 5. Lorenz, “Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow”; E. N. Lorenz, “A Study of the Predictability of a 28-Variable Atmospheric Model (28-Variable Atmosphere Model Constructed by Expanding Equations of Two-Level Geostrophic Model in Truncated Double-Fourier Series),” Tellus 17 (1965): 321–; E. S. Epstein, “Stochastic Dynamic Prediction,” Tellus 21, no. 6 (1969): 739–; C. E. Leith, “Theoretical Skill of Monte Carlo Forecasts,” Monthly Weather Review 102, no. 6 (1974): 409–; R. N. Hoffman and E. Kalnay, “Lagged Average Forecasting, an Alternative to Monte Carlo Forecasting,” Tellus, Series A—Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography 35 (1983): 100–. 6. Z. Toth and E. Kalnay, “Ensemble Forecasting At NMC: The Generation of Perturbations,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 74, no. 12 (1993): 2317–; M. S. Tracton and E. Kalnay, “Operational Ensemble Prediction at the National Meteorological Center: Practical Aspects,” Weather and Forecasting 8, no. 3 (1993): 379–. |
Edwards I Paul N. Edwards A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming Cambridge 2013 |
| Weather Forecasting | Edwards | Edwards I 362 Weather Forecasting/Edwards: From the dawn of synoptic forecasting, weather forecasting comprised three principal steps: (1) collect the available data, (2) interpret the data to create a picture of the weather situation, and (3) predict how that picture will change during the forecast period. The second step, originally known as “diagnosis,” transformed raw data from a relatively few points into a coherent, self-consistent picture of atmospheric structure and motion.(1) As in a medical diagnosis, forecasters combined theory and experiential knowledge to reach a shared understanding of reality from incomplete and potentially ambiguous indications (symptoms). Analysis: For early NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) , diagnosis or “analysis” proved the most difficult aspect of forecasting. Ultimately, it was also the most rewarding. In the long run, analysis would also connect forecasting with climatology in new, unexpected, and important ways. >Reanalysis/Climatology. Edwards I 364 Interpretation: Before numerical weather prediction, analysis was an interpretive process that involved a shifting combination of mathematics, graphical techniques, and pattern recognition. Human interpretation played a crucial role in data collection; (…).(2) Edwards I 369 Objective analysis: The JNWPU’s (Northwestern Polytechnical University) first, experimental analysis program defined a 1000×1000 km square around each gridpoint. Next, it searched for all available observed data within that square. If it found no data, the program skipped that gridpoint and moved to the next one. If it did find data, the program fitted a quadratic surface to all the data points within the search square. It then interpolated a value on that surface for the gridpoint. (…)This technique worked well for areas densely covered by observations, but performed poorly in large data-void regions.(3) >Models/Climatology, >Climate data/Edwards. Edwards I 391 Models/weather forecasting: Traditionally, scientists and philosophers alike understood mathematical models as expressions of theory - as constructs that relate dependent and independent variables to one another according to physical laws. On this view, you make a model to test a theory (or one expression of a theory). You take some measurements, fill them in as values for initial conditions in the model, then solve the equations, iterating into the future. from the point of view of operational forecasting, the main goal of analysis is not to explain weather but to reproduce it. You are generating a global data image, simulating and observing at the same time, checking and adjusting your simulation and your observations against each other. As the philosopher Eric Winsberg has argued, simulation modeling of this sort doesn’t test theory; it applies theory. This mode - application, not justification, of theory - is “unfamiliar to most philosophy of science.”(4) 1. V. Bjerknes, Dynamic Meteorology and Hydrography, Part II. Kinematics (Gibson Bros., Carnegie Institute, 1911); R. Daley, Atmospheric Data Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 1991). 2. See 14. P. Bergthorsson and B. R. Döös, “Numerical Weather Map Analysis,” Tellus 7, no. 3 (1955), 329. 3. As one of the method’s designers observed, “straightforward interpolation between observations hundreds or thousands of miles apart is not going to give a usable value.” G. P. Cressman, “Dynamic Weather Prediction,” in Meteorological Challenges: A History, ed. D. P. McIntyre (Information Canada, 1972), 188. 4. E. Winsberg, “Sanctioning Models: The Epistemology of Simulation,” Science in Context 12, no. 2 (1999), 275. |
Edwards I Paul N. Edwards A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming Cambridge 2013 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
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| Covering Law | Hempel. Vs Covering Law | Schurz I 224 Potential Explanation/Hempel: here, merely the logical consistency of the premises is required. This is important when it comes to assessing hypotheses regarding their explanatory power (>best explanation). Covering Law/Dray/Schurz: (Dray 1957): Simplest case of a deductive-nomological explanation: here, antecedent and explanandum are implicatively connected by a single law. logical form: (x)(Ax › E.g.), Aa/Ea. HempelVsDray/HempelVsCovering Law: its own model includes more complex statements, one E.g. planetary positions, which can be explained by initial conditions plus natural laws. |
Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
| Evolution Theory | Luhmann Vs Evolution Theory | AU Cass 14 Theory of Evolution / system theory/ST / Luhmann: e. th. takes the chance to explain the totality, which ST can not. Selection / Luhmann: is not provided in the system, but arises from the context. Therefore, conceptually weak concept - becaus e.th. uses statistics instead of causality. Explanation / theory / Luhmann: other theories explain the background noise ("order from noise") as a matter for a transformation into order within the system. LuhmannVs: here is not said exactly how this is done. This is the idea that information is a native product. But how the transformation happens is not explained. Therefore we need Structural coupling. (Cass.6) Double contingency: > theory of evolution: Parallel: somehow there is a split between variation and selection and thus structural changes are encouraged, evolution suggests itself to the establishment of order. And that can not be explained from the primordial soup or "initial conditions" (also not from language or social order) alone. (No "initial conditions." This is double contingency, the invention of a reference problem for rational analysis. |
AU I N. Luhmann Introduction to Systems Theory, Lectures Universität Bielefeld 1991/1992 German Edition: Einführung in die Systemtheorie Heidelberg 1992 Lu I N. Luhmann Die Kunst der Gesellschaft Frankfurt 1997 |
| Reductionism | Cartwright Vs Reductionism | I 100 Book of Nature/Science/BoN/17th Century/Boyle/Hooke/History/Cartwright: God wrote down the fundamental laws in the BoN. Then the phenomenological ones are a consequence of it. I 101 A lot of these cann still be found even in today’s philosophy of science, especially in the reductionism and the deductive-nomological model (although not by its authors Hempel, Grünbaum and Nagel). Cartwright: I myself have formerly used such stories in the classroom with the students: namely two creation stories: a) Reductionism: E.g. God writes the book of nature, Peter was his assistant. God writes down the fundamental laws and then leaves the hard-working Peter with a bit of a poor imagination to establish the phenomenological laws. b) God takes special care of the regularities in the world, there are no distinctions between different kinds of laws, God himself dictates every single one of them. Now Peter’s task is much more demanding: he must find the possible initial conditions! According to this view, all the laws are true together. I 102 Cartwright: I have searched long for a non-metaphorical analysis of these metaphors. Today I believe that it cannot be found. Laws/Derivative/Important argument/CartwrightVsReductionism: without the story of God and the Book of Nature, there is no sense in assuming that in nature something is derived from something else. I.e. that the fundamental laws are more "fundamental" and that the others apply "by virtue of them". Deductive-nomological model/Cartwright: here is only an apparent help: because here we can look for quasi-causal relation between LoN. If we do not find any, we focus on language. Then we have formal placeholders for relations between laws. CartwrightVsRealism: but the deductive-nomological model itself is not an argument for realism. Truth/Cartwright: without all the metaphysics, the success in the organization of our knowledge is no argument for the truth of the theory. We still need a story about how the connection between fundamental equations and complex laws should be. > Grünbaum (see above I 94). |
Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 CartwrightR I R. Cartwright A Neglected Theory of Truth. Philosophical Essays, Cambridge/MA pp. 71-93 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 CartwrightR II R. Cartwright Ontology and the theory of meaning Chicago 1954 |
| Wheeler, J.A. | Esfeld Vs Wheeler, J.A. | Esfeld I 234 Geometrodynamics/Wheeler: In contrast to the general relativity theory, which only takes gravity into account, it contains electromagnetism and elementary particles. The physical properties are included in the properties that make something a part of space time in the sense of Riemann's diversity, I 235 because they are identical to geometric properties such as curvature. Slightly Curved: Gravitational Field Crimped: Electromagnetic Field Strongly curved, knotted: Particle Fields. John Graves: then this space time is not a passive arena. It's not a collection of things, it's a single thing. (1971,S.79 101) Esfeld: it is therefore often associated with Cartesianism and Spinoza. It failed, however, because it did not overcome three problems: VsGeometrodynamics: 1. Initial Value: it cannot distinguish between several physically different initial conditions in electromagnetism. I 236 2. Singularities: wanted to avoid them 3. Elementary particles: Fermions (spin 1/2) cannot be dealt with by it. I 321 Ontology/Esfeld: is not very plausible if one recognizes space time and matter as different basic entities. VsGeometrodynamics: the opposite program becomes more attractive after its failure: namely to gain a theory of space-time based on the quantum mechanics of matter. |
Es I M. Esfeld Holismus Frankfurt/M 2002 |
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The author or concept searched is found in the following theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
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| Evolution | Luhmann, N. | AU Kass 14 Evolutionary Theory: Parallel: thesis: somehow leads to a split between variation and selection and thus structural changes are stimulated. Evolution stimulates itself to build order. And this cannot be explained from the primordial soup or from "original conditions" (also from language or social order). (Not "initial conditions"). Double contingency is thus the invention of a reference problem for rational analysis. One might ask, for example, what are the reasons for China's different development in relation to Europe or vice versa, but this is a question that always presupposes a prehistory. |
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