Dictionary of Arguments


Philosophical and Scientific Issues in Dispute
 
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Reference
Artworks Flusser Rötzer I 66/67
Artwork/Flusser: The second principle of thermodynamics has to be interpreted in such a way that the interesting things become increasingly rare. For works of art are not based on any theory, especially not on the information theory, they remain relatively uninformative and likely. >Second law of thermodynamics, >Information, >Probability, >Events, >Order.
Flusser: it is not the size of works of art that is to be denied, but the production of them is to be freed from their mystical aura in order to be able to better estimate their size.
>Aura.
I 68
What does an author do? He collects information that he finds in already produced works according to criteria of his time, to which he adds information from a concrete life. Among the self-acquired information may also be noises, i. e. previously unavailable information.
Rötzer I 70
Art making needs to be mechanized and theorized. (Ethics, behaviour and aesthetics, experience are never separated). >Ethics, >Behavior, >Aesthetics, >Experiences.
Common sense/Flusser: Common sense proves to be a reactionary element here. Characteristic of the present.
>Conservatism, >Present.

Fl I
V. Flusser
Kommunikologie Mannheim 1996


Rötz I
F. Rötzer
Kunst machen? München 1991
Autonomy Feyerabend I 43
Principle of Autonomy/Feyerabend: collecting the facts for examination purposes is the only thing left for the scientist to do. If facts exist and are available, regardless of whether alternatives to the theory under consideration are looked at. Principle of the relative autonomy of facts. (versus theories). >Theories, >Facts.
The principle does not mean that the discovery and description of facts is entirely theory-independent, but that the facts belonging to the empirical content of a theory are available, regardless of whether alternatives to this theory are taken into account.
>Discoveries, >Empirical content.
((s) I.e. that facts are autonomous, independent of theories.)
I 44
FeyerabendVsAutonomy Principle: this principle is far too simple a point of view. Facts and theories are much more closely linked than the principle of autonomy wants to admit. E.g. it is known today that the Brownian particles are a perpetuum mobile of the second kind, and that its existence refutes the second law of thermodynamics. (Henning GenzVs: that is not true.)
Could this relationship between movement and theory have been shown or directly discovered? Two questions:
1) Could the relevance of the movement have been discovered in this way?
2) Could it have been shown to disprove the 2nd law of thermodynamics? ((s) Nonsense: to »observe« relevance).
>Relevance.
Each thermometer is subject to fluctuations which are the same as the Brownian movement. The actual refutation came about in a completely different way: with the help of the kinetic theory and its use by Einstein in his calculation of the statistical properties of the Brownian movement. In this refutation the consistency condition was violated: the phenomenological theory was incorporated into the larger framework of statistical physics.

Feyerabend I
Paul Feyerabend
Against Method. Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, London/New York 1971
German Edition:
Wider den Methodenzwang Frankfurt 1997

Feyerabend II
P. Feyerabend
Science in a Free Society, London/New York 1982
German Edition:
Erkenntnis für freie Menschen Frankfurt 1979

Cybernetics Wiener II 13
Cybernetics/Wiener: This is about machines for communication, some of which reveal the uncanny ability to imitate human behaviour and thereby possibly show the existence of enormous possibilities to replace the humans in such cases where they react relatively slowly and imperfectly; we are faced with the need to discuss the forces of these machines, insofar as they affect people, and the consequences of this new and fundamental technical revolution. >Machine learning. >Artificial intelligence, >Artificial consciousness, >Human machine communication.
II 20
Cybernetics is concerned with messages and, in particular, regulatory messages. >Feedback, >Communication.
II 26
Thesis: the working methods of the living individual and those of some newer communication machines run completely parallel. In both, the living being and the machine, information processing is used to have an effect on the outside world. >Information processing.
In both cases, the activity carried out on the outside world and not only the intended activity is reported back to the central regulatory apparatus.
II 81
Second principle of thermodynamics/cybernetics: the cybernetic form of the second principle is that information can be lost but not gained. >Second law of thermodynamics.

WienerN I
Norbert Wiener
Cybernetics, Second Edition: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine Cambridge, MA 1965

WienerN II
N. Wiener
The Human Use of Human Beings (Cybernetics and Society), Boston 1952
German Edition:
Mensch und Menschmaschine Frankfurt/M. 1952

Information Wiener II 83
Information/Language/Wiener: it is theoretically possible to develop the statistics of semantic and behavioural language in such a way that we obtain a good measure of the amount of information in each system. >Language, >Meaning, >Semantics, >Language behavior.
In any case, we can generally show that phonetic language contains less overall information in relation to the input of data...
II 84
or in any case it does not contain more than the transmission system leading to the ear and that semantic and behavioural language contains even less information. This fact is a form of the second principle of thermodynamics and is only valid if we consider the transferred information at each stage as maximum information that could be transmitted with an appropriately encrypted receiving system. >Second law of thermodynamics.
II 121
The right of ownership of information suffers from the necessary disadvantage that information intended to contribute to the general state of the Community's information must say something substantially different from the community's previous general possession of information. >Innovation, >Message, >Communication.
II 122
The idea that information can be stacked in a changing world without noticeably reducing its value is wrong. >Change, >Knowledge.
II 123
Information is more of a dynamic matter than a stacking affair.
II 124
The time factor is essential in all assessments of the information value.

Brockman I 155
Information/Wiener/Kaiser: [Wiener borrowed Shannon’s insight]: if information was like entropy, then it could not be conserved – or contained. >Information/Shannon, >Entropy.
Conclusion/Wiener: it was folly for military leaders to try to stockpile the “Scientific know-how of the nation in static libraries and laboratories.”(1)
Brockman I 156
Since “information and entropy are not conserved,” they are “equally unsuited to being commodities.”(2)
Brockman I 157
KaiserVsWiener: what Wiener had in mind, was not what Shannon meant with “information”. Wiener’s treatment of “information” sounded more like Matthew Arnold in 1869(3) than Claude Shannon in 1948—more “body and spirit” than “bit.” >Body, >Mind.
Brockman I 158
[Today] [i]n many ways, Wiener has been proved right. His vision of networked feedback loops driven by machine-to-machine communication has become a mundane feature of everyday life. >Machine learning, >Human machine communication, >Robots, >Artificial intelligence.

1. Wiener, N. (1950) The Human Use of Human Beings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
2. ibid.
3. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, ed. Jane Garnett (Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 2006).

Kaiser, David “”Information” for Wiener, for Shannon, and for Us” in: Brockman, John (ed.) 2019. Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI. New York: Penguin Press.


Brockman I 179
Information/Wiener/Hillis: “Information is a name for the content of what is exchanged with the outer world as we adjust to it, and make our
Brockman I 179
adjustment felt upon it.” In his words, information is what we use to “live effectively within that environment.”(1) For Wiener, information is a way for the weak to effectively cope with the strong. >Outer world, >Inner world, >Behavior, >Adaptation, >Niches.

1. Wiener, N. (1950) The Human Use of Human Beings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 17-18.

Hillis, D. W. “The First Machine Intelligences” in: Brockman, John (ed.) 2019. Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI. New York: Penguin Press.

WienerN I
Norbert Wiener
Cybernetics, Second Edition: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine Cambridge, MA 1965

WienerN II
N. Wiener
The Human Use of Human Beings (Cybernetics and Society), Boston 1952
German Edition:
Mensch und Menschmaschine Frankfurt/M. 1952


Brockman I
John Brockman
Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI New York 2019
Life Mayr I 21
Life/Mayr: in reality it is only the process of being-alive (as opposed to death) made to a thing, and does not exist as an independent entity! One can even attempt to explain that being-alive as a process can be the product of molecules that are not themselves alive.
Life: what is "life", has been strongly controversial since the 16th century. A group always claims that living organisms did not really differ from non-living matter: the physicalists.
Vitalists: living organisms have properties that inanimate matter lacks, which is why biological theories and concepts cannot be reduced to the laws of physics and chemistry.
>Physicalism, >Vitalism.
Today it is clear that both groups were, in a sense, right and wrong.
Today: "Organism": unites the most useful from both and rejects the extremes.
I 46
Life/Mayr: can be synthesized in the laboratory. Principally open systems, therefore subjected to the second main sentence of thermodynamics. Cf. >St. Kauffman, >Second Law of Thermodynamics.
I 349
Def Life/Mayr: Activities of self-developed systems, controlled by a genetic program. >Self-organisation.
Def Life/Rensch(1): Living beings are hierarchically ordered, open systems, predominantly organic compounds, which normally appear as circumscribed, cell-structured individuals of temporally limited constancy.
Def Life/Sattler 1986(2): an open system that replicates and regulates itself, shows individuality, and subsists on energy from the environment.
MayrVs: all contain superfluous and do not go into the genetic program, which is perhaps the most important. More description than definition.


1. R. Sattler (1986). Biophilosophy. Berlin: Springer. S. 228.
2. B. Rensch (1968). Biophilosophie. Stuttgart: G. Fischer. S. 54.

Mayr I
Ernst Mayr
This is Biology, Cambridge/MA 1997
German Edition:
Das ist Biologie Heidelberg 1998

Probability Genz II 61
Negative probability/Weinberg/Genz: negative probability is absurd. That is controversial(1).
II 266ff
Probability/micro-state/Gas/Genz: it is so unlikely that all molecules will come together in the left half of the container and leave the right half empty that it will not occur in world ages. This is a physical "never" or "always", not a mathematical one. >Physics, >Mathematics, >Entropy, >Second Law of Thermodynamics.


1) See: http://www.wissenschaft.de/technik-kommunikation/physik/-/journal_content/56/12054/1196196/Negative-Wahrscheinlichkeiten-der-Quantenmechanik-experimentell-best%C3%A4tigt/
(03.0.4.2023).

Gz I
H. Genz
Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999

Gz II
Henning Genz
Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002

Proof of God’s Existence Hume Fraassen I 212
Proof of God/HumeVsThomas Aquinas: the universe instead of God. If God's will would be crucial how should we understand this will? ((s) God's will would always be identical with the factual and therefore not to distinguish from anything else.) ---
II 253
Cosmological proof of God: there must be a cause for every thing and thus an explanation of its existence. This is something necessary existent. >Cause, >Condition, >Dependence, >Causal dependence, >Ontological dependence.
HumeVs: the existence of God would be a fact. Facts are never necessary.
>Facts, >Necessity, >Contingency.
Hume: the necessary existing could be the universe instead of God.
>Totality, >Whole, >Universe.
II 256
Teleological proof of God/Hume: the teological proof of god is the only one he takes seriously, because it does not require a priori assumptions. >Teleology.
Here: variant: the amazing reconciliation cannot be a coincidence. An intelligent creator is necessary.
>"Clockmaker".
HumeVs:
1. It lacks the repetition which is necessary for connection. 2. The analogy to humans is questionable.
>Absoluteness, >Connection, >Distribution.
II 257
3. If yes, then they would make a) the unity of God and b) the immateriality and endlessness questionable. >Unity, >Infinity.
II 259
4. Order is not evidence of conscious planning, e.g. animals have no less order than a clock, but are not begotten by a watchmaker, but by parents. >Order, >Planning, >Evolution.
II 260
Principle: the production of plants and animals is always herbal or animal. In human inventions, there is an understanding of the causes but not in divine inventions. >Knowledge, >Causality.
5. (Anticipating the theory of evolution): matter is in constant motion and eventually reaches a certain stability.
>Entropy, >Second law of thermodynamics.
D. Hume
I Gilles Delueze David Hume, Frankfurt 1997 (Frankreich 1953,1988)
II Norbert Hoerster Hume: Existenz und Eigenschaften Gottes aus Speck(Hg) Grundprobleme der großen Philosophen der Neuzeit I Göttingen, 1997

Fr I
B. van Fraassen
The Scientific Image Oxford 1980
Time Genz II 250
Time/Newton/mechanics/Genz: in Newtonian mechanics, not only the earlier point of time determines the later one, but also vice versa the later point of time determines the earlier one. Deterministic/Genz: we must distinguish between forward deterministic laws and forward and backward deterministic laws.
II 251
Question: are there also purely backwards deterministic laws? Definition Time/Genz: as long as we do not know anything else, we can simply define time as the direction in which deterministic laws of nature apply. This is necessarily identical to the direction in which the order cannot increase.
>Entropy, >Second law of thermodynamics, >Arrow of time, >Determinism.

Gz I
H. Genz
Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999

Gz II
Henning Genz
Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002

Time Travel Genz Genz I 112
Time reversal/physics/thought experiment/time travel/Genz: e.g. assume a model of a gas of hard spheres. Question: is it possible to describe the difference between the past and future with the help of laws, which themselves do not know the difference? Time direction: the direction of time is practically given by the fact that in the immediate vicinity of each initial condition that causes an event there are infinitely many others, so that the same event would not result in world ages. >Probability, >Entropy, >Second law of thermodynamics,
>Arrow of time, >Time.

Gz I
H. Genz
Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999

Gz II
Henning Genz
Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002

Universe Teilhard de Chardin Kanitscheider II 177
Teilhard de Chardin/Kanitscheider: Forerunner of process theology. Thesis: Immanence of God in an incomplete and ever evolving world. omega point. Teilhard distinguishes between two types of energy, "tangential" (physical), "radial" (spiritual).
With evolution, spiritual energy becomes denser and more concentrated, which is reflected in the emergence of intelligent living beings.
In the end, the radial dominates the tangential energy.
>Energy, >Process philosophy.
KanitscheiderVsTeilhard de Chardin: doubling technique! The motivation for his theory lies in the belief, common at the time, that the second law forbids the growth of complexity.
>Complexity, >Entropy, >Second law of thermodynamics.
Solution: Self-organization allows that with the evolutionary growth of complex systems only the information increases, which does not contradict thermodynamics.
>Self-organization.
II 178
Kanitscheider: The substantial spiritualization process is incompatible with today's understanding of the growth in complexity.

Teilhard I
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The Phenomenon of Man New York 1976


Kanitsch I
B. Kanitscheider
Kosmologie Stuttgart 1991

Kanitsch II
B. Kanitscheider
Im Innern der Natur Darmstadt 1996


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