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Metaphysicians should pay attention to quantum mechanics. Why? Not because it provides definitive answers to many metaphysical questions-the theory itself is remarkably silent on the nature of the physical world, and the various interpretations of the theory on offer present conflicting ontological pictures. Rather, quantum mechanics is essential to the metaphysician because it reshapes standard metaphysical debates and opens up unforeseen new metaphysical possibilities. Even if quantum mechanics provides few clear answers, there are good reasons to think that any adequate understanding of the quantum world will result in a radical reshaping of our classical world-view in some way or other. Whatever the world is like at the atomic scale, it is almost certainly not the swarm of particles pushed around by forces that is often presupposed. This book guides readers through the theory of quantum mechanics and its implications for metaphysics in a clear and accessible way. The theory and its various interpretations are presented with a minimum of technicality. The consequences of these interpretations for metaphysical debates concerning realism, indeterminacy, causation, determinism, holism, and individuality (among other topics) are explored in detail, stressing the novel form that the debates take given the empirical facts in the quantum domain. While quantum mechanics may not deliver unconditional pronouncements on these issues, the range of possibilities consistent with our knowledge of the empirical world is relatively small-and each possibility is metaphysically revisionary in some way. This book will appeal to researchers, students, and anybody else interested in how science informs our world-view.
Adler's 53rd book explores philosophy--its relation to and difference from other disciplines, such as history, mathematics, empirical science, and even poetry--and acts as an extension of the author's classic works on the conditions that that make philosophy workable.
From quantum to biological and digital, here eminent scientists, philosophers and theologians chart various aspects of information.
Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, author of the widely acclaimed Beyond Einstein and a leading theoretical physicist, offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics, work which includes research on the tenth dimension, time warps, black holes, and multiple universes. The theory of hyperspace (or higher dimensional space)--and its newest wrinkle, superstring theory--stand at the center of this revolution, with adherents in every major research laboratory in the world, including several Nobel laureates. Beginning where Hawking's Brief History of Time left off, Kaku paints a vivid portrayal of the breakthroughs now rocking the physics establishment. Why all the excitement? As the author points out, for over half a century, scientists have puzzled over why the basic forces of the cosmos--gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces--require markedly different mathematical descriptions. But if we see these forces as vibrations in a higher dimensional space, their field equations suddenly fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, perfectly snug, in an elegant, astonishingly simple form. This may thus be our leading candidate for the Theory of Everything. If so, it would be the crowning achievement of 2,000 years of scientific investigation into matter and its forces. Already, the theory has inspired several thousand research papers, and has been the focus of over 200 international conferences. Michio Kaku is one of the leading pioneers in superstring theory and has been at the forefront of this revolution in modern physics. With Hyperspace, he has produced a book for general readers which conveys the vitality of the field and the excitement as scientists grapple with the meaning of space and time. It is an exhilarating look at physics today and an eye-opening glimpse into the ultimate nature of the universe.
Presenting the history of space-time physics, from Newton to Einstein, as a philosophical development DiSalle reflects our increasing understanding of the connections between ideas of space and time and our physical knowledge. He suggests that philosophy's greatest impact on physics has come about, less by the influence of philosophical hypotheses, than by the philosophical analysis of concepts of space, time and motion, and the roles they play in our assumptions about physical objects and physical measurements. This way of thinking leads to interpretations of the work of Newton and Einstein and the connections between them. It also offers ways of looking at old questions about a priori knowledge, the physical interpretation of mathematics, and the nature of conceptual change. Understanding Space-Time will interest readers in philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and physics, as well as readers interested in the relations between physics and philosophy.
This book, written for the general reader, explores the fundamental issues concerning the nature of time and space, and quantum mechanics. It shows how physics and philosophy work together to answer some of the deepest questions ever asked about the world.
This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality.
This is a new volume of original essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. The essays address questions such as: What fundamental metaphysics is best motivated by quantum mechanics? What is the ontological status of the wave function? What is the nature of the fundamental space (or space-time manifold) of quantum mechanics?
Leemon McHenry argues that Whitehead's metaphysics provides a better basis for achieving a unification of physical theory than a traditional substance metaphysics. He investigates the influence of Maxwell's electromagnetic field, Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on the development of the ontology of events and compares Whitehead's theory to his contemporaries, C. D. Broad and Bertrand Russell, as well as W. V. Quine. In this way, McHenry defends the naturalised and speculative approach to metaphysics as opposed to analytical and linguistic methods that arose in the 20th century.
Christian Pfeiffer explores an important, but neglected topic in Aristotle's theoretical philosophy: the theory of bodies. A body is a three-dimensionally extended and continuous magnitude bounded by surfaces. This notion is distinct from the notion of a perceptible or physical substance. Substances have bodies, that is to say, they are extended, their parts are continuous with each other and they have boundaries, which demarcate them from their surroundings. Pfeiffer argues that body, thus understood, has a pivotal role in Aristotle's natural philosophy. A theory of body is a presupposed in, e.g., Aristotle's account of the infinite, place, or action and passion, because their being bodies explains why things have a location or how they can act upon each other. The notion of body can be ranked among the central concepts for natural science which are discussed in Physics III-IV. The book is the first comprehensive and rigorous account of the features substances have in virtue of being bodies. It provides an analysis of the concept of three-dimensional magnitude and related notions like boundary, extension, contact, continuity, often comparing it to modern conceptions of it. Both the structural features and the ontological status of body is discussed. This makes it significant for scholars working on contemporary metaphysics and mereology because the concept of a material object is intimately tied to its spatial or topological properties.