This paper focuses on the issue of what to do if a couple who generates embryos chooses to lawfully, and in their (and my) view, ethnically discard those embryos. Specifically, is it appropriate to use the cells that come from “excess” embryos in medical research instead of discarding them when a couple has ceased trying to have any additional children?
Management theory and practice are facing unprecedented challenges. The lack of sustainability, the increasing inequity, and the continuous decline in societal trust pose a threat to ‘business as usual’ (Jackson and Nelson, 2004 ). Capitalism is at a crossroad and scholars, practitioners, and policy makers are called to rethink business strategy in light of major external changes (Arena, 2004 ; Hart, 2005 ). In the following, we review an alternative view of human beings that is based on a renewed (...) Darwinian theory developed by Lawrence and Nohria ( 2002 ). We label this alternative view ‘humanistic’ and draw distinctions to current ‘economistic’ conceptions. We then develop the consequences that this humanistic view has for business organizations, examining business strategy, governance structures, leadership forms, and organizational culture. Afterward, we outline the influences of humanism on management in the past and the present, and suggest options for humanism to shape the future of management. In this manner, we will contribute to the discussion of alternative management paradigms that help solve the current crises. (shrink)
Laurence Goldstein gives a straightforward and lively account of some of the central themes of Wittgenstein's writings on meaning, mind, and mathematics.
The study of human morality has historically been carried out primarily by philosophers and theologians. Now this broad topic is also being studied systematically by evolutionary biologists and various behavioral and social sciences. Based upon a review of this work, this paper will propose a unified explanation of human morality as an innate feature of human minds. The theory argues that morality is an innate skill that developed as a means to fulfill the human drive to bond with others in (...) mutual caring. This explanation has also been reported as part of a broader theory on the role of human nature in the shaping of human choices (Driven, Lawrence and Nohria). (shrink)
That all pleasure is good and all pain bad in itself is an eternally true ethical principle. The common claim that some pleasure is not good, or some pain not bad, is mistaken. Strict particularism (ethical decisions must be made case by case; there are no sound universal normative principles) and relativism (all good and bad are relative to society) are among the ethical theories we may refute through an appeal to pleasure and pain. Daniel Dennett, Philippa Foot, R M (...) Hare, Gilbert Harman, Immanuel Kant, J. L. Mackie, and Jean-Paul Sartre are among the many philosophers addressed. (shrink)
Many philosophers sharply distinguish emotions from feelings. Emotions are not feelings, and having an emotion does not necessitate having some feeling, they think. In this paper I reply to a set of arguments people use sharply to distinguish emotions from feelings. In response to these people, I endorse and defend a hedonic theory of emotion that avoids various anti-feeling objections. Proponents of this hedonic theory analyze an emotion by reference to forms of cognition (e.g., thought, belief, judgment) and a pleasant (...) or an unpleasant feeling. Given this theory,emotions are feelings in some important sense of "feelings", and these feelings are identified as particular emotions by reference to their hedonic character and the cognitive state that causes the hedonic feelings. (shrink)
Against Hume and Epicurus I argue that our selection of pleasure, pain and other objects as our ultimate ends is guided by reason. There are two parts to the explanation of our attraction to pleasure, our aversion to pain, and our consequent preference of pleasure to pain: 1. Pleasure presents us with reason to seek it, pain presents us reason to avoid it, and 2. Being intelligent, human beings (and to a degree, many animals) are disposed to be guided by (...) reason, and hence by what there is reason to choose, seek, and prefer, when they act. (shrink)
Pleasure is one of the strongest candidates for an occurrence that might be good, in some respect, unconditionally. Malicious pleasure is one of the most often cited alleged counter-examples to pleasure’s being an unconditional good. Correctly evaluating malicious pleasure is more complex than people realize. I defend pleasure’s unconditionally good status from critics of malicious pleasure.
Functionalists think an event's causes and effects, its 'causal role', determines whether it is a mental state and, if so, which kind. Functionalists see this causal role principle as supporting their orthodox materialism, their commitment to the neuroscientist's ontology. I examine and refute the functionalist's causal principle and the orthodox materialism that attends that principle.
We criticize speculations to the effect that quantum mechanics is fundamentally about information. We do this by pointing out how unfounded such speculations in fact are. Our analysis focuses on the dubious claims of this kind recently made by Anton Zeilinger.
That pain and suffering are unwanted is no truism. Like the sadist, the masochist wants pain. Like sadism, masochism entails an irrational, abnormal attitude toward pain. I explain this abnormality.
Orthodox neural materialists think mental states are neural events or orthodox material properties of neutral events. Orthodox material properties are defining properties of the “physical”. A “defining property” of the physical is a type of property that provides a necessary condition for something’s being correctly termed “physical”. In this paper I give an argument against orthodox neural materialism. If successful, the argument would show at least some properties of some mental states are not orthodox material properties of neural events. Opposing (...) philosophical orthodoxy, I show there are no posteriori identities -- identities that cannot be known of a priori. (shrink)
outrageous remarks about contradictions. Perhaps the most striking remark he makes is that they are not false. This claim first appears in his early notebooks (Wittgenstein 1960, p.108). In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein argued that contradictions (like tautologies) are not statements (Sätze) and hence are not false (or true). This is a consequence of his theory that genuine statements are pictures.
People see five kinds of views in epistemology and ontology as hinging on there being words a person can learn only by private ostensive definitions, through direct acquaintance with his own sensations: skepticism about other minds, 2. skepticism about an external world, 3. foundationalism, 4. dualism, and 5. phenomenalism. People think Wittgenstein refuted these views by showing, they believe, no word is learnable only by private ostensive definition. I defend these five views from Wittgenstein’s attack.
A person skeptical about other minds supposes it is possible in principle that there are no minds other than his. A person skeptical about an external world thinks it is possible there is no world external to him. Some philosophers think a person can refute the skeptic and prove that his world is not the solitary scenario the skeptic supposes might be realized. In this paper I examine one argument that some people think refutes solipsism. The argument, from Wittgenstein, is (...) grounded in a thesis about language. Some people believe that in using language a person necessarily is linked to persons other than himself. Some people think a person can use the ‘communalist’ principle to refute forms of solipsism. I show that people do not refute solipsism with the Wittgensteinian, language-necessarily-is-shared principle. (shrink)
Philippa Foot is one of the most original and widely respected philosophers of our time; her work has exerted a lasting influence on the development of moral philosophy. In tribute to her, twelve leading philosophers from both sides of the Atlantic have contributed essays exploring the various topics in moral philosophy to which she has made a distinctive contribution--virtue ethics, naturalism, non-cognitivism, relativism, categorical requirements, and the role of rationality in morality.
How do the young learn names for feelings? After criticizing Wittgensteinian explanations, I formulate and defend an explanation very different from Wittgensteinians embrace.
Conway and Kochen have presented a “free will theorem” [4, 6] which they claim shows that “if indeed we humans have free will, then [so do] elementary particles.” In a more precise fashion, they claim it shows that for certain quantum experiments in which the experimenters can choose between several options, no deterministic or stochastic model can account for the observed outcomes without violating a condition “MIN” motivated by relativistic symmetry. We point out that for stochastic models this conclusion is (...) not correct, while for deterministic models it is not new. In the way the free will theorem is formulated and proved, it only concerns deterministic models. But Conway and Kochen have argued [4, 5, 6, 7] that “randomness can’t help,” meaning that stochastic models are excluded as well if we insist on the conditions “SPIN”, “TWIN”, and “MIN”. We point out a mistake in their argument. Namely, the theorem is of the form deterministic model with SPIN & TWIN & MIN ⇒ contradiction , (1) and in order to derive the further claim, which is of the form stochastic model with SPIN & TWIN & MIN ⇒ contradiction , (2) Conway and Kochen propose a method for converting any stochastic model into a deterministic one [4]. (shrink)
: The regulation of Native identity has been central to the colonization process in both Canada and the United States. Systems of classification and control enable settler governments to define who is "Indian," and control access to Native land. These regulatory systems have forcibly supplanted traditional Indigenous ways of identifying the self in relation to land and community, functioning discursively to naturalize colonial worldviews. Decolonization, then, must involve deconstructing and reshaping how we understand Indigenous identity.
Explaining the "intentional object" some people assign pleasure, I argue that a person is pleased about something when his thoughts about that thing cause him to feel pleasure. Bernard Williams, Gilbert Ryle, and Irving Thalberg, who reject this analysis, are discussed. Being pleased (or distressed) about something is a compound of pleasure (pain) and some thought or belief. Pleasure in itself does not have an "intentional object".
By what types of properties do we specify twinges, toothaches, and other kinds of mental states? Wittgenstein considers two methods. Procedure one, direct, private acquaintance: A person connects a word to the sensation it specifies through noticing what that sensation is like in his own experience. Procedure two, outward signs: A person pins his use of a word to outward, pre-verbal signs of the sensation. I identify and explain a third procedure and show we in fact specify many kinds of (...) mental states in this way. (shrink)
Consideration of a paradox originally discovered by John Buridan provides a springboard for a general solution to paradoxes within the Liar family. The solution rests on a philosophical defence of truth-value-gaps and is consistent (non-dialetheist), avoids ‘revenge’ problems, imports no ad hoc assumptions, is not applicable to only a proper subset of the semantic paradoxes and implies no restriction of the expressive capacities of language.
People support ethical antirealism with various arguments. Gilbert Harman thinks if a property of goodness existed, it would have detectable effects on objects that have it. However, Harman reasons, the good has no such detectable effects. Internalists think if good objects had some goodness property, that property would bond to desire and action in a way inconsistent with ethical realism. I defend ethical realism from the two arguments. I explain how good can both name a property and how objects with (...) that property might dispose people to seek them. This explanation of the good's magnetism provides a reply to Harman. (shrink)
Bohmian trajectories have been used for various purposes, including the numerical simulation of the time-dependent Schr¨ odinger equation and the visualization of time-dependent wave functions. We review the purpose they were invented for: to serve as the foundation of quantum mechanics, i.e., to explain quantum mechanics in terms of a theory that is free of paradoxes and allows an understanding that is as clear as that of classical mechanics. Indeed, they succeed in serving that purpose in the context of a (...) theory known as Bohmian mechanics, to which this article is an introduction. (shrink)
Bohmian mechanics and the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber theory provide opposite resolutions of the quantum measurement problem: the former postulates additional variables (the particle positions) besides the wave function, whereas the latter implements spontaneous collapses of the wave function by a nonlinear and stochastic modification of Schrödinger's equation. Still, both theories, when understood appropriately, share the following structure: They are ultimately not about wave functions but about 'matter' moving in space, represented by either particle trajectories, fields on space-time, or a discrete set of (...) space-time points. The role of the wave function then is to govern the motion of the matter. (shrink)
Wittgenstein discusses speakers exploiting context to inject meaning into the sentences that they use. One facet of situation comedy is context-injected ambiguity, where scriptwriters artfully construct situations such that, because of conflicting contextual clues, a character, though uttering a sentence that contains neither ambiguous words nor amphibolous contruction may plausibly be interpreted in at least two distinct ways. This highlights an important distinction between the (concise) sentence that a speaker uses and what the speaker means, the disclosure of which may (...) require considerable spelling out. Understanding this phenomenon of nonindexical contextualism is the key to solving, inter alia , problems where, puzzlingly, exchanging a singular term in a statement with a co-referential one fails to preserve truth-value. This is a rare case where there is a huge debate in the recent literature that is decisively settled by Wittgenstein’s approach. (shrink)
Many recent results suggest that quantum theory is about information, and that quantum theory is best understood as arising from principles concerning information and information processing. At the same time, by far the simplest version of quantum mechanics, Bohmian mechanics, is concerned, not with information but with the behavior of an objective microscopic reality given by particles and their positions. What I would like to do here is to examine whether, and to what extent, the importance of information, observation, and (...) the like in quantum theory can be understood from a Bohmian perspective. I would like to explore the hypothesis that the idea that information plays a special role in physics naturally emerges in a Bohmian universe. (shrink)
Efforts to promote ethical behaviour in business and academic contexts have raised awareness of the need for an ethical orientation in business students. This study examines the similarities and differences between the personal values of Iranian and Australian business students and their attitudes to cheating behaviour in universities and unethical practices in business settings. Exploratory factory analysis provided support for three distinct ethics factors—serious academic ethical misconduct, minor academic ethical misconduct, and business ethical misconduct. Results reveal statistically significant differences between (...) the two cultural groups for ethical (altruism/universalism) values, and for attitudes to serious academic misconduct. No differences were found between the two groups for attitudes to minor academic unethical practices or unethical business practices. Gender influenced responses where females were found to indicate higher levels of unacceptability of unethical practices in academic and business settings than males. This pilot study highlights the need for higher education institutions to develop and enforce policies and practices to publicise, encourage and reinforce higher awareness of the need for adhering to ethical behaviour in university studies as a necessary component of training business professionals. (shrink)
Bohmian mechanics, which is also called the de Broglie-Bohm theory, the pilot-wave model, and the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, is a version of quantum theory discovered by Louis de Broglie in 1927 and rediscovered by David Bohm in 1952. It is the simplest example of what is often called a hidden variables interpretation of quantum mechanics. In Bohmian mechanics a system of particles is described in part by its wave function, evolving, as usual, according to Schrödinger's equation. However, the (...) wave function provides only a partial description of the system. This description is completed by the specification of the actual positions of the particles. The latter evolve according to the.. (shrink)
Hedonic pluralism is the thesis that 'pleasure' cannot be given a single, all-embracing definition. In this paper I criticize the reasoning people use to support this thesis and suggest some plausible all-encompassing analyses that easily avoid the kinds of objections people raise to all-encompassing analyses.
In Bohmian mechanics elementary particles exist objectively, as point particles moving according to a law determined by a wavefunction. In this context, questions as to whether the particles of a certain species are real---questions such as, Do photons exist? Electrons? Or just the quarks?---have a clear meaning. We explain that, whatever the answer, there is a corresponding Bohm-type theory, and no experiment can ever decide between these theories. Another question that has a clear meaning is whether particles are intrinsically distinguishable, (...) i.e., whether particle world lines have labels indicating the species. We discuss the intriguing possibility that the answer is no, and particles are points---just points. (shrink)
This paper builds on work done by Graham Priest (1994, 1995, 1998b, 2000) but does not presuppose knowledge of that work. Priest established that many paradoxes, which had been traditionally divided into different families, have a structure in common – which he calls the Inclosure Schema – and, correlatively, that these paradoxes demand a uniform solution. The uniform solution favoured by Priest is a Dialetheist one. I show that, with minor modification, the Inclosure Schema becomes sufficiently embracing to exhibit the (...) underlying structure not just of the logico-semantical paradoxes discussed by Priest, but of some metaphysical paradoxes too. The uniform solution advocated here is a non-Dialetheist one. Although this is not the concern of the present paper, I am persuaded by some recent work (Bromand 2002; Simmons 1993, pp.80-2) that Dialetheism, whatever its other virtues, does not deliver a solution to the semantical paradoxes. (shrink)
The Tree of Life hypothesis frames the evolutionary process as a series of events whereby lineages diverge from one another, thus creating the diversity of life as descendent lineages modify properties from their ancestors. This hypothesis is under scrutiny due to the strong evidence for lateral gene transfer between distantly related bacterial taxa, thereby providing extant taxa with more than one parent. As a result, one argues, the Tree of Life becomes confounded as the original branching structure is gradually superseded (...) by reticulation, ultimately losing its ability to serve as a model for bacterial evolution. Here we address a more fundamental issue: is there a Tree of Life that results from bacterial evolution without considering such lateral gene transfers? Unlike eukaryotic speciation events, lineage separation in bacteria is a gradual process that occurs over tens of millions of years, whereby genetic isolation is established on a gene-by-gene basis. As a result, groups of closely related bacteria, while showing robust genetic isolation as extant lineages, were not created by an unambiguous series of lineage-splitting events. Rather, a temporal fragmentation of the speciation process results in cognate genes showing different genetic relationships. We argue that lineage divergence in bacteria does not produce a tree-like framework, and inferences drawn from such a framework have the potential to be incorrect and misleading. Therefore, the Tree of Life is an inappropriate paradigm for bacterial evolution regardless of the extent of gene transfer between distantly related taxa. (shrink)
This article concerns a phenomenon of elementary quantum mechanics that is quite counter-intuitive, very non-classical, and apparently not widely known: a quantum particle can get reflected at a potential step downwards. In contrast, classical particles get reflected only at upward steps. As a consequence, a quantum particle can be trapped for a long time (though not forever) in a region surrounded by downward potential steps, that is, on a plateau. Said succinctly, a quantum particle tends not to fall off a (...) table. The conditions for this effect are that the wave length is much greater than the width of the potential step and the kinetic energy of the particle is much smaller than the depth of the potential step. We point out how the topic is accessible with elementary methods, but also with mathematical rigor and numerically. (shrink)
Wittgenstein's Tractatus is widely regarded as a masterpiece, a brilliant, if flawed attempt to achieve an ‘unassailable and definitive … final solution’ to a wide range of philosophical problems. Yet, in a 1931 notebook, Wittgenstein confesses: ‘I think there is some truth in my idea that I am really only reproductive in my thinking. I think I have never invented a line of thinking but that it was always provided for me by someone else’. This disarming self-assessment is, I believe (...) accurate. The Tractatus, despite making significant advances on the logical doctrines of Frege and Russell, is essentially a derivative work—Wittgenstein, as he elsewhere acknowledges, provided a fertile soil in which the original seeds of other peoples' thought grew in a unique way. In a play of mine, published in Philosophy (1999), Wittgenstein fails a tough viva on the Tractatus because he fails to properly support some of the weak arguments in the work and because of his inadequate acknowledgment of sources. The present paper further explores some of the antecedents of Wittgenstein's early views and answers some criticisms of the play. (shrink)
Bohmian mechanics and the Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber theory provide opposite resolutions of the quantum measurement problem: the former postulates additional variables (the particle positions) besides the wave function, whereas the latter implements spontaneous collapses of the wave function by a nonlinear and stochastic modification of Schrödinger's equation. Still, both theories, when understood appropriately, share the following structure: They are ultimately not about wave functions but about matter moving in space, represented by either particle trajectories, fields on space-time, or a discrete set of (...) space-time points. The role of the wave function then is to govern the motion of the matter. Introduction Bohmian Mechanics Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber 3.1 GRWm 3.2 GRWf 3.3 Empirical equivalence between GRWm and GRWf Primitive Ontology 4.1 Primitive ontology and physical equivalence 4.2 Primitive ontology and symmetry 4.3 Without primitive ontology 4.4 Primitive ontology and quantum state Differences between BM and GRW 5.1 Primitive ontology and quadratic functionals 5.2 Primitive ontology and equivariance A Plethora of Theories 6.1 Particles, fields, and flashes 6.2 Schrödinger wave functions and many-worlds The Flexible Wave Function 7.1 GRWf without collapse 7.2 Bohmian mechanics with collapse 7.3 Empirical equivalence and equivariance What is a Quantum Theory without Observers? CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
The renewed interest in the foundations of quantum statistical mechanics in recent years has led us to study John von Neumann’s 1929 article on the quantum ergodic theorem. We have found this almost forgotten article, which until now has been available only in German, to be a treasure chest, and to be much misunderstood. In it, von Neumann studied the long-time behavior of macroscopic quantum systems. While one of the two theorems announced in his title, the one he calls the (...) “quantum H-theorem,” is actually a much weaker statement than Boltzmann’s classical H-theorem, the other theorem, which he calls the “quantum ergodic theorem,” is a beautiful and very non-trivial result. It expresses a fact we call “normal typicality” and can be summarized as follows: For a “typical” finite family of commuting macroscopic observables, every initial wave function ψ0 from a micro-canonical energy shell so evolves that for most times t in the long run, the joint probability distribution of these observables obtained from ψ is close to.. (shrink)
Book Information Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range and Resolution. Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range and Resolution Nicholas Rescher , Chicago and La Salle : Open Court , 2001 , xxiii + 293 , US$24.95 ( paper ). By Nicholas Rescher. Open Court. Chicago and La Salle. Pp. xxiii + 293. US$24.95 (paper:).
Analyses of participation usually assume a dichotomy between 'instrumental' and 'transformative' approaches. However, this study of voluntary biological monitoring experiences and outcomes finds that they cannot be fitted into such a dichotomy. They can enhance the information base for environmental management; change participants through education about scientific practice and ecological change; lead to changes in life direction or group organisation; and influence decision-makers. Personal transformation can take place within a conventionally top-down context. Conversely, grassroots data collection can shore up the (...) status quo and protect local interests. Partnerships between actors can provide distinct but complementary and mutually rewarding outcomes. Power is not located in a data-consuming centre, and data are not meaningless materials that leave the collector unmoved. A more dynamic model of human-nature relations is presented which connects humans and information in the participatory process. (shrink)
: We question the claim, common since Duhem, that sixteenth century astronomy, and especially the Wittenberg interpretation of Copernicus, was instrumentalistic rather than realistic. We identify a previously unrecognized Wittenberg astronomer, Edo Hildericus (Hilderich von Varel), who presents a detailed exposition of Copernicus's cosmology that is incompatible with instrumentalism. Quotations from other sixteenth century astronomers show that knowledge of the real configuration of the heavens was unattainable practically, rather than in principle. Astronomy was limited to quia demonstrations, although demonstration propter (...) quid remained the ideal. We suggest that Osiander's notorious preface to Copernicus expresses these sixteenth century commonplaces rather than twentieth century instrumentalism, and that neither `realism', nor `instrumentalism', in their modern meanings, apply to sixteenth century astronomy. (shrink)
The renewed interest in the foundations of quantum statistical mechanics in recent years has led us to study John von Neumann’s 1929 article on the quantum ergodic theorem. We have found this almost forgotten article, which until now has been available only in German, to be a treasure chest, and to be much misunderstood. In it, von Neumann studied the long-time behavior of macroscopic quantum systems. While one of the two theorems announced in his title, the one he calls the (...) “quantum H-theorem,” is actually a much weaker statement than Boltzmann’s classical H-theorem, the other theorem, which he calls the “quantum ergodic theorem,” is a beautiful and very non-trivial result. It expresses a fact we call “normal typicality” and can be summarized as follows: For a “typical” finite family of commuting macroscopic observables, every initial wave function ψ0 from a micro-canonical energy shell so evolves that for most times t in the long run, the joint probability distribution of these observables obtained from ψt is close to their micro-canonical distribution. (shrink)
The Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber (GRW) theory of spontaneous wave function collapse is known to provide a quantum theory without observers, in fact two different ones by using either the matter density ontology (GRWm) or the flash ontology (GRWf). Both theories are known to make predictions different from those of quantum mechanics, but the difference is so small that no decisive experiment can as yet be performed. While some testable deviations from quantum mechanics have long been known, we provide here something that has (...) until now been missing: a formalism that succinctly summarizes the empirical predictions of GRWm and GRWf. We call it the GRW formalism. Its structure is similar to that of the quantum formalism but involves different operators. In other words, we establish the validity of a general algorithm for directly computing the testable predictions of GRWm and GRWf. We further show that some well-defined quantities cannot be measured in a GRWm or GRWf world. (shrink)
The Russell class does not exist because the conditions purporting to specify that class are contradictory, and hence fail to specify any class. Equally, the conditions purporting to specify the Liar statement are contradictory and hence, although the Liar sentence is grammatically in order, it fails to yield a statement. Thus the common source of these and related paradoxes is contradictory (or tautologous) specifying conditions-for such conditions fail to specify. This is the diagnosis. The cure consists of seeking and destroying (...) the deep-seated preconceptions that make almost irresistible our belief in the existence of items which provably do not exist. (shrink)
A syntactically correct number-specification may fail to specify any number due to underspecification. For similar reasons, although each sentence in the Yablo sequence is syntactically perfect, none yields a statement with any truth-value. As is true of all members of the Liar family, the sentences in the Yablo sequence are so constructed that the specification of their truth-conditions is vacuous; the Yablo sentences fail to yield statements. The ‘revenge’ problem is easily defused. The solution to the semantical paradoxes offered here (...) revives the mediaeval cassatio approach, one that largely disappeared due to its incomprehending rejection by influential contemporary writers such as William Shyreswood and Thomas Bradwardine. The diagnosis readily extends to the set-theoretic paradoxes. (shrink)
We discuss the content and significance of John von Neumann’s quantum ergodic theorem (QET) of 1929, a strong result arising from the mere mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. The QET is a precise formulation of what we call normal typicality, i.e., the statement that, for typical large systems, every initial wave function ψ0 from an energy shell is “normal”: it evolves in such a way that |ψt ψt| is, for most t, macroscopically equivalent to the micro-canonical density matrix. The QET (...) has been mostly forgotten after it was criticized as a dynamically vacuous statement in several papers in the 1950s. However, we point out that this criticism does not apply to the actual QET, a correct statement of which does not appear in these papers, but to a different (indeed weaker) statement. Furthermore, we formulate a stronger statement of normal typicality, based on the observation that the bound on the deviations from the average specified by von Neumann is unnecessarily coarse and a much tighter (and more relevant) bound actually follows from his proof. (shrink)
In a recent article [1], Wiseman has proposed the use of so-called weak measurements for the determination of the velocity of a quantum particle at a given position, and has shown that according to quantum mechanics the result of such a procedure is the Bohmian velocity of the particle. Although Bohmian mechanics is empirically equivalent to variants based on velocity formulas different from the Bohmian one, and although it has been proven that the velocity in Bohmian mechanics is not measurable, (...) we argue here for the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that Wiseman’s weak measurement procedure indeed constitutes a genuine measurement of velocity in Bohmian mechanics. We reconcile the apparent contradictions and elaborate on some of the different senses of measurement at play here. (shrink)
Bohmian mechanics is arguably the most naively obvious embedding imaginable of Schr¨ odinger’s equation into a completely coherent physical theory. It describes a world in which particles move in a highly non-Newtonian sort of way, one which may at first appear to have little to do with the spectrum of predictions of quantum mechanics. It turns out, however, that as a consequence of the defining dynamical equations of Bohmian mechanics, when a system has wave function ψ its configuration is typically (...) random, with probability density ρ given by |ψ|2, the quantum equilibrium distribution. It also turns out that the entire quantum formalism, operators as observables and all the rest, naturally emerges in Bohmian mechanics from the analysis of “measurements.” This analysis reveals the status of operators as observables in the description of quantum phenomena, and facilitates a clear view of the range of applicability of the usual quantum mechanical formulas. (shrink)
John Locke, Bertrand Russell, and other people argue that there must be indefinable words. I show how these people err in the reasoning they use to support this thesis.
A source of much difficulty and confusion in the interpretation of quantum mechanics is a naive realism about operators. By this we refer to various ways of taking too seriously the notion of operator-as-observable, and in particular to the all too casual talk about measuring operators that occurs when the subject is quantum mechanics. Without a specification of what should be meant by measuring a quantum observable, such an expression can have no clear meaning. A definite specification is provided by (...) Bohmian mechanics, a theory that emerges from Schrödinger's equation for a system of particles when we merely insist that particles means particles. Bohmian mechanics clarifies the status and the role of operators as observables in quantum mechanics by providing the operational details absent from standard quantum mechanics. It thereby allows us to readily dismiss all the radical claims traditionally enveloping the transition from the classical to the quantum realm — for example, that we must abandon classical logic or classical probability. The moral is rather simple: Beware naive realism, especially about operators! (shrink)
We consider the possibility that all particles in the world are fundamentally identical, i.e., belong to the same species. Different masses, charges, spins, flavors, or colors then merely correspond to different quantum states of the same particle, just as spin-up and spin-down do. The implications of this viewpoint can be best appreciated within Bohmian mechanics, a precise formulation of quantum mechanics with particle trajectories. The implementation of this viewpoint in such a theory leads to trajectories different from those of the (...) usual formulation, and thus to a version of Bohmian mechanics that is inequivalent to, though arguably empirically indistinguishable from, the usual one. The mathematical core of this viewpoint is however rather independent of the detailed dynamical scheme Bohmian mechanics provides, and it amounts to the assertion that the configuration space for N particles, even N “distinguishable particles,” is the set of all N -point subsets of physical 3-space. (shrink)
I was commissioned by Barry Smith, Editor of The Monist , to act as Advisory Editor for issue 88.1, January 2005 on the topic Humor, and we drafted the appended description. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2004, and you are welcome to submit an article to me for consideration (word limit 7,500 words, including footnotes). What the Editor and I are, hoping for, is some serious and seriously good philosophical writing on this topic.
We consider an isolated, macroscopic quantum system. Let H be a microcanonical “energy shell,” i.e., a subspace of the system’s Hilbert space spanned by the (finitely) many energy eigenstates with energies between E and E + δE. The thermal equilibrium macro-state at energy E corresponds to a subspace Heq of H such that dim Heq/ dim H is close to 1. We say that a system with state vector ψ H is in thermal equilibrium if ψ is “close” to Heq. (...) We show that for “typical” Hamiltonians with given eigenvalues, all initial state vectors ψ0 evolve in such a way that ψt is in thermal equilibrium for most times t. This result is closely related to von Neumann’s quantum ergodic theorem of 1929. (shrink)
Present-day interest in history among philosophers seems largely limited to a debate over the nature of historical explanation among those who for Humean reasons insist that all explanations must rest upon general laws and history cannot be an exception to this, and those who say the historians do explain and since they do not use general laws the Humean claim is obviously mistaken. Like the latter, the present paper takes the explanations of historians seriously, but unlike the latter it is (...) not willing to limit the role of philosophy of history merely to the elucidation of the language in which historians give final expression of their work. Rather it recognizes that those explanations themselves set the stage for further inquiry in that they are required to be justified. It is here that the theories or general laws demanded by Humean analysis come in. After examining examples of general laws offered by way of example of what the "Humean" philosophers are supposed to have in mind, each of which is an immediate generalization of the explanation it is called upon to explain and is, hence, an instance of what has been called "the dogma of universality," some examples of more promising prospects of theory in history are examined. (shrink)
Quantum philosophy, a peculiar twentieth-century malady, is responsible for most of the conceptual muddle plaguing the foundations of quantum physics. When this philosophy is eschewed, one naturally arrives at Bohmian mechanics, which is what emerges from Schrodinger's equation for a nonrelativistic system of particles when we merely insist that 'particles' means particles. While distinctly non-Newtonian, Bohmian mechanics is a fully deterministic theory of particles in motion, a motion choreographed by the wave function. The quantum formalism emerges when measurement situations are (...) analyzed according to this theory. When the quantum formalism is regarded as arising in this way, the paradoxes and perplexities so often associated with quantum theory simply evaporate.Bohr's ... approach to atomic problems ... is really remarkable. He is completely convinced that any understanding in the usual sense of the word is impossible. Therefore the conversation is almost immediately driven into philosophical questions, and soon you no longer know whether you really take the position he is attacking, or whether you really must attack the position he is defending. (shrink)
We present a quantum model for the motion of N point particles, implying nonlocal (i.e., superluminal) influences of external fields on the trajectories, that is nonetheless fully relativistic. In contrast to other models that have been proposed, this one involves no additional space-time structure as would be provided by a (possibly dynamical) foliation of space-time. This is achieved through the interplay of opposite microcausal and macrocausal (i.e., thermodynamic) arrows of time. PACS numbers 03.65.Ud; 03.65.Ta; 03.30.+p..
: This study of the concept of orbit is intended to throw light on the nature of revolutionary concepts in science. We observe that Kepler transformed theoretical astronomy that was understood in terms of orbs [Latin: orbes] (spherical shells to which the planets were attached) and models (called hypotheses at the time), by introducing a single term, orbit [Latin: orbita], that is, the path of a planet in space resulting from the action of physical causes expressed in laws of nature. (...) To demonstrate the claim that orbit is a revolutionary concept we pursue three lines of argument. First we trace the origin of the term; second, we document its development and specify the meaning of the novel term as it was introduced into astronomy by Kepler in his Astronomia nova (1609). Finally, in order to establish in what sense the concept is revolutionary, we pay attention to the enduring impact that the concept has had on the relevant sciences, in this case astronomy and indeed physics. We claim that orbit is an instance of a revolutionary concept whose provenance and use can provide the insights we are seeking. (shrink)
What role should the physician's conscience play in the practice of medicine? Much controversy has surrounded the question, yet little attention has been paid to the possibility that disputants are operating with contrasting definitions of the conscience. To illustrate this divergence, we contrast definitions stemming from Abrahamic religions and those stemming from secular moral tradition. Clear differences emerge regarding what the term conscience conveys, how the conscience should be informed, and what the consequences are for violating one's conscience. Importantly, these (...) basic disagreements underlie current controversies regarding the role of the clinician's conscience in the practice of medicine. Consequently participants in ongoing debates would do well to specify their definitions of the conscience and the reasons for and implications of those definitions. This specification would allow participants to advance a more philosophically and theologically robust conversation about the means and ends of medicine. (shrink)
We show that the Bub-Clifton uniqueness theorem (1996) for 'no collapse' interpretations of quantum mechanics can be proved without the 'weak separability' assumption.
In [3] John S. Bell proposed how to associate particle trajectories with a lattice quantum field theory, yielding what can be regarded as a |Ψ|2-distributed Markov process on the appropriate configuration space. A similar process can be defined in the continuum, for more or less any regularized quantum field theory; such processes we call Bell-type quantum field theories. We describe methods for explicitly constructing these processes. These concern, in addition to the definition of the Markov processes, the efficient calculation of (...) jump rates, how to obtain the process from the processes corresponding to the free and interaction Hamiltonian alone, and how to obtain the free process from the free Hamiltonian or, alternatively, from the one-particle process by a construction analogous to “second quantization.” As an example, we consider the process for a second quantized Dirac field in an external electromagnetic field. (shrink)
That every sensation type be marked by a distinctive outward sign is not a prerequisite for having names for different kinds of sensations. The paper is part of a challenge to the widely accepted Wittgensteinian thesis that it is a requirement for our having names for mental states that we tie psychological words to outward signs of the mental states.
ces, learning facts and gaining conceptual knowlge, recognizing objects and people, and acquiring ills and habits. Scientific thinking about memory was minated for many years by the assumption that mory is a unitary or monolithic entityRi2;a single ulty of the mind and brain. However, the assumpri of a unitary memory has been challenged by conging evidence from psychology and neuroscience inting toward multiple memory systems that can be sociated from one another. This chapter provides a torical introduction to the issue (...) and summarizes.. (shrink)
The purposes and methods of medieval Kashmiri thinkers Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta in creating the Pratyabhijñā philosophical apologetics for monistic Śaivism are examined. These thinkers structure their philosophy with the argumentative standards of Nyāya in the pursuit of universal intelligibility, while at the same time homologizing their discourse to tantric myth and ritual. How the Śaivas implement their project with their theory of recognition is also summarized.
When I was young I was fascinated by the quantum revolution: the transition from classical definiteness and determinism to quantum indeterminacy and uncertainty, from classical laws that are indifferent, if not hostile, to the human presence, to quantum laws that fundamentally depend upon an observer for their very meaning. I was intrigued by the radical subjectivity, as expressed by Heisenberg’s assertion [3] that “The idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones (...) or trees exist, independently of whether or not we observe them . . . is impossible . . . ” It is true that I did not really understand what the quantum side of this transition in fact entailed, but that very fact made quantum mechanics seem to me all the more exciting. I was eager to learn precisely what the alluring quantum mysteries might mean, what kind of world they describe, as well as exactly what evidence could compel—or at least support—such radical conclusions. (shrink)
Using computer simulations, we investigate the time evolution of the (Boltzmann) entropy of a dense fluid not in local equilibrium. The macrovariables M describing the system are the (empirical) particle density f = {f(x,v)} and the total energy E. We find that S(ft,E) is a monotone increasing in time even when its kinetic part is decreasing. We argue that for isolated Hamiltonian systems monotonicity of S(Mt) = S(MXt) should hold generally for ‘‘typical’’ (the overwhelming majority of) initial microstates (phase points) (...) X0 belonging to the initial macrostate M0, satisfying MX0 = M0. This is a consequence of Liouville's theorem when Mt evolves according to an autonomous deterministic law. (shrink)
Logicism is one of the great reductionist projects. Numbers and the relationships in which they stand may seem to possess suspect ontological credentials – to be entia non grata – and, further, to be beyond the reach of knowledge. In seeking to reduce mathematics to a small set of principles that form the logical basis of all reasoning, logicism holds out the prospect of ontological economy and epistemological security. This paper attempts to show that a fundamental logicist project, that of (...) defining the number one in terms drawn only from logic and set theory, is a doomed enterprise. The starting point is Russell''s Theory of Descriptions, which purports to supply a quantificational analysis of definite descriptions by adjoining a ''uniqueness clause'' to the formal rendering of indefinite descriptions. That theory fails on at least two counts. First, the senses of statements containing indefinite descriptions are typically not preserved under the Russellian translation. Second (and independently), the ''uniqueness clause'' fails to trim ''some'' to ''one''. The Russell–Whitehead account in Principia Mathematica fares no better. Other attempts to define ''one'' are covertly circular. An ontologically non-embarrassing alternative account of the number words is briefly sketched. (shrink)
