Dynamic and stochastic systems as a framework for metaphysics and the philosophy of science
Synthese 198 (3):2551-2612 (2021)
Abstract
Scientists often think of the world as a dynamical system, a stochastic process, or a generalization of such a system. Prominent examples of systems are the system of planets orbiting the sun or any other classical mechanical system, a hydrogen atom or any other quantum–mechanical system, and the earth’s atmosphere or any other statistical mechanical system. We introduce a general and unified framework for describing such systems and show how it can be used to examine some familiar philosophical questions, including the following: how can we define nomological possibility, necessity, determinism, and indeterminism; what are symmetries and laws; what regularities must a system display to make scientific inference possible; how might principles of parsimony such as Occam’s Razor help when we make such inferences; what is the role of space and time in a system; and might they be emergent features? Our framework is intended to serve as a toolbox for the formal analysis of systems that is applicable in several areas of philosophy.Author's Profile
Reprint years
2019
DOI
10.1007/s11229-019-02231-8
My notes
Similar books and articles
Determinism, indeterminism and mathematics.Andrezej Lasota - 1997 - Foundations of Science 2 (1):73-75.
A fundamental link between system theory and statistical mechanics.H. Atmanspacher & H. Scheingraber - 1987 - Foundations of Physics 17 (9):939-963.
Are deterministic descriptions and indeterministic descriptions observationally equivalent?Charlotte Werndl - 2009 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (3):232-242.
Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics with Fundamental Environment.Ashot S. Gevorkyan - 2011 - Foundations of Physics 41 (3):509-515.
Computers, Dynamical Systems, Phenomena, and the Mind.Marco Giunti - 1992 - Dissertation, Indiana University
Prequantum Classical Statistical Field Theory: Schrödinger Dynamics of Entangled Systems as a Classical Stochastic Process. [REVIEW]Andrei Khrennikov - 2011 - Foundations of Physics 41 (3):317-329.
Initial Conditions and the 'Open Systems' Argument against Laws of Nature.Clint Ballinger - 2008 - Metaphysica 9 (1):17-31.
Regularity in nonlinear dynamical systems.D. Lynn Holt & R. Glynn Holt - 1993 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (4):711-727.
How Occam's razor provides a neat definition of direct causation.Alexander Gebharter & Gerhard Schurz - 2014 - In J. M. Mooij, D. Janzing, J. Peters, T. Claassen & A. Hyttinen (eds.), Proceedings of the UAI Workshop Causal Inference: Learning and Prediction. CEUR-WS. pp. 1-10.
Dynamic topological logic of metric spaces.David Fernández-Duque - 2012 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 77 (1):308-328.
Cognition and the power of continuous dynamical systems.Whit Schonbein - 2004 - Minds and Machines 15 (1):57-71.
The role of agency in distributed cognitive systems.Ronald N. Giere - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (5):710-719.
Stochastic theory for classical and quantum mechanical systems.L. de la Peña & A. M. Cetto - 1975 - Foundations of Physics 5 (2):355-370.
Doubly stochastic matrices in quantum mechanics.James D. Louck - 1997 - Foundations of Physics 27 (8):1085-1104.
Fluctuations in the dynamics of single quantum systems.Anton Amann & Harald Atmanspacher - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 29 (2):151-182.
Analytics
Added to PP
2015-08-15
Downloads
207 (#62,026)
6 months
12 (#78,077)
2015-08-15
Downloads
207 (#62,026)
6 months
12 (#78,077)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Aggregating Causal Judgments.Richard Bradley, Franz Dietrich & Christian List - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (4):491-515.
A dynamical systems approach to causation.Peter Fazekas, Balazs Gyenis, Gábor Hofer-Szabó & Gergely Kertesz - 2019 - Synthese 198 (7):6065-6087.
References found in this work
Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - Oxford University Press.
The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation.Steven French - 2014 - New York: Oxford University Press.