24 found
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  1. Philosophical foundations of effective field theories.Sébastien Rivat & Alexei Grinbaum - 2020 - European Physical Journal A 56 (3).
    This survey covers some of the main philosophical debates raised by the framework of effective field theories during the last decades. It is centered on three issues: whether effective field theories underpin a specific realist picture of the world, whether they support an anti-reductionist picture of physics, and whether they provide reasons to give up the ultimate aspiration of formulating a final and complete physical theory. Reviewing the past and current literature, we argue that effective field theories do not give (...)
     
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  2. The Distribution of Ethical Labor in the Scientific Community.Vincenzo Politi & Alexei Grinbaum - 2020 - Journal of Responsible Innovation 7:263-279.
    To believe that every single scientist ought to be individually engaged in ethical thinking in order for science to be responsible at a collective level may be too demanding, if not plainly unrealistic. In fact, ethical labor is typically distributed across different kinds of scientists within the scientific community. Based on the empirical data collected within the Horizon 2020 ‘RRI-Practice’ project, we propose a classification of the members of the scientific community depending on their engagement in this collective activity. Our (...)
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  3.  32
    Quantum Technologies and Society: Towards a Different Spin.Christopher Coenen, Alexei Grinbaum, Armin Grunwald, Colin Milburn & Pieter Vermaas - 2022 - NanoEthics 16 (1):1-6.
    Due primarily to technological advances over the last decade, quantum research has become a key priority area for science and technology policy all over the world. With this manifesto, we wish to prevent quantum technology from running into fiascos of implementation at the interface of science and society. To this end, we identify key stumbling blocks and propose recommendations.
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  4. Reconstruction of quantum theory.Alexei Grinbaum - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (3):387 - 408.
    What belongs to quantum theory is no more than what is needed for its derivation. Keeping to this maxim, we record a paradigmatic shift in the foundations of quantum mechanics, where the focus has recently moved from interpreting to reconstructing quantum theory. Several historic and contemporary reconstructions are analyzed, including the work of Hardy, Rovelli, and Clifton, Bub and Halvorson. We conclude by discussing the importance of a novel concept of intentionally incomplete reconstruction.
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  5.  27
    How device-independent approaches change the meaning of physical theory.Alexei Grinbaum - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 58:22-30.
  6. Which Fine-Tuning Arguments Are Fine?Alexei Grinbaum - 2012 - Foundations of Physics 42 (5):615-631.
    Fine-tuning arguments are a frequent find in the literature on quantum field theory. They are based on naturalness—an aesthetic criterion that was given a precise definition in the debates on the Higgs mechanism. We follow the history of such definitions and of their application at the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking. They give rise to a special interpretation of probability, which we call Gedankenfrequency. Finally, we show that the argument from naturalness has been extended to comparing different models of the (...)
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  7. From speculation to reality: enhancing anticipatory ethics for emerging technologies (ATE) in practice.Steven Umbrello, Michael J. Bernstein, Pieter E. Vermaas, Anaïs Resseguir, Gustavo Gonzalez, Andrea Porcari, Alexei Grinbaum & Laurynas Adomaitis - 2023 - Technology in Society 74:1-11.
    Various approaches have emerged over the last several decades to meet the challenges and complexities of anticipating and responding to the potential impacts of emerging technologies. Although many of the existing approaches share similarities, they each have shortfalls. This paper takes as the object of its study Anticipatory Ethics for Emerging Technologies (ATE) to technology assessment, given that it was formatted to address many of the privations characterising parallel approaches. The ATE approach, also in practice, presents certain areas for retooling, (...)
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  8.  58
    Moral Equivalence in the Metaverse.Alexei Grinbaum & Laurynas Adomaitis - 2022 - NanoEthics 16 (3):257-270.
    Are digital subjects in virtual reality morally equivalent to human subjects? We divide this problem into two questions bearing, respectively, on cognitive and emotional equivalence. Typically, cognitive equivalence does not hold due to the lack of substantialist indistinguishability, but emotional equivalence applies: digital subjects endowed with face or language elicit emotional responses on a par with real-world pleasure, desire, horror, or fear. This is sufficient for projecting moral traits on avatars in the metaverse or on dialog systems based on large (...)
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  9.  31
    Narratives of quantum theory in the age of quantum technologies.Alexei Grinbaum - 2017 - Ethics and Information Technology 19 (4):295-306.
    Quantum technologies can be presented to the public with or without introducing a strange trait of quantum theory responsible for their non-classical efficiency. Traditionally the message was centered on the superposition principle, while entanglement and properties such as contextuality have been gaining ground recently. A less theoretical approach is focused on simple protocols that enable technological applications. It results in a pragmatic narrative built with the help of the resource paradigm and principle-based reconstructions. I discuss the advantages and weaknesses of (...)
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  10. Ethics in robotics research: CERNA recommendations.Alexei Grinbaum & Raja Chatila - 2017 - IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (99):1-8.
    This article summarizes the recommendations concerning robotics as issued by the Commission for the Ethics of Research in Information Sciences and Technologies (CERNA), the French advisory commission for the ethics of information and communication technology (ICT) research. Robotics has numerous applications in which its role can be overwhelming and may lead to unexpected consequences. In this rapidly evolving technological environment, CERNA does not set novel ethical standards but seeks to make ethical deliberation inseparable from scientific activity. Additionally, it provides tools (...)
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  11.  94
    Reconstructing instead of interpreting quantum theory.Alexei Grinbaum - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (5):761-774.
    A paradigmatic shift in the foundations of quantum mechanics is recorded, from interpreting to reconstructing quantum theory. Examples of reconstruction are analyzed, and conceptual foundations of the information-theoretic reconstruction developed. A concept of intentionally incomplete reconstruction is introduced to mark the novel content of research in the foundation of quantum theory. ‡Many thanks to Lucien Hardy, Jeff Bub and Bill Demopoulos for their comments. This research was supported through the ANR grant ANR-06-BLAN-0348-01. Part of this research was held at the (...)
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  12.  73
    The nanotechnological golem.Alexei Grinbaum - 2010 - NanoEthics 4 (3):191-198.
    We give reasons for the importance of old narratives, including myths, in ethical thinking about science and technology. On the example of a legend about creating artificial men we explore the side effects of having too much success and the problem of intermediate social status of bioengineered artefacts.
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  13. The Old-New Meaning of Researcher’s Responsibility.Alexei Grinbaum - 2013 - Etica E Politica 15 (1):236-250.
    If the technological situation is unique, the ways to understand the contemporary moral condition are not. We link it to age-old questions: in fact, the power promised by technol-ogy only establishes a new form of human finitude. In the face of this continuity of the fundamental moral condition, we examine a number of alternative ways of thinking about the basis of responsible innovation, exploring the metaphors of quasi-parental and political responsibilities, as well as the place of virtue in innovation and (...)
     
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  14.  49
    (1 other version)The effectiveness of mathematics in physics of the unknown.Alexei Grinbaum - 2017 - Synthese:1-17.
    If physics is a science that unveils the fundamental laws of nature, then the appearance of mathematical concepts in its language can be surprising or even mysterious. This was Eugene Wigner’s argument in 1960. I show that another approach to physical theory accommodates mathematics in a perfectly reasonable way. To explore unknown processes or phenomena, one builds a theory from fundamental principles, employing them as constraints within a general mathematical framework. The rise of such theories of the unknown, which I (...)
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  15.  76
    On the eve of the LHC: Conceptual questions in high-energy physics.Alexei Grinbaum - unknown
    We start by remarks on the scientific and societal context of today's theoretical physics. Major classes of models for physics to be explored at the LHC are then reviewed. This leads us to propose an LHC timeline and a list of potential effects on theoretical physics and the society. We then explore three conceptual questions connected with the LHC physics: symmetry (and symmetry breaking), effective field theory, and fine tuning.
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  16.  65
    Quantum Theory as a Critical Regime of Language Dynamics.Alexei Grinbaum - 2015 - Foundations of Physics 45 (10):1341-1350.
    Some mathematical theories in physics justify their explanatory superiority over earlier formalisms by the clarity of their postulates. In particular, axiomatic reconstructions drive home the importance of the composition rule and the continuity assumption as two pillars of quantum theory. Our approach sits on these pillars and combines new mathematics with a testable prediction. If the observer is defined by a limit on string complexity, information dynamics leads to an emergent continuous model in the critical regime. Restricting it to a (...)
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  17.  11
    Reimaging the Imaginaries of Artificial Intelligence.Alexei Grinbaum - 2023 - Techné Research in Philosophy and Technology 27 (3):405-410.
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  18.  19
    Philosophie et Sciences.Mario Castellana, Alexei Grinbaum, Vincent Bontems, Giovanni Carrozzini, Anne Rasmussen, Marc Pavlopoulos & Annie Bruter - 2013 - Revue de Synthèse 134 (1):125-158.
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  19.  13
    Cognitive Barriers in Perception of Nanotechnology.Alexei Grinbaum - 2006 - Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 34 (4):689-694.
    A number of recent reports and overviews on the ethical and societal problems of nanotechnology present a public that is polarized about nanotechnology. Very little responsible analysis can be found between those poles for two reasons. First, the debate about the highly controversial notion of molecular manufacturing introduced by Eric Drexler shaped much of the early discussion. Second, the polarization can be seen as a consequence of uncertainty about nanotechnology compounded by cognitive barriers. A reporter to UNESCO acknowledges that “…Assessments (...)
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  20.  46
    Nanotechnological Icons.Alexei Grinbaum - 2011 - NanoEthics 5 (2):195-202.
    Modern microscopes create a capacity to see and act at the scale where unassisted human senses are powerless. Images of nanoscale phenomena represent a world that effectively intervenes in human life while remaining distant and ineffable. This combination of an unbridgeable distance between man and technology with a real power of the latter over the human condition is characteristic, not only of nanotechnology, but also of the theology of sacred icons that mediate in the knowledge of divine reality. We draw (...)
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  21.  39
    On Epistemological Modesty.Alexei Grinbaum - 2010 - Philosophica 83 (1):139-150.
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  22. Quantum Observer and Kolmogorov Complexity.Alexei Grinbaum - 2013 - In Tilman Sauer & Adrian Wüthrich (eds.), New Vistas on Old Problems. Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge. pp. 13.
     
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  23.  41
    Quantum Observer, Information Theory and Kolmogorov Complexity.Alexei Grinbaum - 2013 - In Hanne Andersen, Dennis Dieks, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Thomas Uebel & Gregory Wheeler (eds.), New Challenges to Philosophy of Science. Springer Verlag. pp. 59--72.
  24.  13
    Responsible Research and Innovation.Alexei Grinbaum - 2013 - In Armin Grunwald (ed.), Handbuch Technikethik. Stuttgart: Metzler. pp. 472-476.
    RRI is a science policy framework in the Horizon-2020 programme of the European Commission. The funding programme was launched in 2014, while the conceptual foundations of RRI have been laid in a series of conferences, expert meetings and publications beginning around 2011. RRI seeks to engage publics with science and technology stakeholders in a responsible, multi-dimensional dialogue on five themes called »RRI keys«: ethics, science education, open access, gender equality, and societal engagement.
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