- philphysmunich - lists.lrz.de

Talk by Luigi Scorzato at MCMP (Wed. 16th Jan.)
by Karim Thebault Jan. 14, 2013

Jan. 14, 2013

Speaker: Luigi Scorzato (ECT*, Trento) Wednesday January 16th Ludwigstr.31 /II room 225 Time: 6 to 8 pm Title: The interplay between simplicity and measurability in scientific theories. Abstract: Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be defined precisely strongly depend on the language in which the theory is formulated. Moreover, according to a common general argument, the simplicity of a theory is always trivial in a suitably chosen language. However, this "trivialization argument" is always either applied to toy-models of scientific theories or applied with little regard for the empirical content of the theory. In this paper I show that the trivialization argument fails, when one considers realistic theories and requires their empirical content to be preserved. In fact, the concepts that enable a very simple formulation, are not necessarily measurable, in general. Moreover, the inspection of a theory describing a chaotic billiard shows that precisely those concepts that naturally make the theory extremely simple are provably not measurable. This suggests that, whenever a theory possesses sufficiently complex consequences, the constraint of measurability prevents too simple formulations in any language. In this paper I propose a way to introduce the constraint of measurability in the formulation of a scientific theory in such a way that the notion of simplicity acquires a general and sufficiently precise meaning. I argue that this explains why the scientists often regard their assessments of simplicity as largely unambiguous. _______________________________________________ philphysmunich mailing list philphysmunich(a)lists.lrz.de https://lists.lrz.de/mailman/listinfo/philphysmunich

1 0

Talk by Karim Thébault at MCMP (Wed. 9th Jan.)
by Karim Thebault Jan. 4, 2013

Jan. 4, 2013

Speaker: Karim Thébault (Munich) Title: Quantisation as a guide to ontic structure Wednesday January 9th Ludwigstr.31 /II room 225 Time: 6 to 8 pm Abstract: The ontic structural realist stance is motivated by a desire to do philosophical justice to the success of science, whilst withstanding the metaphysical undermining generated by the various species of ontological underdetermination. We are, however, as yet in want of general principles to provide a scaffold for the explicit construction of structural ontologies. Here we will attempt to bridge this gap by utilising the formal procedure of quantisation as a guide to ontic structure of modern physical theory. The example of non-relativistic particle mechanics will be considered and, for that case, it will be argued that, modulo certain mathematical ambiguities, a consistent candidate structural ontology can be established. _______________________________________________ philphysmunich mailing list philphysmunich(a)lists.lrz.de https://lists.lrz.de/mailman/listinfo/philphysmunich

1 0

Workshop on Laws of Nature Monday Dec. 17
by Mathias Frisch Dec. 10, 2012

Dec. 10, 2012

Laws of Nature Organized by the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP), LMU München, in cooperation with the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS), TU München. According to the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis conception of laws of nature, the laws supervene on the "Humean mosaic" of non-modal particular matters of fact: the laws are the axioms of the deductive system that best combines simplicity and strength. This workshop explores recent developments in Best-System-accounts of laws. Is the notion of a "best system" an essentially pragmatic notion? Should we think of science as providing us with a single best system, that has the fundamental laws of physics as its axioms or as providing us with multiple best systems, corresponding to different domains and scientific disciplines? Are Best-System-accounts, and Humean accounts of laws more generally, metaphysically too"‘thin" to capture the explanatory role of laws? Date and Location Monday, 17 December 2012 Technische Universität München Arcisstr. 21 Room 1229 Speakers Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham) Craig Callender (University of California, San Diego) Michael Esfeld (Université de Lausanne) Mathias Frisch (University of Maryland, College Park) Carl Hoefer (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Markus Schrenk (Universität Köln) Program Time Speaker Title 09:00 – 09:15 Welcome 09:30 – 10:15 Helen Beebee Ramsey vs. Lewis on conditionals and causation 10:30 – 11:30 Carl Hoefer Pragmatic Humeanism, Consistency and the Principal Principle 11:45 – 12:45 Mathias Frisch Why Physics Can't Explain Everything 12:45 – 14:00 Lunch 14:00 – 15:00 Michael Esfeld Humeanism and Dispositionalism in Quantum Physics 15:15 – 16:15 Markus Schrenk Trouble with Properties for Better Best Systems 16:30 – 17:30 Craig Callender New Developments of the Systems Theory of Laws 17:30 – 18:00 Discussion Mathias Frisch Associate Professor of Philosophy University of Maryland, College Park z. Zt. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

1 0

Craig Callender this Friday, 4 pm
by Mathias Frisch Dec. 10, 2012

Dec. 10, 2012

Colloquiums Talk: Falling Through Time Prof. Craig Callender, UC San Diego. When: Fri, December 14, 4pm – 6pm Where: Ludwigstr. 31 // 2 room 225 Abstract: The idea that time flows is firmly entrenched in the manifest conception of time. Such is the strength of this feeling that many distinguished thinkers assume that positing a basic physical or metaphysical flow is the only action fully respecting it. I'll argue that this is a mistake. The cosmologist Gold emphasized that we need to explain the flow, asserting that “there can be a self-consistent set of rules that would give a beast this kind of phoney picture of time." While I don't think flow need be illusory -- instead it could be like color -- I want to take up this interdisciplinary explanatory project. Appealing to the hard facts of life in a relativistic world, our environments, and our psychology, I develop a theory of why "beasts" like us feel like we're falling through time. Mathias Frisch Associate Professor of Philosophy University of Maryland, College Park z. Zt. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

1 0

Talk by Craig Callender at MCMP (Fri. 14th Dec.)
by Dardashti, Radin Dec. 6, 2012

Dec. 6, 2012

Talk: Craig Callender Title: Falling Through Time Friday December 14th Ludwigstr.31 /II room 225 Time: 4 to 6 pm Abstract: The idea that time flows is firmly entrenched in the manifest conception of time. Such is the strength of this feeling that many distinguished thinkers assume that positing a basic physical or metaphysical flow is the only action fully respecting it. I'll argue that this is a mistake. The cosmologist Gold emphasized that we need to explain the flow, asserting that “there can be a self-consistent set of rules that would give a beast this kind of phoney picture of time." While I don't think flow need be illusory -- instead it could be like color -- I want to take up this interdisciplinary explanatory project. Appealing to the hard facts of life in a relativistic world, our environments, and our psychology, I develop a theory of why "beasts" like us feel like we're falling through time.

1 0

talk at the MCMP Thursday 6th December
by Karim Thebault Nov. 30, 2012

Nov. 30, 2012

Thursday December 6th Ludwigstr. 31 <http://goo.gl/maps/8Q2IJ> /II room 225 Time: 4 to 6 p.m. Talk: Giovanni Valente (Pittsburgh) *Local Disentanglement in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory* * * ABSTRACT In their paper on "Entanglement and Open Systems in Algebraic Quantum Field Theory", Clifton and Halvorson (2001) raised the question whether entanglement between quantum systems can be destroyed by means of local operations and claimed that, contrary to non-relativistic quantum mechanics, this can never be the case in relativistic quantum field theory. In this talk I will argue that Clifton and Halvorson's no-go result applies only to a special kind of local operations, and thereby I will reject their conclusion. In fact, after providing sufficient conditions for local disentanglement to be achieved, I will show that, if the split property holds, there exists a class of local operations which disentangle all states across any pair of spacelike separated quantum field systems. ---- Karim Thébault, MCMP<http://www.mcmp.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/index.html> philphysmunich is a subscription based electronic mailing list for the announcement of events relating to the foundations and philosophy of physics within Munich. In general, these will be talks, conferences, workshops or public lectures. The intended users of the list include physicists, philosophers and historians of physics. This list is open so all members can post events. Sign up at: https://lists.lrz.de/mailman/listinfo/philphysmunich. To post a message to all the list members, send email to philphysmunich(a)lists.lrz.de.

1 0

philosophy of physics talk at the MCMP next friday
by Karim Thebault Nov. 23, 2012

Nov. 23, 2012

*November 30th:* Ludwigstr. 31 <http://goo.gl/maps/8Q2IJ> /II room 225**** Time: 12 to 2 p.m. Talk: Richard Dawid/Vienna *Evidence for the Higgs Particle and the Look Elsewhere Effect* * * Last summer CERN reported the observation of a scalar particle that is strongly believed to be the long expected Higgs particle. One specific aspect of the process of data collection and analysis that led up to this discovery is of specific philosophical interest. In the early months of 2012, when the collected data was already significant but technically did not yet amount to an observation of a new particle (i. e. did not yet constitute a 5 sigma effect), an interesting debate on the most adequate characterisation of the status of the available data arose among particle physicists. That debate circled around the role of the so called ‘look elsewhere effect’ and provided an interesting perspective on the relation between theoretical and empirical arguments in high energy physics. The talk will analyse this debate and draw some conclusions regarding the epistemic status of claims in high energy physics. ---- Karim Thébault, MCMP<http://www.mcmp.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/index.html>

1 0

archive test
by Karim Thebault Oct. 23, 2012

Oct. 23, 2012

1 0