Idealization and the Laws of Nature

Wheeler, Billy

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-99564-9

Cited by 6 publications

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“…2005;Kuipers 2007;McMullin 1985;Norton 2012;Potochnik 2017;Portides 2018;Suárez (ed.) 2009;Weisberg 2007;Wheeler 2018). V tradícii analytickej filozofie sa presadila definícia idealizácie, ktorú zaviedol Ernan McMullin roku 1985, podľa ktorej idealizácia je "zámerné zjednodušenie niečoho zložitého, aby sme to mohli aspoň čiastočne pochopiť.…”

Section: Zjednotenie Inštrumentov Do Jednotnej Inštrumentálnej Praxeunclassified

Jazyk ako nástroj exaktného myslenia vo vede

Kvasz¹

2022

filozofia

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In ordinary experience, we base knowledge on more or less subjective sensory perception, whereas scientific knowledge is based on objective data. In this paper we try to analyze the changes that have taken place in ordinary language so that it could become an effective tool for reasoning in the exact sciences. We will start, in the first part of the paper, from the assumption of realism and epistemic accessibility of reality (i.e. the assumption that there is a reality independent of us to which we have epistemic access). In the second part of the paper, we will try to describe the changes that have made possible the stabilization of the epistemic contact with reality. We will show that the notion of the pictorial form, introduced by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, is capable of describing the stabilization of the epistemic contact. In the third part, we will describe the instrumental extension of the epistemic contact so that we can reach phenomena, objects and relations that are inaccessible to sense perception. We will use Wittgensteinʼs notion of a language game to analyze such instrumental extensions. Finally, in the fourth part, we offer an account of idealization, which results in quantitative data that form the basis of the scientific description of reality. Although several of these transformations (with the possible exception of the interpretation of idealization) have already been described in the literature, we see the contribution of our paper not so much in the individual details as in integrating them into a theory that makes it possible to link our everyday understanding of reality (also referred to as the life-world or the manifest image) with its scientific representation.

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Section: Zjednotenie Inštrumentov Do Jednotnej Inštrumentálnej Praxeunclassified

Jazyk ako nástroj exaktného myslenia vo vede

Kvasz¹

2022

filozofia

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“…The algorithmic theory of laws has the resources to explain what is going on here. As I have argued elsewhere (Wheeler 2012(Wheeler , 2017(Wheeler and 2018, it is prudent for an advocate of the algorithmic theory to follow computer science in acknowledging two kinds of data compression. The example of algorithmic compression given in section 1 is an example of "lossless compression": given the algorithm (and any other singular input data) it is possible to return the original string intact, without any information loss.…”

Section: Idealization and Lossy Compressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compressibility and the Algorithmic Theory of Laws

Wheeler¹

2019

Principia

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The algorithmic theory of laws claims that the laws of nature are the algorithms in the best possible compression of all empirical data. This position assumes that the universe is compressible and that data received from observing it is easily reproducible using a simple set of rules. However, there are three sources of evidence that suggest that the universe as a whole is incompressible. The first comes from the practice of science. The other two come from the nature of the universe itself: the presence of chaotic behavior and the nature of quantum systems also suggests that the universe is incompressible. This paper evaluates these sources and argues that none provides a convincing case to reject the algorithmic theory of laws.

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Commented Bibliography on Models and Idealizations

Cassini

2021

Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science

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Idealization and the Laws of Nature

Cited by 6 publications

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Jazyk ako nástroj exaktného myslenia vo vede

Jazyk ako nástroj exaktného myslenia vo vede

Compressibility and the Algorithmic Theory of Laws

Commented Bibliography on Models and Idealizations

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