Space, time, and the limits of human understanding / Shyam Wuppuluri, Giancarlo Ghirardi, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wuppuluri, Shyam, editor.

Ghirardi, G. C., editor.

Stachel, John J., 1928- writer of foreword.

Chomsky, Noam, writer of afterword.

Series:

Frontiers collection

Frontiers collection, 1612-3018

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Space and time.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 530 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

[Cham, Switzerland] : Springer, 2017.

Summary:

"In this compendium of essays, some of the world's leading thinkers discuss their conceptions of space and time, as viewed through the lens of their own discipline. With an epilogue on the limits of human understanding, this volume hosts contributions from six or more diverse fields. It presumes only rudimentary background knowledge on the part of the reader. Time and again, through the prism of intellect, humans have tried to diffract reality into various distinct, yet seamless, atomic, yet holistic, independent, yet interrelated disciplines and have attempted to study it contextually. Philosophers debate the paradoxes, or engage in meditations, dialogues and reflections on the content and nature of space and time. Physicists, too, have been trying to mold space and time to fit their notions concerning micro- and macro-worlds. Mathematicians focus on the abstract aspects of space, time and measurement. While cognitive scientists ponder over the perceptual and experiential facets of our consciousness of space and time, computer scientists theoretically and practically try to optimize the space-time complexities in storing and retrieving data/information. The list is never-ending. Linguists, logicians, artists, evolutionary biologists, geographers etc., all are trying to weave a web of understanding around the same duo. However, our endeavour into a world of such endless imagination is restrained by intellectual dilemmas such as: Can humans comprehend everything? Are there any limits? Can finite thought fathom infinity? We have sought far and wide among the best minds to furnish articles that provide an overview of the above topics. We hope that, through this journey, a symphony of patterns and tapestry of intuitions will emerge, providing the reader with insights into the questions: What is Space? What is Time?" -- Publisher's web site.

Contents:

Space as a source and as an object of knowledge : the transformation of the concept of space in the post-Kantian philosphy of geometry / Francesca Biagioli

Time in physics and time in awareness / E. C. G. Sudarshan

Time and space in ancient India : pre-philosophical period / Nataliya Yanchevskaya

Śrīharṣa on the indefinability of time / Jonathan Duquette and Krishnamurti Ramasubramanian

From time to time / Nathan Salmon

Why spacetime has a life of its own / James Robert Brown

The phenomenology of space and time : Husserl, Sartre, Derrida / Hans Herlof Grelland

Space, time, and (how they) matter / Valia Allori

Relativity theory may not have the last word on the nature of time : quantum theory and probabilism / Nicholas Maxwell

Nature's book keeping system / Gerard 't Hooft

Spacetime and reality : facing the ultimate judge / Vesselin Petkov

The future's not ours to see / Anthony Sudbery

Hermann Weyl's space-time geometry and its impact on theories of fundamental interactions / Norbert Straumann

Matter, space, time, and motion : a unified gravitational perspective / C. S. Unnikrishnan

An anomaly in space and time and the origin of dynamics / Joan A. Vaccaro

Space, time, and adynamical explanation in the relational blockworld / W. M. Stuckey, Michael Silberstein, Timothy McDevitt

Spacetime is doomed / George Musser

Geometry and physical space / Mary Leng

The geometry of manifolds and the perception of space / Raymond O. Wells Jr.

Paradox? the mathematics of space-time and the limits of human understanding / Paul Ernest

"Now" has an infinitesimal positive duration / Reuben Hersh

What's wrong with the Platonic ideal of space and time? / Lorenzo Sadun

The fundamental problem of dynamics / Julian Barbour

General relativity, time, and determinism / James Isenberg

Topos theoretic approach to space and time / Goro C. Kato

Syntactic space / Rajesh Kasturirangan

Time measurement in living systems : human understanding and health implications / Lakshman Abhilash and Vijay Kumar Sharma

The cellular space : the space of life / Pier Luigi Luisi

The consciousness of space, the space of consciousness / Mauro Bergonzi and Pier Luigi Luisi

Time and suffering : false metaphors, (de-)synchronous times, and internal dynamics / Norman Sieroka

Evolutionary time and the creation of the space of life / Randall E. Auxier

A computational mathematics view of space, time and complexity / David H. Bailey and Jonathan M. Borwein

'Photographing the footsteps of time' : space and time in Charles Babbage's calculating engines / Doron Swade

The black hole in mathematics / Alexander Keewatin Dewdney

Gödel incompleteness and the empirical sciences / N. C. A. Costa

Gödel's ontological dreams / Gary Mar

The novel and the map : spatiotemporal form and discourse in literary cartography / Robert T. Tally, Jr.

Time, space, and the human geographies of opportunity / Donald G. Janelle

Losing time and space : experiencing immersion / Diana J. Reichenbach

Science, mind, and limits of understanding / Noam Chomsky.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword by John Stachel; afterword by Noam Chomsky.

ISBN:

9783319444178

3319444174

OCLC:

953709245