Reductionism, emergence and levels of reality the importance of being borderline Sergio Chibbaro, Lamberto Rondoni, Angelo Vulpiani

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chibbaro, Sergio, author.

Rondoni, Lamberto, 1960- author.

Vulpiani, A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reductionism.

Physics--Philosophy.

Physics.

physics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cham Springer 2014

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature? Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis?

Contents:

Preface

A Galilean Dialogue

A random journey

History

Reductionism: the philosophical point of view

Reduction in physics and philosophy

Emergence

A first attempt to tame complexity

A short history of statistical mechanics

Towards a systematic theory

The paradigmatic Brownian motion

Critical Phenomena

Discussion

From microscopic to macroscopic realities

The problem of irreversibility

Irreversibility and emergence

From microscopic to macroscopic equations

From atoms to cold fronts

Concluding remarks

Determinism, chaos and reductionism

General remarks on determinism

An excursus on chaos

Chaos and complexity

Chaos and probability

Quarrels on chaos and determinism

Quantum Mechanics

Classical versus quantum mechanics

Chemistry vs applied Quantum Mechanics

Summary and conclusions

Some conclusions

Unity of science beyond reductionism

It from bit?

Concluding remarks

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Ebsco; viewed on May 20, 2014)

Other Format:

Printed edition:

ISBN:

9783319063614

3319063618

331906360X

9783319063607

OCLC:

880316866

Publisher Number:

(WaSeSS)ssj0001246996

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license