The Demons of Science: What They Can and Cannot Tell Us About Our World
Springer | Physics | June 20, 2016 | ISBN-10: 3319317075 | 237 pages | pdf | 4.73 mb
Authors: Weinert, Friedel
Demonstrates the central role that thought experiments can play in scientific reasoning and explores their deep philosophical consequences, with special emphasis on demons
Written primarily for an academic audience, but also accessible to the interested layperson
Inspires readers to question their existing assumptions about matters such as determinism and indeterminism
Also addresses the nature of the mind, free will, an the arrows of time
This book is the first all-encompassing exploration of the role of demons in philosophical and scientific thought experiments. In Part I, the author explains the importance of thought experiments in science and philosophy. Part II considers Laplace’s Demon, whose claim is that the world is completely deterministic. Part III introduces Maxwell’s Demon, who – by contrast – experiences a world that is probabilistic and indeterministic. Part IV explores Nietzsche’s thesis of the cyclic and eternal recurrence of events. In each case a number of philosophical consequences regarding determinism and indeterminism, the arrows of time, the nature of the mind and free will are said to follow from the Demons’s worldviews. The book investigates what these Demons – and others – can and cannot tell us about our world.
Number of Illustrations and Tables
32 b/w illustrations, 8 illustrations in colour
Topics
History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics
Philosophy of Science
Popular Science in Physics
Cosmology
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