By Roland Omnès
In this magisterial paintings, Roland Omnès takes us from the academies of historic Greece to the laboratories of recent technology as he seeks to do not less than rebuild the rules of the philosophy of information. one of many world's top quantum physicists, Omnès studies the historical past and up to date improvement of arithmetic, good judgment, and the actual sciences to teach that present paintings in quantum concept bargains new solutions to questions that experience wondered philosophers for hundreds of years: Is the area eventually intelligible? Are all occasions prompted? Do gadgets have definitive destinations? Omnès addresses those profound questions with lively arguments and transparent, colourful writing, aiming not only to develop scholarship yet to enlighten readers with out heritage in technological know-how or philosophy.
The ebook opens with an insightful and sweeping account of the most advancements in technology and the philosophy of data from the pre-Socratic period to the 19th century. Omnès then strains the emergence in glossy considered a fracture among our intuitive, common sense perspectives of the area and the summary and--for such a lot people--incomprehensible international portrayed by means of complicated physics, math, and good judgment. He argues that the fracture seemed as the insights of Einstein and Bohr, the logical advances of Frege, Russell, and Gödel, and the required arithmetic of infinity of Cantor and Hilbert can't be totally expressed by way of phrases or photos basically. Quantum mechanics performed a massive function during this improvement, because it looked as if it would undermine intuitive notions of intelligibility, locality, and causality. even though, Omnès argues that good judgment and quantum mechanics aren't as incompatible as many have concept. actually, he makes the provocative argument that the "consistent-histories" method of quantum mechanics, constructed during the last fifteen years, locations logic (slightly reappraised and circumscribed) on a company clinical and philosophical footing for the 1st time. In doing so, it presents what philosophers have sought during the a long time: a convinced starting place for human knowledge.
Quantum Philosophy is a profound paintings of latest technology and philosophy and an eloquent historical past of the lengthy fight to appreciate the character of the area and of information itself.
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Extra info for Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science
Example text
Knowledge progresses by an analysis involving the judicious use of words; its conclusions are expressed in words, and, in the Middle Ages, its sole mode of inquiry was speech, the endless combination of words. It is therefore essential, prior to any development of philosophy, to agree on the meaning and the role of language, and in particular on the nature of the universals. We must not forget that philosophy’s primary purpose was to serve as the basis for theology, the latter being but a scholarly commentary on a divine message, at the same time revealed and clouded by the words that carry it—but we shall not insist on this particular aspect.
This is clearly a paradox: if Epimenides tells the truth, he is an example of a Cretan who has told a truth, hence, he has lied. If he lies, the contrary of what he says—Cretans never lie—must be true, so he must be telling the truth. Rather than a paradox, this shows how one can play on the meaning of the words. ” There is therefore a way out. But how about the man who declares, “I am lying”; either he is telling the truth, and then he must be lying, or else he is lying, in which case he tells the truth.
The philosopher knows it, the scientist simply ignores it and carries on; it is the poet who says it best: “I’m but a maker of words. 2 Thus, every learned book is founded on ultimate ignorance. At the opening of this one, I would like to exorcise this curse. , 1962). This treatise has been our primary source. 2 Saint John Perse, a French poet, said it magnificently: O très grand arbre du langage et murmurant murmure d’aveugle-né dans les quinconces du savoir (Oh language, standing like a high tree, you are also the mumbling whisper of one, blind from birth, wandering through the labyrinth of knowledge).