About the Book
Are choice and free will possible in a world governed by deterministic fundamental equations? What sense would determinism make if many events and processes in the world seem to be governed by chance? These and many other questions emphasize the fact that chance and choice are two leading actors on stage whenever issues of determinism are under discussion. This volume collects essays by accomplished scientists and philosophers on the concept of determinism. The contributions cover viewpoints from mathematics, physics, cognitive science and social science, as well as philosophy.
Table of Contents:
Preface, Harald Atmanspacher and Robert Bishop Deterministic and Indeterministic Descriptions, Robert Bishop Perspectives on Scientific Determinism, Gregor Nickel Determinism Is Ontic, Determinability Is Epistemic, Harald Atmanspacher Determinism, Internalism, and Objectivity, Olimpia Lombardi Hidden Determinism, Probability, and Time's Arrow, Hans Primas Time-Space Dilations and Stochastic-Deterministic Dynamics, Karl Gustafson Transitions from Deterministic Evolution to Irreversible Probabilistic Processes and the Quantum Measurement Problem, Baidyanath Misra Probabilistic Causality and Irreversibility: Heraclitus and Prigogine, Theodoros Christidis The Complementary Roles of Chance and Lawlike Elements in Peirce's Evolutionary Cosmology, Frederick Kronz and Amy McLaughlin Does Chance Make a Difference? The Philosophical Significance of Indeterminism, Dennis Dieks On Causal Inference in Determinism and Indeterminism, Joseph Berkovitz Fundamental Limits of Control: A Quantum Approach to the Second Law, Gunter Mahler A Quantum Mechanical Look at Time Travel and Free Will, Daniel Greenberger and Karl Svozil What is Determinism?, Phil Dowe Ontological Presuppositions of the Determinism-Free Will Debate, Charles Guignon Determinism, Chance, and Freedom, Mauro Dorato Free Will, Determinism, and Indeterminism, Robert Kane Agency and Soft Determinism, Jack Martin and Jeff Sugarman Rethinking Determinism in Social Science, Frank Richardson and Robert Bishop Agency, Embodiment, and the Ethical: On Saving Psychology from Biology, Edwin Gantt Time, Information, and Determinism in Psychology, Brent Slife Eastern Determinism Reconsidered from a Scientific Point of View, Takehisa Abe and Fusako Kobayashi Contributors Index
About the Author :
Harald Atmanspacher received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Munich in 1986, followed by a Reimar Lust fellowship until 1988. Then he was a research scientist in the theory division at the Max-Planck-Institut fur extraterrestrische Physik in Garching. He has been head of the Theory and Data Analysis Department at the Institut fur Grenzgebiete der Psychologie since April 1998. Dr. Atmanspacher's research visits include the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA) and the study center of the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio (Italy). He is an associate member of the Solvay Institutes in Brussels and at the Max Planck Centre for interdisciplinary plasma science at Garching. Dr. Atmanspacher's current fields of work and interest are nonlinear dynamics, complex systems, mind-matter problems and selected topics in the history and philosophy of science. Publications include On Quanta, Mind, and Matter (Kluwer, 1999, co-ed.), Time, Temporality, Now (Springer, 1997, co-ed.), Der Pauli-Jung-Dialog und seine Bedeutung fur die moderne Wissenschaft (Springer, 1995, co-ed.), Inside Versus Outside (Springer, 1994, co-ed.), Die Vernunft der Metis (Metzler, 1993) and Information Dynamics (Plenum, 1991, co-ed.) From 1983 to 1985 Robert Bishop was a research assistant with the Center for Theoretical Physics at The University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Dr. John A. Wheeler. Subsequently he worked as a research scientist for the Science Applications International Corporation from 1985 to 1989, then for Austin Research Associates from 1989 to 1991. Dr. Bishop was a NASA Graduate Fellow from 1990 to 1992. While pursuing his Ph.D. in philosophy, he worked as a database and internet programmer for various companies. Since February of 2000 Dr. Bishop has been with the Theory and Data Analysis Department of IGPP as a research postdoc. His current areas of research are philosophy of science, conceptual foundations of physics, philosophy of mind and philosophy of social science.
Review :
'A cornicopia of ideas ... many useful arguments and distinctions drawn.' Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics
