scholarly journals Humeanismo y leyes de la naturaleza: alcance y límites

Author(s):  
Cristián Soto

Nomological Humeanism has developed into a research program encompassing several variations on a single theme, namely, the view that laws are statements about regularities that we find in nature. After briefly revisiting an early form of nomological Humeanism in Hume’s critique of the idea of necessary connection, this article critically examines Lewis’ two-fold approach based on Humean supervenience and the best system account. We shall point out three limits of nomological Humeanism, which are widely recognized in the literature: its inadequacy in view of physical theories, its explanatory circularity, and its purported anthropomorphism, all of which advocates of nomological Humeanism have attempted to overcome Humeanism (Jaag y Loew 2020, Loewer 2004 y Massimi 2018). Lastly, we will argue that nomological Humeanism fails to provide a suitable notion of modality for laws of nature. This latter issue continues to represent a live challenge for empiricism in the philosophy of physical laws.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Eftimiadi ◽  
Enrico Pugni Trimigliozzi

Reversible computing is a paradigm where computing models are defined so that they reflect physical reversibility, one of the fundamental microscopic physical property of Nature. Also, it is one of the basic microscopic physical laws of nature. Reversible computing refers tothe computation that could always be reversed to recover its earlier state. It is based on reversible physics, which implies that we can never truly erase information in a computer. Reversible computing is very difficult and its engineering hurdles are enormous. This paper provides a brief introduction to reversible computing. With these constraints, one can still satisfactorily deal with both functional and structural aspects of computing processes; at the same time, one attains a closer correspondence between the behavior of abstract computing systems and the microscopic physical laws (which are presumed to be strictly reversible) that underlay any implementation of such systems Available online at https://int-scientific-journals.com


Author(s):  
Melissa Dickson

Chapter 2 explores the use of the Arabian Nights as a familiar cultural narrative through which the burgeoning practices of archaeology, geology, geography and ethnography might be communicated. In this period, the imaginary voyage and adventures of the Arabian Nights, known since childhood, profoundly interacted with actual voyages above and below the ground, providing a narrative template for approaching new experiences that was already familiar to British readers. At the same time, this narrative strategy infused those emergent sciences with an enduring form of magic, or magical thinking, in the adult world, which informed processes of thinking about the physical laws of nature, the elements that comprise the globe, and new technological developments of the period. The magical possibilities and treasures of the Arabian Nights held an irresistible fascination for Western readers, who did not want to relinquish fully to the emergent discipline of science the potential meanings and possibilities of Eastern exploration.


Author(s):  
Andrea Moro

Understanding the nature and the structure of human language coincides with capturing the constraints which make a conceivable language possible or, equivalently, with discovering whether there can be any impossible languages at all. This book explores these related issues, paralleling the effort of a biologist who attempts at describing the class of impossible animals. In biology, one can appeal for example to physical laws of nature (such as entropy or gravity) but when it comes to language the path becomes intricate and difficult for the physical laws cannot be exploited. In linguistics, in fact, there are two distinct empirical domains to explore: on the one hand, the formal domain of syntax, where different languages are compared trying to understand how much they can differ; on the other, the neurobiological domain, where the flow of information through the complex neural networks and the electric code exploited by neurons is uncovered and measured. By referring to the most advanced experiments in Neurolinguistics the book in fact offers an updated descriptions of modern linguistics and allows the reader to formulate new and surprising questions. Moreover, since syntax - the capacity to generate novel structures (sentences) by recombining a finite set of elements (words) - is the fingerprint of all and only human languages this books ultimately deals with the fundamental questions which characterize the search for our origins.


2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Matthias Kiesselbach

AbstractThis paper argues that throughout his intellectual career, Hobbes remains unsatisfied with his own attempts at proving the invariant advisability of contract-keeping. Not only does he see himself forced to abandon his early idea that contractual obligation is a matter of physical laws. He also develops and retains doubts concerning its theoretical successor, the doctrine that the obligatoriness characteristic of contracts is the interest in self-preservation in alliance with instrumental reason – i.e. prudence. In fact, it is during his work on Leviathan that Hobbes notes the doctrine's main shortcoming, namely the limitation of its dialectical potential to cases in which contract-breakers are publicly identifiable. This essay shows Hobbes's doubts about his Leviathan's treatment of contractual obligation by way of a close reading of its central 15 th chapter and an analysis of some revealing shifts between the English Leviathan and the (later) Latin edition. The paper ends by suggesting that Hobbes's awareness of the flaws at the heart of his political philosophy helps account for some striking changes in his latest writings.


1859 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 213-247 ◽  

The recently published experiments upon the collapse of tubes of wrought iron, led to results so novel and so much at variance with the ordinary rules of practice, as to exem­plify anew the caution and diligence which are requisite in investigating the physical laws of nature, in order to arrive at just conclusions in regard to the properties of materials and their most effective distribution for the purposes of construction. In the experiments alluded to, it was clearly shown that the prevailing ideas of the strength of vessels subjected to a uniform external force were erroneous and at variance with the laws of resistance to collapse under such circumstances; whilst in practice the prevalence of error in this matter had led to serious and sometimes fatal accidents, arising out of the construction of vessels of inadequate strength to sustain the pressures placed upon them. These errors, it is hoped, need no longer be perpetuated: the expe­riments on wrought iron indicated a means of increasing the strength of boiler flues and other vessels of that material, subjected to a collapsing force, to any required amount; and this was the immediate practical application of the general law then discovered, that the strength of cylindrical vessels, exposed to a uniform external force, varied inversely as the length between the rigid ends.


2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Lucia Santaella

Following Peirce's broad concept of semiosis as a foundation of a field ofsrudy, the semiotics ofphysical nanrre, it is argued that we have to explore the interconnections of Peirce's semiotics with metaphysics. These interconnections will be analyzed in five steps: (1) Peirce's radical antidualism and evolutionism, implied in his synechistic ideas, (2) Peirce's semiotic statement that "all this universe is perfused with signs if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448, n.1), (3) Peirce's bold statement that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.24), (4) his theory of final causation, which can only be properly understood in the light of semiosis, (5) his metaphysics and his methodeutics in relation to semiotics. The laws of nature are discovered by abductive inference revealing an affinity between the human mind and the designs of nature. Hence, the formal laws of thought are not simply laws of our minds but laws of the intelligibility of things.


Leonardo ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 396-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo A. Lemarchand ◽  
Jon Lomberg

For almost 50 years the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) research program was pursued under the hypothesis of the universality of the physical laws in the cosmos. The authors call attention to some epistemological issues that make it necessary to seek other aesthetic, spiritual and ethical “cognitive universals.” They propose the participation of a broader community of scholars from natural, social, artistic and humanistic disciplines to explore all the possible “universal cognitive maps” that eventually might favor the detection of extraterrestrial intelligent life.


Author(s):  
Eugene Ch’ng

The information society manufactures, manipulates, and commodifies information. Heritage is one such area that is undergoing digital transformation. Heritage is increasingly being transmuted through digitisation devices such as laser and structured light scans into multiple representations of information. The rich information of a heritage object or an environment can be restructured, transmitted, and recomposed into a mediated form both textual and non-textual. Once digitised, it becomes free from its physical predecessor; it enters another world that defies the physical laws of nature where the imagination of the maker is a limit. Such worlds accompanied by their objects are accessible in new yet intuitive ways via surface computers. The horizontal nature of the multitouch-multiuser surface computer then becomes the mirror that links both worlds, allowing access into a virtual space via the touch-table computing paradigm. This chapter explores 3D surface computing, its technology, capabilities, and limits with developments of two multitouch applications incorporating heritage objects and environments, and the observation of the reactions of initial users. It addresses new issues and challenges surrounding the use of surface computing and how the access and transmission of heritage information via multitouch-multiuser tables are able to contribute to the accessibility, teaching, and learning of heritage.


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