Crystallized Regularities

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (8) ◽  
pp. 434-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica Gómez Sánchez ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Special Science ◽  
Scientific Status ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
Reductive Account

This essay proposes a reductive account of robust macro-regularities (sometimes called “special science laws”). On the view proposed, regularities can earn their elite scientific status by featuring in good summaries of restricted regions in the space of physical possibilities: our “modal neighborhoods.” I argue that this view vindicates “nomic foundationalism” (that is, the view that the physical laws sustain all robust regularities), while doing justice to the practice of invoking physically contingent generalizations in higher-level explanations. Moreover, the view suggests an explanation for the particular significance of robust macro-regularities: we rely on summaries of our modal neighborhoods when reasoning hypothetically about “agentially accessible” possibilities.

Causation in Science

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Directed Graphs ◽  
Special Science ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Causal Interpretation ◽  
Process Theories ◽  
Physical Laws

This article discusses some philosophical theories of causation and their application to several areas of science. Topics addressed include regularity, counterfactual, and causal process theories of causation; the causal interpretation of structural equation models and directed graphs; independence assumptions in causal reasoning; and the role of causal concepts in physics. In connection with this last topic, this article focuses on the relationship between causal asymmetries, the time-reversal invariance of most fundamental physical laws, and the significance of differences among varieties of differential equations (e.g., hyperbolic versus nonhyperbolic) in causal interpretation. It concludes with some remarks about “grounding” special science causal generalizations in physics.

Causation in Science

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Directed Graphs ◽  
Special Science ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Causal Interpretation ◽  
Process Theories ◽  
Physical Laws

This article discusses some philosophical theories of causation and their application to several areas of science. Topics addressed include regularity, counterfactual, and causal process theories of causation; the causal interpretation of structural equation models and directed graphs; independence assumptions in causal reasoning; and the role of causal concepts in physics. In connection with this last topic, this article focuses on the relationship between causal asymmetries, the time-reversal invariance of most fundamental physical laws, and the significance of differences among varieties of differential equations (e.g., hyperbolic versus nonhyperbolic) in causal interpretation. It concludes with some remarks about “grounding” special science causal generalizations in physics.

Causal determinism and a totally global fatalism from the third-person perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Yu
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Causal Determinism ◽  
The Third ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Neural Substrate ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Third Person Perspective ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
The Third Person

The human brain and the human language are precisely constructed together by evolution/genes, so that in the objective world, a human brain can tell a story to another brain in human language which describes an imagined multiplayer game; in this story, one player of the game represents the human brain itself. It’s possible that the human kind doesn’t really have a subjective world (doesn’t really have conscious experience). An individual has no control even over her choices. Her choices are controlled by the neural substrate. The neural substrate is controlled by the physical laws. So, her choices are controlled by the physical laws. So, she is powerless to do anything other than what she actually does. This is the view of fatalism. Specifically, this is the view of a totally global fatalism, where people have no control even over their choices, from the third-person perspective. And I just argued for fatalism by appeal to causal determinism. Psychologically, a third-person perspective and a new, dedicated personality state are required to bear the totally global fatalism, to avoid severe cognitive dissonance with our default first-person perspective and our original personality state.

Reversible Computing: An Introduction

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Eftimiadi ◽  
Enrico Pugni Trimigliozzi
Keyword(s):  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Physical Property ◽  
Computing Systems ◽  
Reversible Computing ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
Structural Aspects ◽  
Computing Models

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

Consideration of the temperature factor of atmospheric air when determining standard consumption of fuel and energy resources for train traction

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
pp. 375-381
Author(s):  
K. M. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Processing ◽  
Specific Consumption ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Effect Of Temperature ◽  
Influence Coefficient ◽  
Specific Work ◽  
Specific Flow ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Work Area ◽  
Physical Laws

Abstract. Influence of air temperature on the consumption of fuel and energy resources (FER) on train traction is due to a number of physical laws. The extent of this effect is specified in the Rules for Traction Settlement (RTS). At the same time, when rationing FER consumption for train traction, a specialized methodical base is used, which involves a different approach to accounting for the effect of temperature on FER consumption for train traction. At the same time in different documents of this base, the effects of low temperature on the absolute and specific consumption of fuel and energy resources on train traction are taken into account in a different way, which is due to the lack of consensus among specialists on the way this factor is taken into account. Specialists of JSC “VNIIZhT” carried out an analysis of a significant amount of driver’s routes data, results of which showed that the dependence of the specific flow rate on temperature, on the basis of which the corresponding influence coefficient is determined, needs to be periodically updated. In addition, when technically standardizing the consumption of fuel and energy resources (for the locomotive crew work site), the temperature effect coefficients need to be calculated for a specific work area and direction of motion on it, while using the average network coefficient values will lead to errors. When calculating additional flow of fuel and energy from the effect of temperature for electric multiple units (EMU), the equations of regression dependencies should be used, obtained by statistical processing of data on temperature changes and specific consumption of fuel and energy resources for EMU and determined for each series of EMU when working on a particular suburban area.

On the displacements of the contours of the optic-electronic space images. Mathematical modeling of displacement

2017 ◽  
Vol 992 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.G. Voronin
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Modeling ◽  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Space Images ◽  
Electronic Imaging ◽  
Measuring Accuracy ◽  
Physical Laws

The article opens a cycle of three consecutive publications dedicated to the phenomenon of the displacement of the same points in overlapping scans obtained adjacent CCD matrices with opto-electronic imagery. This phenomenon was noticed by other authors, but the proposed explanation for the origin of displacements and the resulting estimates are insufficient, and developed their solutions seem controversial from the point of view of recovery of the measuring accuracy of opticalelectronic space images, determined by the physical laws of their formation. In the first article the mathematical modeling of the expected displacements based on the design features of a scanning opto-electronic imaging equipment. It is shown that actual bias cannot be forecast, because they include additional terms, which may be gross, systematic and random values. The proposed algorithm for computing the most probable values of the additional displacement and ways to address some of the systematic components of these displacements in a mathematical model of optical-electronic remote sensing.

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