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Physics Fixes All the Facts de Liam Graham

Physics Fixes All the Facts

Autor Liam Graham
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 17 ian 2025

Nivel de studiu: Referință pentru licență avansată, master și cercetare profesională în filozofia științei și sisteme complexe. În acest volum publicat de Springer, Liam Graham propune o deconstrucție riguroasă a unuia dintre cele mai populare concepte din știința contemporană: emergența. Subliniem faptul că autorul nu se limitează la o descriere a sistemelor complexe, ci atacă fundamentul ideii că „întregul este mai mult decât suma părților”. Prin Physics Fixes All the Facts, Graham argumentează că emergența este mai degrabă o reflectare a limitărilor noastre cognitive și senzoriale decât o proprietate intrinsecă a naturii. Structura cărții ghidează cititorul de la fundamentele dualismului și fizicalismului către o analiză critică a „emergenței slabe”, explorând contexte în care matematica devine insuficientă pentru a descrie realitatea. Utilizând figura simbolică a demonului lui Laplace, autorul demonstrează cum, dintr-o perspectivă pur fizicalistă, complexitatea se dizolvă în interacțiuni de particule fundamentale. Cititorii familiarizați cu There Is No Theory of Everything de Lars Q. English vor aprecia contrastul izbitor: în timp ce English prezintă emergența ca pe un comportament non-reductiv valid, Graham o clasifică drept o proiecție a neputinței umane de a procesa datele la scară microscopică. Spre deosebire de The Routledge Handbook of Emergence, care oferă o panoramă neutră a domeniului, lucrarea de față adoptă o poziție materialistă radicală, continuând stilul accesibil dar provocator din Molecular Storms. Reținem utilizarea ingenioasă a teoriei computaționale pentru a explica de ce percepem „magia” ordinii acolo unde există doar legi fizice stricte. Ilustrațiile incluse în această ediție 2025 sprijină vizual tranziția de la nucleul atomic la comportamentele biologice, oferind o claritate necesară într-un text dens în argumente filozofice și științifice.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9783031692871
ISBN-10: 303169287X
Pagini: 348
Ilustrații: Approx. 250 p. 40 illus., 20 illus. in color.
Dimensiuni: 160 x 241 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.69 kg
Ediția:2025
Editura: Springer
Locul publicării:Cham, Switzerland

De ce să citești această carte

Recomandăm această carte cercetătorilor și studenților care doresc să provoace status quo-ul teoriei sistemelor. Cititorul câștigă o perspectivă critică, purificată de misticismul adesea asociat cu știința complexității. Este un motiv concret de a reevalua locul omului într-un univers guvernat exclusiv de legi fizice, oferind instrumente intelectuale pentru a distinge între realitatea obiectivă și limitările noastre de percepție.

Despre autor

Liam Graham este un autor preocupat de intersecția dintre fizică, filozofie și înțelegerea publică a științei. În lucrarea sa anterioară, Molecular Storms, a demonstrat o capacitate rară de a traduce concepte termodinamice complexe într-un limbaj narativ captivant, fiind comparat cu autori precum Stephen Hawking. În noua sa apariție editorială din 2025, Graham își rafinează discursul, trecând de la descrierea fenomenelor naturale la analiza critică a modului în care comunitatea științifică le conceptualizează, menținând un standard ridicat de rigoare academică specific editurii Springer.

Descriere scurtă

Complex systems seem to magically emerge from the interaction of their parts. A whirlpool emerges from water molecules. A living cell from organic molecules You emerge from the cells of your body. Emergence. Not since “chaos” has a concept from physics spread like wildfire to other disciplines: it can be found from chemistry to economics; from psychology to ecology. At its heart is the alluring idea that there is a holistic component to nature, an edge of mystery. That you can’t understand the parts without understanding the whole. That more is different.
“Physics Fixes All the Facts” starts by taking you on a guided tour through a fascinating world of complexity, exploring phenomena from the inside of an atomic nucleus to bacterial behaviour to the ability of your thoughts to affect the world. This reveals something surprising: the concept of emergence is not useful. It is either so weak that it applies to almost every system you might be interested in. Or so strong that it is like the belief there are pixies in your garden. Impossible to disprove, maybe, but, until convincing empirical evidence is forthcoming, not worth spending time on. Why, then, has emergence such wide appeal? Graham argues that it reflects our struggle to accept that we live in a disenchanted world, a world in which we have no special status. Emergence is not so much “more is different”. It is an assertion that “I am different”.
In the early 19th century, Pierre-Simon Laplace asked us to imagine a demon, a being with unlimited knowledge and unlimited understanding. Where we perceive the richness of the macroscopic world, a demon would only see fundamental particles interacting according to the laws of physics. Using a captivating multidisciplinary approach which weaves together physics, philosophy and the theory of computation, Graham describes a world in which the scientific perspective is the demon’s perspective. With this perspective, we can see the ideas of complexity or emergence are a result of our not being demons. They are projections of our limitations onto the universe, whether cognitive constraints, lack of knowledge or the restricted range of our senses. In this radically materialist framework, we ourselves are just another collection of fundamental particles. “Physics Fixes All the Facts” will make you rethink how the world works and re-evaluate your place in it. The book will appeal to academics in the many fields which use the concepts of complexity or emergence. But the target audience is much broader and includes anyone fascinated by the power of science to explain the world around us, from students looking to add context to their formal studies to those with a more general scientific interest who want to delve deeper into the subject.

Cuprins

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. More Seems Different.- Chapter 3. Dualism, Physicalism and Emergence.- Chapter 4. The View from the Cave.-Chapter 5. Computation and Simulation.- Chapter 6. Weak Emergence: More is Different.- Chapter 7. Weak Emergence: When You Can’t Do The Maths.-Chapter 8. Weak Emergence: One from Many.- Chapter 9. Weak Emergence: It’s the Context.- Chapter 10. Weak Emergence: the Map and the Territory.- Etc...
The sample chapter is taken from "Molecular Storms". The style and the level of "Physics Fixes All the Facts" will be similar.

Notă biografică

“Do we need more than physics to understand the world?”  Liam Graham first asked himself this question as a teenager and it has been the driving force behind his career ever since. After a degree in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge and a master’s in Philosophy at Warwick, he eventually found economics to be an appealing middle ground and completed a PhD at Birkbeck College, London.  To pay the rent, he taught English, developed and sold trading software and was the numbers’ guru for a boutique finance house.
Liam’s 15 year academic career was mostly spent as an Associate Professor at University College London, working in one of Europe’s top Economics departments.  His research involved building mathematical models of an extremely complex system, the macroeconomy, and his work was published in all the top macroeconomics journals.  Whether working on philosophy or economics, he never stopped reading science and exchanging with scientists.  In 2018 he left UCL to concentrate on his original question and the wide-ranging, multidisciplinary and endlessly fascinating project it has become.  His first book, “Molecular Storms: the Physics of Stars, Cells and the Origin of Life” was published by Springer Nature in 2023.

Textul de pe ultima copertă

Complex systems seem to magically emerge from the interactions of their parts.  A whirlpool emerges from water molecules.  A living cell from organic molecules. You emerge from the cells of your body. Not since chaos has a concept from physics spread like wildfire to other disciplines. At the heart of emergence is the alluring idea that there’s more to the world than physics, a holistic component to nature, an edge of mystery. 
“Physics Fixes All the Facts” untangles emergence. This reveals something surprising: the term is redundant. In its weak form it is so weak that it applies to everything. In its strong form it is so restrictive that it is like the belief that there are pixies in your garden, impossible to exclude but not worth spending your time on. Graham then presents a framework called Austere Physicalism and uses it to reinterpret so-called emergent phenomena. In this radically materialist view, we are nothing but physical systems among others. The book ends with an exploration of what this means for free will and consciousness.
Scientists and philosophers alike will find unexpected and exciting ideas in these pages. But the target audience is much broader including students who want to add context to their studies and the intellectually curious with some scientific background.
“My envy of Graham’s erudition is only surpassed by my admiration of his achievement. This is the definitive guide to why the physical facts fix all the facts! It’s also the definitive diagnosis of all the specious arguments against this simple truth.”, Alex Rosenberg, R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University.
 

Caracteristici

Offers a comprehensive clarification and thorough criticism of the concept of emergence Takes an interdisciplinary approach combining philosophy and physics using examples chosen from across the sciences Presents an alternative physicalist framework in which to understand complex systems