Read more
This book is the first all-encompassing exploration of the role of demons inphilosophical and scientific thought experiments. In Part I, the author explains the importance of thought experiments in science andphilosophy. Part II considers Laplace's Demon, whose claim is that the world iscompletely deterministic. Part III introduces Maxwell's Demon, who - by contrast - experiences a world that is probabilistic and indeterministic. Part IV explores Nietzsche's thesis of the cyclic and eternal recurrence of events. In each casea number of philosophical consequences regarding determinism and indeterminism, the arrows of time, the nature of the mind andfree will are said to follow from the Demons's worldviews. The book investigates what these Demons - and others - can and cannot tell us about our world.
List of contents
I. Thought Experiments: Thought Experiments in Ancient Greece.- What Thought Experiments Represent.- Models and Thought Experiments.- The Function of Thought Experiments.- What Thought Experiments Tell Us and Don't Tell Us About theWorld.- Enter theDemons.- II. Laplace's Demon: Laplace's Demon: Causal and Predictive Determinism.- Causality, Determinism and the Block Universe.- The Time-Reversal Invariance of Fundamental Laws.- Determinism and Its Implications.- Determinism and Free Will.- What Laplace's Demon Tells Us and Does not Tell Us About the World.- III. Maxwell's Demon: Local and Cosmic Arrows of Time.- Maxwell's Demon.- Loschmidt's Demon: Reversibility and Irreversibility.- Indeterminism.- Indeterminism and Free Will.- Entropy.- The Past-Future Asymmetry.- What Maxwell's Demon Tells Us and Does not Tell Us About the World.- IV. Nietzsche's Demon: The Eternal Recurrence of Events.- Landsberg's Demon.- Physical and Phenomenal Time.- The Evolution of the Universe.- Time and Change.- Is There a MasterArrow of Time?.- What Landsberg's Demon Tells Us and Doesnot Tell Us About the Arrows of Time.
About the author
Friedel Weinertis professor of history and philosophy
of science at the University of Bradford in the UK. He is the author of several
books about the interactions of science and philosophy -
The Scientist as Philosopher (2004); Copernicus, Darwin and Freud
(2009); The March of Time (2013)- as well as editor of
Laws of Nature (1995) and co-editor of
Compendium of Quantum Physics (2009) and
Evolution 2.0 (2012).
Summary
This book is the first all-encompassing exploration of the role of demons in
philosophical and scientific thought experiments. In Part I, the author explains the importance of thought experiments in science and
philosophy. Part II considers Laplace’s Demon, whose claim is that the world is
completely deterministic. Part III introduces Maxwell’s Demon, who - by contrast - experiences a world that is probabilistic and indeterministic. Part IV explores Nietzsche’s thesis of the cyclic and eternal recurrence of events. In each case
a number of philosophical consequences regarding determinism and indeterminism, the arrows of time, the nature of the mind and
free will are said to follow from the Demons’s worldviews. The book investigates what these Demons - and others - can and cannot tell us about our world.
