Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Spacetime Emergence: Collapsing the Distinction Between Content and Context?Karen Crowther - 2022 - In Shyam Wuppuluri & Ian Stewart (eds.), From Electrons to Elephants and Elections: Saga of Content and Context. Springer. pp. 379–402.
    Several approaches to developing a theory of quantum gravity suggest that spacetime—as described by general relativity—is not fundamental. Instead, spacetime is supposed to be explained by reference to the relations between more fundamental entities, analogous to `atoms' of spacetime, which themselves are not (fully) spatiotemporal. Such a case may be understood as emergence of \textit{content}: a `hierarchical' case of emergence, where spacetime emerges at a `higher', or less-fundamental, level than its `lower-level' non-spatiotempral basis. But quantum gravity cosmology also presents us (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Effective Spacetime: Understanding Emergence in Effective Field Theory and Quantum Gravity.Karen Crowther - 2016 - Cham: Springer.
    This book discusses the notion that quantum gravity may represent the "breakdown" of spacetime at extremely high energy scales. If spacetime does not exist at the fundamental level, then it has to be considered "emergent", in other words an effective structure, valid at low energy scales. The author develops a conception of emergence appropriate to effective theories in physics, and shows how it applies (or could apply) in various approaches to quantum gravity, including condensed matter approaches, discrete approaches, and loop (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  • Philosophical Issues Concerning Phase Transitions and Anyons: Emergence, Reduction, and Explanatory Fictions.Elay Shech - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (3):585-615.
    Various claims regarding intertheoretic reduction, weak and strong notions of emergence, and explanatory fictions have been made in the context of first-order thermodynamic phase transitions. By appealing to John Norton’s recent distinction between approximation and idealization, I argue that the case study of anyons and fractional statistics, which has received little attention in the philosophy of science literature, is more hospitable to such claims. In doing so, I also identify three novel roles that explanatory fictions fulfill in science. Furthermore, I (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Infinitesimal idealization, easy road nominalism, and fractional quantum statistics.Elay Shech - 2019 - Synthese 196 (5):1963-1990.
    It has been recently debated whether there exists a so-called “easy road” to nominalism. In this essay, I attempt to fill a lacuna in the debate by making a connection with the literature on infinite and infinitesimal idealization in science through an example from mathematical physics that has been largely ignored by philosophers. Specifically, by appealing to John Norton’s distinction between idealization and approximation, I argue that the phenomena of fractional quantum statistics bears negatively on Mary Leng’s proposed path to (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Book Forum.Patricia Palacios - forthcoming - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A.
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Reduction and emergence in the fractional quantum Hall state.Tom Lancaster & Mark Pexton - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 52 (Part B):343-357.
  • Renormalization group methods and the epistemology of effective field theories.Adam Koberinski & Doreen Fraser - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 98 (C):14-28.
  • A new look at emergence. Or when after is different.Alexandre Guay & Olivier Sartenaer - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (2):297-322.
    In this paper, we put forward a new account of emergence called “transformational emergence”. Such an account captures a variety of emergence that can be considered as being diachronic and weakly ontological. The fact that transformational emergence actually constitutes a genuine form of emergence is motivated. Besides, the account is free of traditional problems surrounding more usual, synchronic versions of emergence, and it can find a strong empirical support in a specific physical phenomenon, the fractional quantum Hall effect, which has (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   29 citations  
  • Whence the Effectiveness of Effective Field Theories?Alexander Franklin - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1235-1259.
    Effective quantum field theories are effective insofar as they apply within a prescribed range of length-scales, but within that range they predict and describe with extremely high accuracy and precision. The effectiveness of EFTs is explained by identifying the features—the scaling behaviour of the parameters—that lead to effectiveness. The explanation relies on distinguishing autonomy with respect to changes in microstates, from autonomy with respect to changes in microlaws, and relating these, respectively, to renormalizability and naturalness. It is claimed that the (...)
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Emergence in Solid State Physics and Biology.George F. R. Ellis - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (10):1098-1139.
    There has been much controversy over weak and strong emergence in physics and biology. As pointed out by Phil Anderson in many papers, the existence of broken symmetries is the key to emergence of properties in much of solid state physics. By carefully distinguishing between different types of symmetry breaking and tracing the relation between broken symmetries at micro and macro scales, I demonstrate that the emergence of the properties of semiconductors is a case of strong emergence. This is due (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Decoupling emergence and reduction in physics.Karen Crowther - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (3):419-445.
    An effective theory in physics is one that is supposed to apply only at a given length scale; the framework of effective field theory describes a ‘tower’ of theories each applying at different length scales, where each ‘level’ up is a shorter-scale theory. Owing to subtlety regarding the use and necessity of EFTs, a conception of emergence defined in terms of reduction is irrelevant. I present a case for decoupling emergence and reduction in the philosophy of physics. This paper develops (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Reduction, Emergence, and Renormalization.Jeremy Butterfield - 2014 - Journal of Philosophy 111 (1):5-49.
    In previous work, I described several examples combining reduction and emergence: where reduction is understood a la Ernest Nagel, and emergence is understood as behaviour that is novel. Here, my aim is again to reconcile reduction and emergence, for a case which is apparently more problematic than those I treated before: renormalization. My main point is that renormalizability being a generic feature at accessible energies gives us a conceptually unified family of Nagelian reductions. That is worth saying since philosophers tend (...)
    Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Why be Natural?Jonathan Bain - 2019 - Foundations of Physics 49 (9):898-914.
    Naturalness, as a guiding principle for effective field theories, requires that there be no sensitive correlations between phenomena at low- and high-energy scales. This essay considers four reasons to adopt this principle: natural EFTs exhibit modest empirical success; unnatural EFTs are improbable; naturalness underwrites what Williams calls a “central dogma” of EFTs; namely, that phenomena at widely separated scales should decouple; and naturalness underwrites a non-trivial notion of emergence. I argue that the first three are not compelling reasons, whereas the (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Appearing Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Gravity.Karen Crowther - 2014 - Dissertation, University of Sydney
    Quantum gravity is understood as a theory that, in some sense, unifies general relativity (GR) and quantum theory, and is supposed to replace GR at extremely small distances (high-energies). It may be that quantum gravity represents the breakdown of spacetime geometry described by GR. The relationship between quantum gravity and spacetime has been deemed ``emergence'', and the aim of this thesis is to investigate and explicate this relation. After finding traditional philosophical accounts of emergence to be inappropriate, I develop a (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Czy fizyczne teorie efektywne są wiarygodną strategią osiągnięcia teorii finalnej?Marek Szydłowski & Paweł Tambor - 2020 - Philosophical Problems in Science 68:79-116.
    The paper presents the methodology of effective theories as a strategy used in the process of development of modern physics to reach a final theory. We present the definition and characteristic features of an effective theory, as well as the answer to the question of whether and what kind of scenario of reaching a final theory is realized by contemporary physics. We argue that the process of development of physics in the direction of a final theory is potentially final, i.e. (...)
    No categories
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark