The Norton-type lipschitz-indeterministic systems and elastic phenomena: Indeterminism as an artefact of infinite idealizations

Abstract

The singularity arising from the violation of the Lipschitz condition in the simple Newtonian system proposed recently by Norton (2003) is so fragile as to be completely and irreparably destroyed by slightly relaxing certain (infinite) idealizations pertaining to elastic phenomena in this model. I demonstrate that this is also true for several other Lipschitz-indeterministic systems, which, unlike Norton's example, have no surface curvature singularities. As a result, indeterminism in these systems should rather be viewed as an artefact of certain infinite idealizations essential for these models, depriving them of much of their intended metaphysical import.

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Alexandre Korolev
University of British Columbia

Citations of this work

The Norton Dome and the Nineteenth Century Foundations of Determinism.Marij van Strien - 2014 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (1):167-185.
What Counts as a Newtonian System? The View from Norton’s Dome.Samuel Craig Fletcher - 2012 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (3):275-297.

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