Wheeler, Billy (2015) Idealization, Lossy Compression and the Laws of Physics. [Preprint]
![[img]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png) |
PDF
Idealization,_Lossy_Compression_and_the_Laws_of_Physics.pdf Download (551kB) |
Abstract
It has been argued that the fundamental laws of physics do not face a ‘problem of provisos’ equivalent to that found in other scientific disciplines (Earman, Roberts & Smith, 2002). What is more, it has been said there is only the appearance of ‘exceptions’ to physical laws if they are confused with differential equations of evolution type (Smith, 2002). In this paper I argue that even if this is true, fundamental laws in physics still pose a major challenge to standard Humean approaches to lawhood, as they are not in any obvious sense about regularities in behaviour. A Humean approach to physical laws with exceptions is possible, however, if we adopt a view of laws that takes them to be the algorithms in the algorithmic compression of empirical data. When this is supplemented with a distinction between lossy and lossless compression, we can explain exceptions in terms of ‘compression artefacts’ present in the application of the lossy law.
| Export/Citation: | EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL |
| Social Networking: |
| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators: |
|
||||||
| Keywords: | laws of nature, ceteris paribus laws, idealization, best system account, data compression, algorithms, Humeanism, scientific fictions. | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Computation/Information Specific Sciences > Computer Science General Issues > Laws of Nature General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Physics |
||||||
| Depositing User: | Dr. Billy Wheeler | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 01 Mar 2015 01:26 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 01 Mar 2015 01:26 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 11351 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Computation/Information Specific Sciences > Computer Science General Issues > Laws of Nature General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Physics |
||||||
| Date: | 28 February 2015 | ||||||
| URI: | http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11351 |
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}