TY - BOOK ID - 32842017 TI - Physical (A)Causality : Determinism, Randomness and Uncaused Events PY - 2018 SN - 3319708155 3319708147 3319038656 PB - Springer Nature DB - UniCat KW - Physics. KW - Epistemology. KW - Philosophy and science. KW - Probabilities. KW - History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics. KW - Theoretical, Mathematical and Computational Physics. KW - Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes. KW - Philosophy of Science. KW - Probability KW - Statistical inference KW - Combinations KW - Mathematics KW - Chance KW - Least squares KW - Mathematical statistics KW - Risk KW - Science and philosophy KW - Science KW - Epistemology KW - Theory of knowledge KW - Philosophy KW - Psychology KW - Natural philosophy KW - Philosophy, Natural KW - Physical sciences KW - Dynamics KW - Genetic epistemology. KW - Distribution (Probability theory. KW - Philosophy. KW - Normal science KW - Philosophy of science KW - Distribution functions KW - Frequency distribution KW - Characteristic functions KW - Probabilities KW - Developmental psychology KW - Knowledge, Theory of KW - Mathematical physics. KW - Physical mathematics KW - Physics KW - Self-reflexive knowledge KW - Physical chaos KW - Physical random number generators KW - Irreducible randomness KW - Randomness in physics KW - Physical indeterminism KW - Acausality in physics KW - Ecotoxicology. KW - Environmental management. KW - Waste management. KW - Environmental Management. KW - Waste Management/Waste Technology. KW - Knowledge, Theory of. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:32842017 AB - This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses the physical phenomenon of events that seem to occur spontaneously and without any known cause. These are to be contrasted with events that happen in a (pre-)determined, predictable, lawful, and causal way. All our knowledge is based on self-reflexive theorizing, as well as on operational means of empirical perception. Some of the questions that arise are the following: are these limitations reflected by our models? Under what circumstances does chance kick in? Is chance in physics merely epistemic? In other words, do we simply not know enough, or use too crude levels of description for our predictions? Or are certain events "truly", that is, irreducibly, random? The book tries to answer some of these questions by introducing intrinsic, embedded observers and provable unknowns; that is, observables and procedures which are certified (relative to the assumptions) to be unknowable or undoable. A (somewhat iconoclastic) review of quantum mechanics is presented which is inspired by quantum logic. Postulated quantum (un-)knowables are reviewed. More exotic unknowns originate in the assumption of classical continua, and in finite automata and generalized urn models, which mimic complementarity and yet maintain value definiteness. Traditional conceptions of free will, miracles and dualistic interfaces are based on gaps in an otherwise deterministic universe. . ER -