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Thermodynamics and Some Undecidable Physical Questions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Jerome Rothstein
Jerome Rothstein*
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Electronics, Inc
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Abstract

It is shown that a number of questions, usually considered philosophical rather than scientific, can be reformulated to apply to a world of automata or “well-informed heat engines.” In some cases they admit of physical answers, but in many cases obtaining answers entails violation of the second law of thermodynamics. This is demonstrated explicitly for the problem of determinism and free will, for the discovery of the origin or ultimate fate of the universe, or for the discovery of causes or purposes in nature.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1964 , pp. 40 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

∗∗

Presented before the International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Stanford University, August, 1960.

References

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