Download or read book Causes and Coincidences written by David Owens and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-08-28 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an important departure from theories of causation, David Owens proposes that coincidences have no causes, and that a cause is something which ensures that its effects are no coincidence. In Causes and Coincidences, he elucidates the idea of a coincidence as an event which can be analysed into constituent events, the nomological antecedents of which are independent of each other. He also suggests that causal facts can be analysed in terms of non-causal facts, including relations of necessity. Thus, causation is defined in terms of coincidence, and coincidence without reference to causation. David Owens challenges the ideas associated with Hume, Davidson and Lewis, constructing a theory which distinguishes nomological necessity and sufficiency from their logical counterparts. He is able to offer novel solutions to the major problems of causation, including the direction of causation, the logical form of causal statements, the distinction betwen causal connections and logical connections, and the relationship between psychological and physical causation.
Download or read book Causes Coincidences and Theories written by Thomas L. Griffiths and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Improbability Principle written by David J. Hand and published by Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Improbability Principle, the renowned statistician David J. Hand argues that extraordinarily rare events are anything but. In fact, they're commonplace. Not only that, we should all expect to experience a miracle roughly once every month. But Hand is no believer in superstitions, prophecies, or the paranormal. His definition of "miracle" is thoroughly rational. No mystical or supernatural explanation is necessary to understand why someone is lucky enough to win the lottery twice, or is destined to be hit by lightning three times and still survive. All we need, Hand argues, is a firm grounding in a powerful set of laws: the laws of inevitability, of truly large numbers, of selection, of the probability lever, and of near enough. Together, these constitute Hand's groundbreaking Improbability Principle. And together, they explain why we should not be so surprised to bump into a friend in a foreign country, or to come across the same unfamiliar word four times in one day. Hand wrestles with seemingly less explicable questions as well: what the Bible and Shakespeare have in common, why financial crashes are par for the course, and why lightning does strike the same place (and the same person) twice. Along the way, he teaches us how to use the Improbability Principle in our own lives—including how to cash in at a casino and how to recognize when a medicine is truly effective. An irresistible adventure into the laws behind "chance" moments and a trusty guide for understanding the world and universe we live in, The Improbability Principle will transform how you think about serendipity and luck, whether it's in the world of business and finance or you're merely sitting in your backyard, tossing a ball into the air and wondering where it will land.
Download or read book The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories written by Jan-Willem Prooijen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who believes in conspiracy theories, and why are some people more susceptible to them than others? What are the consequences of such beliefs? Has a conspiracy theory ever turned out to be true? The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories debunks the myth that conspiracy theories are a modern phenomenon, exploring their broad social contexts, from politics to the workplace. The book explains why some people are more susceptible to these beliefs than others and how they are produced by recognizable and predictable psychological processes. Featuring examples such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and climate change, The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories shows us that while such beliefs are not always irrational and are not a pathological trait, they can be harmful to individuals and society.
Download or read book Causation and Its Basis in Fundamental Physics written by Douglas Kutach and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive attempt to solve what Hartry Field has called "the central problem in the metaphysics of causation": the problem of reconciling the need for causal notions in the special sciences with the limited role of causation in physics. If the world evolves fundamentally according to laws of physics, what place can be found for the causal regularities and principles identified by the special sciences? Douglas Kutach answers this question by invoking a novel distinction between fundamental and derivative reality and a complementary conception of reduction. He then constructs a framework that allows all causal regularities from the sciences to be rendered in terms of fundamental relations. By drawing on a methodology that focuses on explaining the results of specially crafted experiments, Kutach avoids the endless task of catering to pre-theoretical judgments about causal scenarios. This volume is a detailed case study that uses fundamental physics to elucidate causation, but technicalities are eschewed so that a wide range of philosophers can profit. The book is packed with innovations: new models of events, probability, counterfactual dependence, influence, and determinism. These lead to surprising implications for topics like Newcomb's paradox, action at a distance, Simpson's paradox, and more. Kutach explores the special connection between causation and time, ultimately providing a never-before-presented explanation for the direction of causation. Along the way, readers will discover that events cause themselves, that low barometer readings do cause thunderstorms after all, and that we humans routinely affect the past more than we affect the future.
Download or read book Connecting with Coincidence written by Bernard Beitman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We've all experienced or heard of surprising events and unexplainable coincidences—money that seems to come from nowhere, a spontaneous idea that turns into a life-changing solution, meeting our soulmate on a flight we weren't supposed to take, or families being reunited by "accident" after years of separation. Often these coincidences are explained as being controlled by a higher power or pure chance. But for the first time since Carl Jung's work, comes bold new research that explains scientifically how we can identify, understand, and perhaps even control the frequency of coincidences in our everyday lives. Bernard Beitman, a leading expert on Coincidence Studies, proposes a greater personal responsibility which depends partly upon newly discovered "grid cells" located in the brain, near the hippocampus. But neuroscience cannot complete the entire puzzle, and in this fascinating guide, Beitman provides the missing piece. From analyzing true stories of synchronicity from around the globe and throughout history, he shares key personality characteristics and situational factors that contribute to the occurrence of meaningful coincidences in our lives. Where other books on coincidences tend to be theoretical, inspirational, or story collections only, Beitman's book is the first to provide a scientific understanding and practical ways in which readers can use them in their own lives. He reveals: How to activate your observing self so you don't miss synchronistic moments How serendipity can offer insights into solving problems or making difficult decisions Why stress activates meaningful coincidences Which states of mind impede our ability to experience synchronicity How to interpret the meaning of a coincidence Why being attuned to coincidences is a learned skill—and how to hone your sensitivity.
Download or read book This Explains Everything written by John Brockman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, This Explains Everything will revolutionize your understanding of the world. What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"—The Guardian), posed to the world's most influential minds. Flowing from the horizons of physics, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and more, This Explains Everything presents 150 of the most surprising and brilliant theories of the way of our minds, societies, and universe work. Jared Diamond on biological electricity • Nassim Nicholas Taleb on positive stress • Steven Pinker on the deep genetic roots of human conflict • Richard Dawkins on pattern recognition • Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on simplicity • Lisa Randall on the Higgs mechanism • BRIAN Eno on the limits of intuition • Richard Thaler on the power of commitment • V. S. Ramachandran on the "neural code" of consciousness • Nobel Prize winner ERIC KANDEL on the power of psychotherapy • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on "Lord Acton's Dictum" • Lawrence M. Krauss on the unification of electricity and magnetism • plus contributions by Martin J. Rees • Kevin Kelly • Clay Shirky • Daniel C. Dennett • Sherry Turkle • Philip Zimbardo • Lee Smolin • Rebecca Newberger Goldstein • Seth Lloyd • Stewart Brand • George Dyson • Matt Ridley
Download or read book The Challenge of Chance written by Klaas Landsman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-09 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on chance, with contributions from distinguished researchers in the areas of biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, genetics, general history, law, linguistics, logic, mathematical physics, statistics, theology and philosophy. The individual chapters are bound together by a general introduction followed by an opening chapter that surveys 2500 years of linguistic, philosophical, and scientific reflections on chance, coincidence, fortune, randomness, luck and related concepts. A main conclusion that can be drawn is that, even after all this time, we still cannot be sure whether chance is a truly fundamental and irreducible phenomenon, in that certain events are simply uncaused and could have been otherwise, or whether it is always simply a reflection of our ignorance. Other challenges that emerge from this book include a better understanding of the contextuality and perspectival character of chance (including its scale-dependence), and the curious fact that, throughout history (including contemporary science), chance has been used both as an explanation and as a hallmark of the absence of explanation. As such, this book challenges the reader to think about chance in a new way and to come to grips with this endlessly fascinating phenomenon.
Download or read book Because Without Cause written by Marc Lange and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not all scientific explanations work by describing causal connections between events or the world's overall causal structure. In addition, mathematicians regard some proofs as explaining why the theorems being proved do in fact hold. This book proposes new philosophical accounts of many kinds of non-causal explanations in science and mathematics.
Download or read book The Principle of the Common Cause written by Gábor Hofer-Szabó and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-16 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A conceptually and mathematically rigorous analysis of the common cause principle and its status in quantum theory.
Download or read book Why People Believe Weird Things written by Michael Shermer and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This sparkling book romps over the range of science and anti-science." --Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel Revised and Expanded Edition. In this age of supposed scientific enlightenment, many people still believe in mind reading, past-life regression theory, New Age hokum, and alien abduction. A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices, with more than 80,000 copies in print, Why People Believe Weird Things debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing. In an entirely new chapter, "Why Smart People Believe in Weird Things," Michael Shermer takes on science luminaries like physicist Frank Tippler and others, who hide their spiritual beliefs behind the trappings of science. Shermer, science historian and true crusader, also reveals the more dangerous side of such illogical thinking, including Holocaust denial, the recovered-memory movement, the satanic ritual abuse scare, and other modern crazes. Why People Believe Strange Things is an eye-opening resource for the most gullible among us and those who want to protect them.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law written by Markus D Dubber and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 1294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law reflects the continued transformation of criminal law into a global discipline, providing scholars with a comprehensive international resource, a common point of entry into cutting edge contemporary research and a snapshot of the state and scope of the field. To this end, the Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter, disciplinarily, geographically, and systematically. Its contributors include current and future research leaders representing a variety of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise, and research agendas. The Handbook is divided into four parts: Approaches & Methods (I), Systems & Methods (II), Aspects & Issues (III), and Contexts & Comparisons (IV). Part I includes essays exploring various methodological approaches to criminal law (such as criminology, feminist studies, and history). Part II provides an overview of systems or models of criminal law, laying the foundation for further inquiry into specific conceptions of criminal law as well as for comparative analysis (such as Islamic, Marxist, and military law). Part III covers the three aspects of the penal process: the definition of norms and principles of liability (substantive criminal law), along with a less detailed treatment of the imposition of norms (criminal procedure) and the infliction of sanctions (prison law). Contributors consider the basic topics traditionally addressed in scholarship on the general and special parts of the substantive criminal law (such as jurisdiction, mens rea, justifications, and excuses). Part IV places criminal law in context, both domestically and transnationally, by exploring the contrasts between criminal law and other species of law and state power and by investigating criminal law's place in the projects of comparative law, transnational, and international law.
Download or read book Theoretical Virtues in Science written by Samuel Schindler and published by . This book was released on 2018-05-24 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In-depth discussion of the value of scientific theories, bringing together and advancing current important debates in realism.
Download or read book Lost Causes in and beyond Physics written by R.F. Streater and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-07-16 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with a selection of research topics in theoretical physics that have (almost) been proven to be a dead-end or continue at least to be highly controversial. Nevertheless, small but dedicated research communities continue to work on these issues. In a series of essays this book describes their work and struggle as well as the chances of any breakthrough in these areas. It is written as both an entertainment and serious study.
Download or read book Causal Cognition in Humans and Machines written by Andrew Tolmie and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-02-02 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Time and Causality across the Sciences written by Samantha Kleinberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-26 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, geared toward academic researchers and graduate students, brings together research on all facets of how time and causality relate across the sciences. Time is fundamental to how we perceive and reason about causes. It lets us immediately rule out the sound of a car crash as its cause. That a cause happens before its effect has been a core, and often unquestioned, part of how we describe causality. Research across disciplines shows that the relationship is much more complex than that. This book explores what that means for both the metaphysics and epistemology of causes - what they are and how we can find them. Across psychology, biology, and the social sciences, common themes emerge, suggesting that time plays a critical role in our understanding. The increasing availability of large time series datasets allows us to ask new questions about causality, necessitating new methods for modeling dynamic systems and incorporating mechanistic information into causal models.
Download or read book Meaningful Coincidences written by Bernard Beitman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive exploration of the potential of coincidences to expand our understanding of reality and inspire psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual growth • Scientific and Medical Network's Annual Book Prize for 2022 • Presents a complete catalog of coincidence patterns with numerous illustrative examples • Defines the many uses and potential pitfalls of coincidences and highlights the situations in which they are most likely to occur • Explores the range of explanations for coincidences, including the psychosphere as the medium through which many coincidences take place Each of us has more to do with creating coincidences than we think. In this broad exploration of the potential of coincidences to expand our understanding of reality, psychiatrist Bernard Beitman, M.D., explores why and how coincidences, synchronicity, and serendipity happen and how to use these common occurrences to inspire psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual growth. Through a complete catalog of coincidence patterns with numerous illustrative examples, Dr. Beitman clarifies the relationship between synchronicity and serendipity and dissects the “anatomy of a coincidence.” He defines coincidence types through their two fundamental constituents--mental events and physical events. He analyzes the many uses of meaningful coincidences as well as their potential problems. He explains how you will see patterns guiding your life decisions and learn to expect that coincidences are more likely to occur during life stressors, as well as times of high emotion and strong need, which helps you be ready to use them when they occur. Exploring the crucial role of personal agency--individual thought and action--in synchronicities and serendipities, Dr. Beitman shows that there’s much more behind these occurrences than “fate” or “randomness.”
