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Title
Information and interaction : Eddington, Wheeler, and the limits of knowledge / Ian T. Durham, Dean Rickles, editors.
ISBN
9783319437606 (electronic book)
3319437607 (electronic book)
9783319437583
3319437585
Published
Cham, Switzerland : Springer, 2017.
Copyright
©2017
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (230 pages) : illustrations.
Item Number
10.1007/978-3-319-43760-6 doi
Call Number
BD161
Dewey Decimal Classification
121
Summary
In this essay collection, leading physicists, philosophers, and historians attempt to fill the empty theoretical ground in the foundations of information and address the related question of the limits to our knowledge of the world. Over recent decades, our practical approach to information and its exploitation has radically outpaced our theoretical understanding - to such a degree that reflection on the foundations may seem futile. But it is exactly fields such as quantum information, which are shifting the boundaries of the physically possible, that make a foundational understanding of information increasingly important. One of the recurring themes of the book is the claim by Eddington and Wheeler that information involves interaction and putting agents or observers centre stage. Thus, physical reality, in their view, is shaped by the questions we choose to put to it and is built up from the information residing at its core. This is the root of Wheeler?s famous phrase “it from bit.” After reading the stimulating essays collected in this volume, readers will be in a good position to decide whether they agree with this view.
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Access limited to authorized users.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Series
Frontiers collection.
Available in Other Form
Print version: 9783319437583
Boundaries of Scientific Thought (I. Durham)
Eddington's Limits of Knowledge: The Role of Religion (M. Stanley)
Eddington's Dream: A Failed Theory of Everything (H. Kragh)
All Possible Perspectives: A (Partial) Defence of Eddington's Physics (D. Rickles)
Tracing the Arrows of Time (F. Weinert)
Constructor Theory of Information (C. Marletto)
On Participatory Realism (C. A. Fuchs)
Toward Physical Realizations of Thermodynamic Resource Theories (N. Y. Halpern)
Merging Contradictory Laws: Imagining a Contructive Derivation of Quantum Theory (W. K. Wootters)
Understanding the Electron (K. H. Knuth).