标签：determinism

Treating People as People: An Introduction to Wiener’s The Human Use of Human Beings

AI & Scholarship2023.05.05
Treating People as People: An Introduction to Wiener’s The Human Use of Human Beings
This is the introductory reading I prepared for the Mediasphere Alliance. The transcript was roughly organized by Feng Guangneng and then polished by me, though I tried to preserve the conversational style as much as possible. It has already been posted on the Mediasphere Alliance WeChat public account; here I am reposting the original draft. 1.1 Opening Wu Jingwei: Hello to all our friends online, and to all the book lovers who have long followed the Mediasphere Alliance reading group! Today we are very honored to have Teacher Hu Yilin from our Department of History of Science join us to lead us through Wiener’s very important classic, The Human Use…
book reading history of science book review history of technology
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2023年5月5日
Philosophical Ramblings [Episode 1]: Freedom Is Like Treating Someone to a Meal

Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom2015.08.07
Philosophical Ramblings [Episode 1]: Freedom Is Like Treating Someone to a Meal
Since I wanted to launch the “Philosophy Commentary” column, I had long been bursting with topics I wanted to write about, but when it came time to write, I no longer knew where to begin. Might as well start with an old topic: “freedom.” As for freedom, I have already written many articles discussing it; in fact, everything that needed saying has more or less already been said. But related discussions often involve the similarities and differences between freedom and equality, as well as specific issues such as freedom of speech, and they are not written in a very accessible way either. Here, I want to offer a popular-style commentary…
philosophy China freedom language
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2015年8月7日
A Natural History of Media—McLuhan’s Method

History of Science & Scholarship2013.08.10
A Natural History of Media—McLuhan’s Method
1. Introduction: Literary Style or Research Method? Marshall McLuhan (1911–1982) was the most influential and at the same time the most controversial media thinker of the twentieth century. As a pioneer or founding figure of the media ecology school, his reputation rose and fell dramatically: he was once elevated to the altar, and then quickly neglected and forgotten. With the dawn of the network age, he came once again to be widely known in academic circles and indeed throughout the cultural world as a “prophet-sage,” yet some still regard him as a mountebank who merely uses gibberish to hoodwink the public. These two images are not really contradictory. So-called prophets…
media Heidegger paper nature
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2013年8月10日
A Chat Record on Determinism and Free Will

Philosophy & Thought2011.01.03
A Chat Record on Determinism and Free Will
Last night I had a QQ chat with an online friend. Although there was nothing especially profound in it, it may count as a basic expression of my approach to the question of free will and determinism. This friend had originally fallen into anguish over such questions as “Does the world around us exist?”, “Do human beings have free will?”, and “Is causality something objectively existent?”, after reading The Big Questions, and came to me for help. I replied with an email at the time, though perhaps I did not quite hit the point; I was only trying to indicate a general way of release. This time, through QQ, we…
philosophy Kant God causality
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2011年1月3日
Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry in Biology—Thoughts on Chang Zengyi’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.25
Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry in Biology—Thoughts on Chang Zengyi’s Lecture
Today, Teacher Chang Zengyi lectured on “biology driven by physics and chemistry,” discussing the concepts and techniques that physics and chemistry have brought to the life sciences, and introducing the contributions to the life sciences made throughout history by many scientists with backgrounds in physics and chemistry. What Teacher Chang said was relatively superficial; it did not bring out the deeper connections between mathematics, physics, chemistry, and the development of the life sciences as a discipline. In fact, the reason the life sciences were able to develop so extensively under the push of physics and chemistry was not that, by historical accident, there happened to be some interdisciplinary scientists who…
science mathematics Scientific Revolution determinism
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2010年11月25日
Has Chaos Theory Overturned the Determinism of Classical Physics? (Philosophy of Physics Assignment)

History of Science & Scholarship2010.06.27
Has Chaos Theory Overturned the Determinism of Classical Physics? (Philosophy of Physics Assignment)
Physics Philosophy Assignment • 1. Does chaos theory overturn the determinism of classical physics? I do not think chaos theory overturns the determinism of classical physics. Perhaps chaos theory forces the worldview of classical physics to be redrawn, and determinism will also have to be rearticulated, but I am afraid “overturn” is too strong a word. What is called determinism involves, at the very least, two levels of question. One is ontological, the other operational. Determinism in classical physics first means this: the entire world is determined by strict causal relations; present events are caused by prior ones, and a determinate cause will necessarily lead to a determinate result. Therefore,…
science mathematics physics determinism
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2010年6月27日
[Archive] Keke Forum Lecture 64: How to Solve the Underdetermination Problem—A Case Study of Cushing’s Defense of Hidden Variables

Life & Notes2008.12.26
[Archive] Keke Forum Lecture 64: How to Solve the Underdetermination Problem—A Case Study of Cushing’s Defense of Hidden Variables
http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=882 Time: Friday, December 26, 2008, 3:00–5:00 p.m. Place: Academic Lecture Hall, Center for Science and Society, Chengze Garden Speaker: Bai Tongdong, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Xavier University, USA Topic: How to Solve the Underdetermination Problem—Using Cushing’s Defense of Hidden Variables as an Example Commentator: Liu Huajie Although I couldn’t really raise any questions, and Monday’s report can’t really continue along this line, today’s lecture was quite interesting. What I found interesting was not the topic itself, but rather the many inspirations that Professor Bai mentioned in passing during his talk. As for the topic, my reaction was rather like that of the journal office supporting orthodox quantum mechanics—although…
everyday life philosophy of science Liu Huajie quantum mechanics
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2008年12月26日
Is the Struggle Aspect of Contradictions Absolute?

Life & Notes2007.10.11
Is the Struggle Aspect of Contradictions Absolute?
This time’s entrance exam for the recommendation-for-exemption process was a complete disaster—of course, I had already expected to bomb it, but I thought I’d have to take the hit on English; I never expected the two Chinese-language questions to be even more disastrous…… Especially the second question, which was also worth 25 points, and of all things turned out to be a “Marxist philosophy” question. I nearly handed in a blank sheet on that one; in the end I managed to write a few lines, though I have no idea how many points I got…… Analyze: “The antagonistic aspect of contradictions is absolute.” My answer was roughly like this: First,…
philosophy everyday life determinism
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2007年10月11日
On the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Philosophy & Thought2007.09.19
On the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Today in Schopenhauer class, at the very end, the discussion turned to the principle of sufficient reason. I couldn’t help interjecting a question; in fact, I haven’t even started reading Schopenhauer’s book yet, so I was really rather embarrassed~ Jingang said that Schopenhauer’s argument for the principle of sufficient reason is quite dogmatic, and I agree with that. As for the teacher, he more or less said that the principle of sufficient reason is a prerequisite for questioning and reasoning, and on that point I disagree. At the time I brought up quantum mechanics. I raised it as an example, not because I wanted to drag the cutting edge of…
philosophy causality quantum mechanics Einstein
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2007年9月19日
What Does Scientific Explanation Explain?

History of Science & Scholarship2006.03.27
What Does Scientific Explanation Explain?
Some people say that the purpose of science is to provide explanations; this is probably right, because science arises from the pursuit of knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge arises from “wonder.” The common origin of science and philosophy is humanity’s “curiosity” about this world. It is because we ask “what?” that science came into being, and the original purpose of science was indeed to try to explain how various phenomena can be understood. The object of scientific explanation is the “explained sentence” — the “Why is it that…?” sentence. So what different types of explained sentences are there? One distinction divides explained sentences into necessary events and probable events,…
science philosophy of science causality determinism
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2006年3月27日