I show that locality, as it occurs in EPR arguments for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, can be construed as causal independence understood in terms of Lewis’ counterfactual analysis of causation. This construal has two benefits. It supplements recent analyses, which have not treated locality in detail. And it clarifies the relation between two EPR arguments that have recently been distinguished. It shows that the simpler of the two is more complex than has been thought; and that the other argument does not need ‘counterfactual definiteness’.

I aim to show that in the EPR argument (Einstein et al. 1935) for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics (QM), locality can be taken as causal independence, understood in terms of Lewis’ counterfactual analysis of causation.

Recent analyses of the EPR argument makes this construal of locality timely, for two reasons. First, these analyses typically say little about locality.

The fundamental dialectic of Science as a Process is the interaction between two narrative levels. At one level, the book is a historical narrative of one aspect of one ongoing problem in systematics - the dispute between cladists and more traditional evolutionary taxonomists and amongst the cladists themselves on the correct method of classifying species. This narrative is replete with details of the process whereby scientists promote and publish their ideas. It is an informative and somewhat ‘racy’ account of the rough and tumble battleground of ideas which puts the lie to the mythical ideal of the scientist as disinterested pursuer of the Truth. At the second level, Hull presents a theoretical model of the scientific process - a model which draws heavily on invoked similarities between biological and scientific change. The narrative serves as the evidence for the model. The model, in turn, helps shape the historical narrative.

Bell (1964) demonstrated that if two restrictions are imposed on the hypothetical hidden variables supposed to underlie quantum mechanical states, then it is possible to derive an inequality that is violated by certain predictions of QM (Quantum Mechanics); the predictions concern pairs of systems whose states are strongly correlated. The two restrictions are denoted herein as SL (Strong Locality) and HA (Hidden Autonomy)1, and the inequality as BI (the Bell Inequality). Since SL and HA together entail BI, and QM violates BI, it follows that any HVT (Hidden-Variables Theory) for QM must violate either SL or HA.

It is well known that a condition known as PA (Perfect Anti-correlation) was also used by Bell to derive the inequality. PA says that parallel experiments (experiments with parallel spin-analyzer orientations) never yield the same results.

It is well-known that developments of quantum mechanical states according to the Schrödinger equation during a measurement seem to prevent measurements from having definite results. For, the usually assumed (idealized) Schrödinger development of the measured object and the measuring apparatus during a measurement typically results in a state of the entire system which is a superposition of the eigenstates of the measured observable and measuring observable. And the most common interpretations of quantum mechanics state that an observable does not have a definite value if the quantum mechanical state is a superposition of the eigenstates of the observable. Many ways out of this problem have been suggested. I want to discuss an interpretation suggested by S. Kochen (Kochen 1985), and suggest similar interpretations, each of which accept the universal validity of the Schrödinger equation, and yet yield definite results for measurements.

Stuart Kauffman’s forthcoming book, The Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution (1991), is a large and ambitious attempt to bring about a major reorientation in theoretical biology and to provide a fundamental reinterpretation of the place of selection in evolutionary theory. Kauffman offers a formal framework which allows one to pose precise and well-defined questions about the constraints that self-organization imposes on the evolution of complex systems, and the relation of self-organization and selection. He says at the outset that he wants to “delineate the spontaneous sources of order, the self organized properties of simple and complex systems” and to understand how they “permit, enable and limit the efficacy of natural selection” (Introduction, p. 2).2 As he says somewhat later, the central theme running through his book is that “the order in organisms may largely reflect spontaneous order in complex systems” (ch. 6, p. 224).

It has been suggested that the measuring apparatus used to measure quantum systems ought to be idealized as consisting of an infinite number of quantum systems. Let us call this the infinity assumption. The suggestion that we ought to make the infinity assumption has been made in connection with two closely related but distinct problems. One is the problem of determining the importance of the limitations on measurement incorporated into the Wigner-Araki-Yanase quantum theory of measurement. The other is the measurement problem. These problems are not internal to the quantum mechanical formalism. They arise when we obtain particular formal results in applying the quantum mechanical formalism to measurement interactions. The formal results are problematic because they resist explanation. Various authors have claimed that by making the infinity assumption we can neglect the limitations on measurement. Bub (1988) and (1989) claims it allows us to solve the measurement problem. I will argue that both claims are unjustified.

The social organization of insect colonies has fascinated biologists and natural historians for centuries. Aristotle wrote in History of Animals about a division of labor among workers within the hive that is based on age. He observed that the field bees foraging for nectar and pollen have less “hair” on their bodies than the hive bees that care for young larvae and tend the nest. He concluded that the more pubescent hive bees must be older. We now know that, in fact, the field bees are older and have less hair because the hairs break off as the bees age. The phenomenon of age related changes in behavior, age-polyethism, is now well documented for many social insects (Oster and Wilson 1978).

Evidence of the ecological success of social insects is inescapable. Virtually everywhere you look you see them or the results of their activities.

The search for a coherent and fertile interpretation of quantum mechanics [QM] with collapse of the wave function is currently a hot topic. This paper focuses on the following sets of related issues: 1) In what sense, if any, do collapse theories constitute a view of the quantum world induced “from the practices-up”? [Here and throughout the paper the term “a view from the practices-up” will mean a view induced from the practices of scientists working on specific problems.] 2) What general description does a collapse variant of QM yield of the physical world? What interpretative problems, if any, does it solve? How exactly does it differ from current mainstream versions of QM? What problems does it face? How serious are these problems in light of current background knowledge?. 3) In our present scientific and philosophical circumstances, what, if anything, makes the search for collapse theories an attractive program?

A new science, the science of complexity, is birthing. This science boldly promises to transform the biological and social sciences in the forthcoming century. My own book, Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution, (Kauffman, 1992), is at most one strand in this transformation. I feel deeply honored that Marjorie Grene undertook organizing a session at the Philosophy of Science meeting discussing Origins, and equally glad that Dick Burian, Bob Richardson and Rob Page have undertaken their reading of the manuscript and careful thoughts. In this article I shall characterize the book, but more importantly, set it in the broader context of the emerging sciences of complexity. Although the book is not yet out of Oxford press’s quiet womb, my own thinking has moved beyond that which I had formulated even a half year ago. Meanwhile, in the broader scientific community, the interest in “complexity” is exploding.

In a discussion of Schroedinger’s views on quantum theory John Bell says that Schroedinger did not see how “to account for particle tracks in track chambers…and more generally for the definiteness, the particularity, of experience, as compared with the indefiniteness, the waviness, of the wave function. It is the problem he had had with his cat. He thought it could not be both dead and alive. But the wave function showed no such commitment, superposing the possibilities. Either the wave function as given by the Schroedinger equation is not everything or it is not right” (Bell 1987). At a recent conference Bell sermonized against the employment of “for all practical purpose” reasoning- he called it FAP reasoning-to solve this problem (Bell 1989). He argued that we should not be satisfied with any alleged solution which works “for all practical purposes” only while leaving conceptual puzzles unresolved.

Can statistical inference shed any worthwhile light on theory change? For many years I have believed that the answer is “Yes.” Let me try to explain why I think so. On my first reading of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) I was so deeply shocked at his repudiation of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification that I put the book down without finishing it. By 1969, when a conference was held at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science on the relations between the history of science and the philosophy of science, I had returned to Structure and formed the view that Kuhn’s rejection of this fundamental distinction resulted from his adoption of an inadequate conception of scientific justification. It appeared that he saw scientific confirmation in terms of the traditional hypothetico-deductive (H-D) schema, according to which a scientific hypothesis (or theory) is confirmed by observing the truth of its logical consequences.

People have worried for many years — centuries — about how you perform large changes in your body of beliefs. How does the new evidence lead you to replace a geocentric system of planetary motion by a heliocentric system? How do we decide to abandon the principle of the conservation of mass?

The general approach that we will try to defend here is that an assumption, presupposition, framework principle, will be rejected or altered when a large enough number of improbabilities must be accepted on be basis of our experience. If I think that all swans are white, and a student claims to have a counterexample, I will assume that he has made some observational error. I will reject his result, and continue to accept the generalization. When a lot of people claim to have seen counterexamples, I will come around: to continue to accept the generalization would require me to accept too many improbabilities.

Modern mathematical physics uses real-number variables, and therefore presupposes set theory. (A real number is defined as a certain kind of set or sequence of natural or rational numbers.) Set theory is also used to define the operations of differential calculus, needed to state physical laws as differential equations constraining the numerical variables representing physical quantities. The derivative f' = df(t)/dt is defined as the limit of an infinite sequence of terms [f(t+e)-f(t)]/e as e → 0, and this definition can only be expressed in a language allowing reference to infinite sequences. Moreover, closure under these limit operations again requires the underlying field of numbers to be Dedekind complete, hence to include all of the reals.

The possibility that mathematical physics depends essentially upon set theory is disturbing, for two distinct reasons. From a logical viewpoint, it is disturbing that an important branch of natural science should depend upon a part of logic or mathematics whose status remains uncertain and controversial.

The theory of belief revision deals with models of states of belief and transitions between states of belief. The goal of the theory is to describe what should happen when you update a state of belief with new information. In the most interesting case, the new information is inconsistent with what you believe. This means that some of the old beliefs have to be deleted if one wants to remain within a consistent state of belief. A guiding idea is that the change should be minimal so that as few of the old beliefs as possible are given up.

A central problem for the theory of belief revision is what is meant by a minimal change of a state of belief. The solution to this problem depends to a large extent on the model of a state of belief that is adopted.

Is time-travel possible? Like most intriguing problems that lie within the shared locus of physics, metaphysics and logic, this question admits of many interpretations, each of which engenders a different line of research. At its most anemic, the issue can be just: Is it possible to tell a story about travel into the past that contains no explicit contradictions? Under the stimulation of physical concerns it may develop into a more challenging problem: Do the laws of physics, as best we understand them, admit of solutions that contain closed time-like curves? And next: Would it be physically possible for a massive object to travel along one of those curves into its own local past? Then: Are the known facts about our universe consistent with it being such a world? And finally: Is time-travel in our universe technologically possible? When prodded in this direction our original question arrives at last on the drawing boards of the engineers, having passed successively through the precincts of the theoretical physicists, the mathematicians, and the astronomers.

The distinction between mathematical and physical objects has probably played a greater role shaping the philosophy of mathematics than the distinction between observable and theoretical entities has had in defining the philosophy of science. All the major movements in the philosophy of mathematics may be seen as attempts to free mathematics of an abstract ontology or to come to terms with it. The reasons are epistemic. Most philosophers of mathematics believe that the abstractaess of mathematical objects introduces special difficulties in accounting for our ability to know them, to refer to them and even to entertain beliefs about them. These difficulties—supposedly absent even in the case of the most theoretical physical objects—make mathematical objects especially problematic and philosophically unattractive.

Few have questioned this epistemic thesis or the ontic distinction it presupposes. LaVerne Shelton (1980) challenged the abstract-concrete distinction some years ago in an unpublished APA address.

There is a wide-spread belief that we know more about the past than we do about the future. It may be difficult to express the content of this belief exactly and it may turn out that, when we find some precise expression of this belief, it is not so obviously true. I shall assume, however, that there is something to a belief shared not only by eminent philosophers but by cultures wholly distinct from our own, as the following quote indicates.

We know where the future is. It’s in front of us. Right? It lies before us—a great future lies before us—we stride forward confidently into it, every commencement, every election year. And we know where the past is. Behind us, right? So that we have to turn around to see it, and that interrupts our progress ever forward into the future, so we don’t really much like to do it.

Cognitive science, at least as done by many philosophers, seeks to develop what one might call a content-based theory of cognition. These theorists generally seek to predict/explain cognition by employing generalizations between contentful states like beliefs and desires. In his book, From Folk Psychology To Cognitive Science, Stephen Stich argues that cognitive science should not attempt to employ content-based theories in its explanations of human (and other) behavior. For the most part Stich directs his arguments towards belief/desire psychology. Some of his arguments, however, are directed at content-based theories in general. In this paper, I will be concerned with one of these more general arguments—the principle of autonomy argument.

The conclusion of the principle of autonomy argument is that the predictions and explanations generated by content-based theories, in so far as they are possible, do not fall within the domain of prediction and explanation in cognitive science.