October 2017 Lunchtime Abstracts & Details

Climate Change Skepticism and Beliefs about Science
Karen Kovaka, Center Postdoc Fellow
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: Climate scientists overwhelmingly believe in human-made climate change, but half of Americans do not, or so they tell pollsters. One explanation for this disparity focuses on knowledge: people do not have the right information about climate change. A second explanation focuses on social identity: climate change skepticism is a statement about who you are, not what you believe. I propose a third explanation: people reject climate change because of their beliefs about the nature of science. Specifically, they believe that the claims of scientists should be examined through non-scientific prisms such as religion, politics, or simple common sense. This allows them to selectively reject scientific consensuses while still claiming a scientific worldview. Researchers have overlooked this explanation for why polls report substantial climate change skepticism in the United States, but it makes better sense of the available evidence than the knowledge or social identity explanations.

Towards a Realist View of Quantum Field Theory
James Fraser, Center Postdoc Fellow
Friday, October 6, 2017
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract:  Can a scientific realist epistemology be maintained in the context of quantum field theory? I have suggested, following similar proposals by David Wallace and Porter Williams, that the best hope for the realist is to be found in the effective field theory approach. After explaining the key motivations for this view I focus here on two anti-realist replies: the first suggesting that it falls foul of familiar pessimistic induction style arguments and the second that it fails to clearly distinguish itself from constructive empiricism. While I don’t think these objections are fatal they do point to areas where more work is needed to establish that the position is both viable and genuinely realist.

The Temporal Asymmetry of Chance
Alison Fernandes, Postdoc Fellow, University of Warwick
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: The Second Law of Thermodynamics can be derived from the fact that an isolated system at non-maximal entropy is overwhelmingly likely to increase in entropy over time. Such derivations seem to make ineliminable use of objective worldly probabilities (chances). But some have argued that if the fundamental laws are deterministic, there can be no non-trivial chances (Popper, Lewis, Schaffer). Statistical-mechanical probabilities are merely epistemic, or otherwise less real than ‘dynamical’ chances. Many have also thought that chance is intrinsically temporally asymmetric. It is part of the nature of chance that the past is ‘fixed’, and that all non-trivial chances must concern future events. I’ll argue that it is no coincidence that many have held both views: the rejection of deterministic chance is driven by an asymmetric picture of chance in which the past produces the future. I’ll articulate a more deflationary view, according to which more limited temporal asymmetries of chance reflect contingent asymmetries of precisely the kind reflected in the Second Law. The past can be chancy after all.

Emergent Space Ontologies in the Early Modern Period
Edward Slowik, Winona State University
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: While many current Quantum Gravity hypotheses posit that spacetime emerges from a more fundamental level of ontology that is non-spatial, the basic origins of this strategy can be traced to several natural philosophers in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, in particular, Leibniz and the pre-critical Kant. In this presentation, those aspects of spatial ontology in the Early Modern period that endorse spatial emergence will be investigated, with the similarities and differences between the respective Early Modern and Quantum Gravity non-spatial hypotheses forming a prominent part of the discussion. As will be demonstrated, there are a number of uncanny similarities between the seventeenth century and the modern forms of spatial emergence, although the historical emphasis on the substantival versus relational debate has largely sidelined the investigation of this aspect of spatial ontology.

Simply Understanding the World
Daniel Wilkenfeld, Center Visiting Fellow
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: In this talk, I will lay out a program for a theory of what understanding amounts to that captures two primary intuitions:
1) The intuition that when one comes to understand a complex theory/object/anything, it seems to be easier and--in a non-technical sense--simpler to think about.
2) The intuition that whether and to what extent you understand something is a product of both what you know/represent and what you can do.
I also take as a general desideratum that any account provide a unified theory of cognitive understanding that can be applied to understanding phenomena, events, theories, and ideally people and works of art. I will argue that we can capture a great deal of the insight from extant theories of understanding by conceiving of understanding as a way to overcome human deficiencies by encoding information in particularly useful ways.

Against Neuropsychological Cases for Unconscious Vision
Wayne Wu, Carnegie Mellon University, Dept. of Philosophy
Associate Director, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: Blindsight and visual agnosia are two prominent neuropsychological cases that are taken to establish unconscious vision, understood as equivalent to normal seeing minus phenomenal properties. The empirical argument depends on a conflict between two measures, an objective measure that shows accurate/reliable performance regarding the stimulus and a subjective measure that is the subject’s reporting not seeing the stimulus. The reliability of the subjective measure, namely introspection, has not been questioned in current practice. It can be questioned. I introduce a model of introspection that does not treat it as a supernatural detection/discrimination capacity, i.e. one not subject to noise, but connects it to empirical/philosophical theories of attention. Combining the model with what is known about the primate cortical visual system and the experimental data about the neuropsychological cases provides strong grounds to undercut a crucial premise in the empirical argument. I conclude that the empirical argument from neuropsychological cases for unconscious vision is unsound. If time, I will discuss the principles regarding behavioral evidence that we use to infer the presence of consciousness in subjects.