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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy
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How Physics Makes Us Free (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,263
Discovery Miles 12 630
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How Physics Makes Us Free (Hardcover)
Expected to ship within 12 - 19 working days
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In 1687 Isaac Newton ushered in a new scientific era in which laws
of nature could be used to predict the movements of matter with
almost perfect precision. Newton's physics also posed a profound
challenge to our self-understanding, however, for the very same
laws that keep airplanes in the air and rivers flowing downhill
tell us that it is in principle possible to predict what each of us
will do every second of our entire lives, given the early
conditions of the universe. Can it really be that even while you
toss and turn late at night in the throes of an important decision
and it seems like the scales of fate hang in the balance, that your
decision is a foregone conclusion? Can it really be that everything
you have done and everything you ever will do is determined by
facts that were in place long before you were born? This problem is
one of the staples of philosophical discussion. It is discussed by
everyone from freshman in their first philosophy class, to
theoretical physicists in bars after conferences. And yet there is
no topic that remains more unsettling, and less well understood. If
you want to get behind the facade, past the bare statement of
determinism, and really try to understand what physics is telling
us in its own terms, read this book. The problem of free will
raises all kinds of questions. What does it mean to make a
decision, and what does it mean to say that our actions are
determined? What are laws of nature? What are causes? What sorts of
things are we, when viewed through the lenses of physics, and how
do we fit into the natural order? Ismael provides a deeply informed
account of what physics tells us about ourselves. The result is a
vision that is abstract, alien, illuminating, and-Ismael
argues-affirmative of most of what we all believe about our own
freedom. Written in a jargon-free style, How Physics Makes Us Free
provides an accessible and innovative take on a central question of
human existence.
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