update/reminder philphys Paris

Tue Nov 29 12:40:15 CET 2005

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

this should be my last update/reminder of philosophy of physics activities
until the end of the year (I shall be in Sydney for December).

The reminders:
(A) the quantum information workshop 8-9 Dec.,
(B) Physique et Conscience 9-10 Dec.,
(C) Jordi Cat's talk at REHSEIS 13 Dec.

The updates:
(1) CEA Forum de la Theorie (N.B. NOT OPEN TO EVERYONE), 6-7 Dec.,
(2) Preliminary announcement of next summer's Vaexjoe foundations
    of physicsconference,
(3) A seminar and a series of lectures by Peter Galison.

Details below.

As usual, I am copying also to the philphys list
( http://philosophy.elte.hu/philphys.html ).

		All the best (and Season's Greetings),

					Guido Bacciagaluppi

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Guido Bacciagaluppi
Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques
(IHPST)
13, rue du Four
F-75006 Paris
France
Fax: +33 / 1 / 43 25 29 48
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**********
REMINDERS:
**********

(A) "Quantum information"-workshop in Paris, 8 & 9 December:

For details, see:
http://se10.comlab.ox.ac.uk:8080/FOCS/QdayII_en.html

(B) ACADEMIE EUROPEENNE INTERDISCIPLINAIRE DES SCIENCES
MAISON DES SCIENCES DE L.HOMME, PARIS

Congres international, 9 et 10 Decembre 2005,
Carre des Sciences.
"PHYSIQUE ET CONSCIENCE"

For details, see:
http://www.crea.polytechnique.fr/activites/P&C.htm

(C) SEMINAIRE : HISTOIRE ET PHILOSOPHIE DE LA PHYSIQUE
'Les raisons de l'a-peu-pres'
Informations :
Nadine de Courtenay decourtenay at wanadoo.fr
Olivier Darrigol darrigol at paris7.jussieu.fr

REHSEIS: Universite Paris 7 - Denis Diderot
Dalle "Les Olympiades" - Centre javelot
105, rue de Tolbiac ou 59 rue Nationale
75013 PARIS
1er tage gauche
http://www.rehseis.cnrs.fr/recherche/semingroupe/physique.htm

Mardi 13 Decembre 2005, 17h00 - 19h00
Jordi Cat (University of Indiana)
Splendor and misery of conceptual approximations

********
UPDATES:
********

(1) CEA : Forum de la Theorie 2005 6-7 decembre 2005

http://www-spht.cea.fr/colloques/forum_theorie/

N.B. Le Forum de la Theorie s'adresse aux personnels travaillant dans les
laboratoires du CEA et associes au CNRS, INSERM, ...
Priere de s'inscrire sur le Web.

Initie en 1997, le Forum de la thorie au CEA se propose de donner un
apercu de la diversite des etudes theoriques poursuivies dans les
laboratoires du CEA et associes au CNRS, INSERM, ... Les exposes porteront
sur des avances actuelles avec la volonte de les rendre accessibles a tous
ceux qui aiment la Science.
Dans le cadre de l'annee mondiale de la physique, le Forum illustrera les
progres theoriques recents. Cette annee le sujet est plus oriente vers la
physique theorique sans omettre d'autres disciplines scientifiques avec
lesquelles son interaction est fructueuse. Il associera donc aux orateurs
du Service de physique theorique, des intervenants de divers departements
du CEA.

(2) A new conference announcement in foundations of physics:

"Foundations of Probability and Physics-4", University of Vaexjoe, Sweden.
This is the very preliminary communication; detailed information about
this conference and the application form will appear in a few weeks at
http://www.msi.vxu.se/aktuellt/konferens

Organiser: Andrei Khrennikov, Director of International Center for
Mathematical Modeling in Physics, Engineering, Economy and Cognitive Sc.,
University of Vaxjo, Sweden

(3) A talk and a series of four lectures by Peter Galison at the ENS
(in French).

--------------
PHILOSOPHIE DU DEHORS
December 12, 2005, Salle des Actes ENS
L'Empire du Temps
17h-19h30.

In the standard picture of the history of special relativity, Einstein's
reformulation of simultaneity is considered a quasi-philosophical
intervention, a move made possible by his *dis*-connection from the
standard physics and technology of the day.  Meanwhile, Einstein's
engagement at the Patent Office enters the story as a lowly day job,
irrelevant to his work on relativity.  I argue, on the contrary, that
Einstein's patent work located him squarely in the middle of a wealth of
technological developments, cultural discussions about the meaning of
time, and important patents that accompanied the coordination of clocks.
And Henri Poincare, far from being lost exclusively in the far reaches of
abstract mathematics, was at the same time profoundly involved with the
use of precision coordinated clocks for long-distance longitude
determination. Indeed, at a crucial moment in the development of
Poincare's own thoughts on simultaneity, he was presiding of over the
Paris Bureau of Longitude. By understanding the history of coordinated
clocks, Einstein's and Poincare's work in relativistic physics shines in a
very different light: the "modern" of "modern physics" stood was the
intersection of physics, technology, and philosophy.

----------------------------------
Peter Galison,
"Scientific Images, Objects, and Selves,"
ENS November/December 2005

Lecture 1: "The Assassin of Relativity,"
Le 17 novembre de 17h30 a 19h30 en salle Paul Lapie au 29 rue d'Ulm

Einstein maintained a strong personal and scientific friendship with
Friedrich Adler.  They went to university together, shared a house and,
when Adler triumphed over Einstein for a physics position at the
University of Zurich, Adler declined it in favor of the young patent
clerk.  In October 1916, Adler took a Browning pistol and assassinated
Count Stuergkh, Prime Minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Einstein
leapt to his defence.  While Adler sat in prison-waiting to be hanged,
celebrated by Trotsky and Lenin, lambasted by the press-he launched a
fascinating correspondence with Einstein and wrote two books that ranging
over an immense epistemo-physics-political field.  Understanding the
Adler-Einstein conversation, their disagreements, and their sympathies
sheds much light not only on a path not taken by Einstein--but on the
explosive brew of Machism, Marxism, and the relativity theory that so
transformed the twentieth century.

----------------
Lecture 2:  "Picturing Objectivity"
Le 24 novembre 2005 de 17h30 a 19h30 en salle Paul Lapie au 29 rue d'Ulm

When scientific objectivity became a goal in the early 19th century it was
by no means obvious.  Natural philosophers had to invert the old epistemic
virtues that involved finding ideal forms that lay behind the variations
of this or that individual.  Where genius was, plain-sight observation
came to dominate.  We will here track how scientific atlases helped define
the modern scientific category of mechanical objectivity-and the new
quieted and transparent scientific self that necessarily accompanied it.
The fate of objectivity kept turning: 20th century scientists questioned
image-based, mechanical objectivity; they demanded more interpretation and
modification of images than mechanical objectivity ever allowed.  With
that shift came a new view of the right scientific self, one now
explicitly making use of intuition, expertise, and the unconscious.

-------------------------

Lecture 3: "The Ontology of the Enemy and the Cybernetic Self"
Le 8 decembre de 17h30 a 19h30 en salle de conferences au 46 rue d'Ulm

In these last two lectures, I turn to the way in which scientific objects
and instruments both presuppose and shape the scientific self.  We begin,
with a discussion of what such a historical, transcendental materialism
might be-using the Vienna Circle's philosophical  interest in Bauhaus
architecture on the one side, and the famous ink blots of Hermann
Rorschach on the other.  What do each presuppose about the self?  But the
focus will principally be on Norbert Wiener's electro-mechanical
feedback-designed anti-aircraft gun to probe the origins of cybernetics
and to explore the nature of self demanded by the objects of cybernetics.
What is, after all, intention--the very fabric of the will-based self that
for so long dominated "das ich," and how did Wiener aim to replace this
intentionality with machinic loops?

-------------------------

Lecture 4. Wastelands and Wilderness
Le 15 decembre de 17h30 a 19h30 en salle de conferences au 46 rue d'Ulm

In this last lecture, I will turn to the materiality of land in an age of
intense technical intervention.  As they are usually understood, "nuclear
wasteland" and "pure wilderness" are opposites; when they converge on the
sites of decommissioned nuclear weapons lands, we often describe this
circumstance is seen as "paradoxical" or "ironic."  Taking stock of plans
to handle lands that will remain saturated with isotopic toxins for 25,000
years, I argue here that the categories of wastelands and wilderness are
far from dichotomous, that that their relation is far more disturbing than
a binary of purity and corruption.  Removing parts of the earth in
perpetuity-for reasons of sanctification or despoilment alters a central
feature of the human self, presenting us in a different relation to the
physical world, and raising irreducible questions about who we are.

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