Labyrinths of Reason
Paradox, Puzzles, and the Frailty of Knowledge
Published on 20. July 2011
288 pages
978-0-307-76379-2 (ISBN)
Description
This sharply intelligent, consistently provocative book takes the reader on an astonishing, thought-provoking voyage into the realm of delightful uncertainty--a world of paradox in which logical argument leads to contradiction and common sense is seemingly rendered irrelevant.
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Book
12/1989
Bantam Books
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William Poundstone
Labyrinths of Reason
Book
10/1988
Doubleday Books
€37.44
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Person
William Poundstone studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of The Recursive Universe, about information theory and physics, and Labyrinths of Reason, an exploration of paradox in science. The author of such popular books as Big Secrets, The Ultimate, and Prisoner's Dilemma, he has also written for Esquire, Harper's Magazine, SPY, and other periodicals. Poundstone lives in Los Angeles.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Part One
- Chapter 1 - Paradox
- Brains in Vats
- Dreams and Evil Geniuses
- Ambiguity
- Is Anything Certain?
- Deduction and Induction
- Confirmation Theory
- Paradox
- Science as a Map
- Paradox and SATISFIABILITY
- The Universal Problem
- Chapter 2 - Induction: Hempel's Raven
- Confirmation
- Matter and Antimatter
- Absolute and Incremental Confirmation
- Counterexamples
- Crank Theories
- Contrapositives
- Never Say Never
- Stream of Consciousness
- Infinitesimal Confirmation
- The Paradox of the 99-Foot Man
- Ravens and Total Evidence
- Chapter 3 - Categories: The Grue-Bleen Paradox
- Grue Emeralds
- Gerrymander Categories
- Counterfactuals
- The Rotating Color Wheel
- The Inverted Spectrum
- Demon Theory No. 16
- Anything Confirms Anything
- Ockam's Razor
- The Day of Judgment
- Projectability
- Are Quark Colors Grue-ish?
- Chapter 4 - The Unknowable: Nocturnal Doubling
- Antirealism
- Physics Goes Haywire
- Demons and Doubling
- Variations
- Did Time Begin Five Minutes Ago?
- Perils of Antirealism
- Black-Hole Probes
- Other Minds
- Nocturnal Doubling of Pleasure/Pain
- Is Reality Unique?
- Part Two
- Interlude: The Puzzles of John H. Watson, M.D.
- A Test of Ingenuity
- Gas, Water, and Electricity
- The Company Grapevine
- The Graveyard Riddle
- A Surveyor's Quandary
- Solutions
- Chapter 5 - Deduction: The Paradox of the Heap
- Theseus' Ship
- Sorites
- Complexity
- Liars and Truth Tellers
- Who Is Lying?
- SATISFIABILITY
- The Pork-Chop Problem
- The Elevator Problem
- Science and Puzzles
- Chapter 6 - Belief: The Unexpected Hanging
- Pop Quizzes and Hidden Eggs
- Hollis's Paradox
- A Minimal Paradox
- A Time-Travel Paradox
- What Is Knowledge?
- Science and the Tripartite Account
- Buridan Sentences
- Gettier Counterexamples
- A Fourth Condition
- The Prisoner and Gettier
- Chapter 7 - The Impossible: The Expectancy Paradox
- Catch-22
- Can Such Things Be?
- Possible Worlds
- How Many Worlds Are Possible?
- Paradox and Possible Worlds
- The Paradox of the Preface
- Must Justified Beliefs Be Compatible?
- Pollock's Gas Chamber
- Chapter 8 - Infinity: The Thomson Lamp
- The Pi Machine
- Zeno's Paradoxes
- Building a Thomson Lamp
- Geometric Progressions
- The Malthusian Catastrophe
- Olbers's Paradox
- Against Plurality
- Olbers's Paradox Resolved
- The Paradox of Tristram Shandy
- Chapter 9 - NP-Completeness: The Labyrinth of Tsui Pên
- NP-Complete
- Maze Algorithms
- The Right-Hand Rule
- The Trémaux Algorithm
- An Infinite Labyrinth
- The Ore Algorithm
- NP-Completeness of the Maze
- The Oracle of the Maze
- P and NP
- The Hardest Problem
- A Catalogue of Experience
- A Computer as Big as the Universe
- Part Three
- Chapter 10 - Meaning: Twin Earth
- Roger Bacon
- False Decodings
- Sense and Gibberish
- The Parable of the Cave
- The Electronic Cave
- The Binary Cave
- Can a Brain in a Vat Know It?
- Twin Earth
- Twin Earth Chemistry
- The Libraries of Atlantis
- Poe's iiiii . Cipher
- Brute Force
- Justifying a Decipherment
- Where Is Meaning?
- Chapter 11 - Mind: Searle's Chinese Room
- The Thinking Machine
- The Paradox of Functionalism
- The Turing Test
- The Chinese Room
- Brains and Milk
- Reactions
- Chinese the Hard Way
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- The Systems Reply
- A Page from the Instructions
- A Conversation with Einstein's Brain
- Chapter 12 - Omniscience: Newcomb's Paradox
- The Paradox of Omniscience
- The Prisoner's Dilemma
- Newcomb's Paradox
- Reactions
- Glass Boxes
- Nozick's Two Principles of Choice
- Must It Be a Hoax?
- Two Types of Prediction
- Chaos
- Free Will vs. Determinism
- Prediction and Infinite Regress
- Newcomb's Paradox 3000 A.D.
- Bibliography
- About the Author
- Copyright
