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    The proposed microscopic reduction of gas temperature is ... — Carmelics
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    The proposed microscopic reduction of gas temperature is circular and therefore fails as a genuine reduction

    Skepticism
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Nagel's classic model of reduction requires bridge laws connecting reduced and reducing terms without definitional loops back to the reduced theory.
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    • 2.The Boltzmann distribution's explicit dependence on temperature T constitutes precisely such a definitional loop, violating Nagel's bridge-law independence criterion.
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    • 3.A reduction that embeds the target concept in its own reducing conditions cannot establish the ontological priority that genuine reduction demands.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Hasok Chang's epistemic coherentism shows that circular interdependence among measurement concepts signals constitutive presupposition, not independent grounding.
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    • 2.If temperature must be presupposed to derive the very distribution used to define temperature microscopically, the reduction is constitutive rather than eliminative.
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    • 3.Constitutive circularity, as Friedman and Carrier have argued, undermines reductive priority by making the reduced concept indispensable to the reducing level itself.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The Boltzmann distribution is the microscopic condition required to complement average kinetic energy for a sufficient reduction of temperature
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    • 2.The Boltzmann distribution is expressed as a function of temperature itself
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    • 3.The derivation of the Boltzmann distribution appeals to the thermodynamic law connecting entropy with temperature
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    Causation2 linkedPhilosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    A reduction of a concept cannot legitimately presuppose that concept in its defi...A reduction that embeds the target concept in its own reducing conditions cannot...Constitutive circularity, as Friedman and Carrier have argued, undermines reduct...Hasok Chang's epistemic coherentism shows that circular interdependence among me...
    +6 moreShow less
    If temperature must be presupposed to derive the very distribution used to defin...Nagel's classic model of reduction requires bridge laws connecting reduced and r...The Boltzmann distribution is expressed as a function of temperature itself

    Similar

    Average kinetic energy of gas molecules cannot serve as a sufficient r...81%The concept of temperature and other exact terms in classical thermody...71%Most physicists accept that classical thermodynamic terms like tempera...69%The Boltzmann distribution is the microscopic condition required to co...68%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: chemistry
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    Consider first the relatively simple case of gas temperature, which has often been supposed reducible to the average kinetic energy of the gas’s molecules (cf. Nagel 1961, p. 343). A particular average kinetic energy of the molecules is only a necessary condition for having a given temperature, however. Only gases at equilibrium have a definite temperature, when all the spatial parts have the same temperature as the whole (reflecting the fact that temperature is an intensive property). A suffici
    Extraction notes

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    Details

    The Boltzmann distribution is the microscopic condition required to complement a...
    The Boltzmann distribution's explicit dependence on temperature T constitutes pr...
    The derivation of the Boltzmann distribution appeals to the thermodynamic law co...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit