LARSIM

In the 18th century, many places were yet undiscovered and even Scandinavia, though not geographically particularly distant, was rarely visited by English travellers. The experiences these travellers gathered on their trips were published in so-called travel books, a literary genre in itself, opening up a new world to its reader.

L’objet de cet article est de retracer la généalogie de la "mécanologie" ou "science des machines". Trois périodes sont considérées : de la publication des "Réflexions sur la science des machines" de Jacques Lafitte, en 1932, à la publication de la thèse complémentaire de Gilbert Simondon, "Du mode d’existence des objets techniques", en 1958 ; puis de 1968, date à laquelle Jean Le Moyne apprend l’existence de Lafitte à Simondon, à 1976, date du second et dernier colloque de mécanologie à Paris ; enfin, de 1976 à la fin du XXe siècle, pour observer la manière dont différents continuateurs se sont emparés de certains éléments théoriques mis en avant par Lafitte et Simondon, notamment de la notion de "lignée technique" et de la visée "génétique" qui lui est associée. En conclusion, on fera valoir que la mécanologie constitue une proposition méthodologique originale dans le champ des études technologiques.

The argument from naturalness is widely employed in contemporary quantum field theory. Essentially a formalized aesthetic criterion, it received a meaning in the debate on the Higgs mechanism, which goes beyond aesthetics. We follow the history of technical definitions of fine tuning at the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking. It is argued that they give rise to a special interpretation of probability, which we call Gedankenfrequency. By extension of its original meaning, the argument from naturalness is used to compare different models beyond the Standard Model. We show that in this case naturalness cannot be defined objectively. Rather, it functions as socio-historical heuristics in particle physics and it contributes to the advent of a probabilistic version of Popper's falsificationism.

What belongs to quantum theory is no more than what is needed for its derivation. We argue for an approach focusing on reconstruction rather than interpretation of quantum mechanics and analyze several examples of reconstruction. We submit that reconstruction advances our understanding of quantum theory irrespective of one's ontological stance.

Different observers do not have to agree on how they identify a quantum system. We explore a condition based on algorithmic complexity that allows a system to be described as an objective "element of reality". We also suggest an experimental test of the hypothesis that any system, even much smaller than a human being, can be a quantum mechanical observer.

This article is concerned with predictions of future events, such as technological achievements and changes in the human condition that they will bring about. Cognitive barriers arise when human agents are either asked or forced to make judgments and decisions with respect to unknown singular events. This article argues that barriers such as an aversion to not knowing and the impossibility to believe trump expert and ordinary human reasoning. These barriers apply to nanotechnology. To avoid undesired societal effects arising from them, this essay proposes a set of steps designed to foster responsible public dialogue.

Modern microscopes create a capacity to see and act at the scale where unassisted human senses are powerless. Images of nanoscale phenomena represent a world that effectively intervenes in human life while remaining distant and ineffable. This combination of an unbridgeable distance between man and technology with a real power of the latter over the human condition is characteristic, not only of nanotechnology, but also of the theology of sacred icons that mediate in the knowledge of divine reality. We draw an anthropological analogy between nanotechnological images and sacred icons, and we employ it to analyze the functioning of such images in society. The questions that we study include: a) the art of mediation in representing the ineffable and its necessity; b) the effects provoked by such images; c) primitive comprehension of nanoscale images. This work has repercussions for a wide variety of disciplinary accounts and practices, from the anthropologist and the philosopher to the laboratory scientist, the art critic, and the engineer who conceives and designs nanoscale instruments.

Information-theoretic derivations of the formalism of quantum theory have recently attracted much attention. We analyze the axioms underlying a few such derivations and propose a conceptual framework in which, by combining several approaches, one can retrieve more of the conventional quantum formalism.

Different observers do not have to agree on how they identify a quantum system. We explore a condition based on algorithmic complexity that allows a system to be described as an objective "element of reality". We also suggest an experimental test of the hypothesis that any system, even much smaller than a human being, can be a quantum mechanical observer.

We give reasons for the importance of old narratives, including myths, in ethical thinking about science and technology. On the example of a legend about creating artificial men we explore the side effects of having too much success and the problem of intermediate social status of bioengineered artefacts.

... Observer of 22 February 2004, The New York Times of 26 February 2004) makes use of the first and the second sources of uncertainty. ... The catastrophic change in question is precisely the change due to the passage of a tipping point, to an abrupt fall of the complex ecosystem ...

Quantum logical axiomatic systems for quantum theory usually include a postulate that a lattice under consideration is orthomodular. We propose a derivation of orthomodularity from an information-theoretic axiom. This provides conceptual clarity and removes a long-standing puzzle about the meaning of orthomodularity.

Some mathematical theories in physics justify their explanatory superiority over earlier formalisms by the clarity of their postulates. In particular, axiomatic reconstructions drive home the importance of the composition rule and the continuity assumption as two pillars of quantum theory. Our approach sits on these pillars and combines new mathematics with a testable prediction. If the observer is defined by a limit on string complexity, information dynamics leads to an emergent continuous model in the critical regime. Restricting it to a family of binary codes describing ‘bipartite systems,’ we find strong evidence of an upper bound on bipartite correlations equal to 2.82537. This is measurably different from the Tsirelson bound. The Hilbert space formalism emerges from this mathematical investigation as an effective description of a fundamental discrete theory in the critical regime.