The Universe as an Open System

宇宙作为一个开放系统

• 批准号: 468374455
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Stephan Hartmann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lancaster University
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/468374455?language=en
• 关键词: Universe; Open; System

Throughout science a distinction is made between systems and their environments. Systems can be treated as either open, if they exchange energy, matter, heat or information with the environment, and closed if they do not. Since the system is so much smaller than the environment, such exchanges are assumed to be asymmetric, from the environment to the system. Often, all that is assumed about the environment is that is very large compared to the system, since it is the latter that is being studied. As was pointed out long ago by Bertrand Russell (1903), strictly speaking all systems within the universe should be expected to be open, since the force of gravity is universal. If we accept Russell’s argument, there is then only one ‘system’ that can be treated as a closed system: the universe as a whole. If the ‘part’ of the universe being studied is the entire universe, then it seems obviously true that there can be nothing left to play the role of the environment, and thus that we are, by definition, studying a closed system. Despite the persuasiveness of the universe as a closed system viewpoint, there are three plausible arguments why it may prove insightful to represent the universe as an open system after all. Each of these arguments will be investigated in this project. More specifically, we will conduct a synthetic and integrated analysis of cases and in doing so establish the philosophical and physical viability of modelling the universe as an open system. Our core methodological question is whether scientists are justified in treating the universe as an open system merely as a pragmatically useful falsehood, or whether there are good reasons to accept the universe as an open system as a genuine ontological claim. We aim to defend the ontological claim that the universe is an open system, in a limited and precise sense, based upon a formally and conceptually rigorous analysis of the relevant system-sub-system relationships. In particular, this project will (i) provide new formal and conceptual tools to understand both the universe and our place in it; (ii) evaluate the motivations and implications of the idea of the universe as an open system, (iii) characterize openness in three important physical contexts via a detailed study of the appropriate mechanisms; (iv) demonstrate that these mechanisms can be linked together by considering the role of epistemic agents as an information processing system embedded within a universe and weakly coupled to a measuring apparatus and the rest of the environment; and (v) defend the ontological claim that universe is an open system in a limited and precise sense.

在整个科学中，系统和它们的环境是有区别的。如果系统与环境交换能量、物质、热量或信息，系统可以被视为开放的；如果系统不与环境交换能量、物质、热量或信息，系统可以被视为封闭的。由于系统比环境小得多，因此假设从环境到系统的这种交换是不对称的。通常，所有关于环境的假设都是与系统相比非常大，因为研究的是后者。正如伯特兰·罗素很久以前（1903）所指出的那样，严格地说，宇宙中的所有系统都应该是开放的，因为引力是普遍存在的。如果我们接受罗素的论点，那么只有一个“系统”可以被视为一个封闭系统：宇宙作为一个整体。如果被研究的宇宙的“部分”是整个宇宙，那么很明显，没有任何东西可以扮演环境的角色，因此，根据定义，我们正在研究一个封闭的系统。尽管宇宙作为一个封闭系统的观点很有说服力，但有三个看似合理的论点可以证明，为什么将宇宙表示为一个开放系统可能是有洞察力的。本项目将研究这些论点中的每一个。更具体地说，我们将对案例进行综合和综合分析，并在此过程中建立将宇宙建模为开放系统的哲学和物理可行性。我们的核心方法论问题是，科学家是否有理由将宇宙作为一个开放系统仅仅作为一个实用有用的谬误来对待，或者是否有充分的理由将宇宙作为一个开放系统作为一个真正的本体论主张来接受。我们的目标是捍卫本体论的主张，即宇宙是一个开放的系统，在有限和精确的意义上，基于对相关系统-子系统关系的正式和概念上的严格分析。特别是，这个项目将(i)提供新的形式和概念工具来理解宇宙和我们在其中的位置；（ii）评估宇宙作为一个开放系统的想法的动机和含义；（iii）通过对适当机制的详细研究，表征三种重要物理环境中的开放性；（iv）通过考虑认知主体作为嵌入在宇宙中的信息处理系统的作用，并与测量仪器和环境的其余部分弱耦合，证明这些机制可以联系在一起；(5)捍卫本体论的主张，即宇宙在有限的和精确的意义上是一个开放的系统。