On the relationship between macrostates and microstates

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  • March 21, 2019
Creator
  • Elliott, Katrina
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy
Abstract
  • There is a popular thesis regarding the relationship between macrostates and microstates called ‘supervenience’. In roughly the first half of this paper, I argue that supervenience, despite its intuitive appeal, is false. I claim that microstates do not, contra supervenience, determine macrostates, but rather, that macrostates are determined by probability distributions over microstates. In the second half of this paper, I spend time exploring, clarifying, and defending this view. I conclude that, while more work must be done than I can do here to adequately defend my favored replacement for the supervenience thesis, it is a prima facie plausible and promising view.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Lange, Marc
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • October 19, 2010

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