Main description:

This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on chance, with contributions from distinguished researchers in the areas of biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, genetics, general history, law, linguistics, logic, mathematical physics, statistics, theology and philosophy. The individual chapters are bound together by a general introduction followed by an opening chapter that surveys 2500 years of linguistic, philosophical, and scientific reflections on chance, coincidence, fortune, randomness, luck and related concepts.

A main conclusion that can be drawn is that, even after all this time, we still cannot be sure whether chance is a truly fundamental and irreducible phenomenon, in that certain events are simply uncaused and could have been otherwise, or whether it is always simply a reflection of our ignorance. Other challenges that emerge from this book include a better understanding of the contextuality and perspectival character of chance (including its scale-dependence), and the curious fact that, throughout history (including contemporary science), chance has been used both as an explanation and as a hallmark of the absence of explanation. As such, this book challenges the reader to think about chance in a new way and to come to grips with this endlessly fascinating phenomenon.

Feature:

Illuminates the diverse roles of, and attitudes to chance over the full spectrum of scholarly disciplines

Asks the fundamental question of when and whether chance is an unavoidable part of nature as opposed to a reflection of our ignorance

Will help researchers in many fields to recognize and deal with the effects of chance and randomness in their domain

Back cover:

This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on chance, with contributions from distinguished researchers in the areas of biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, genetics, general history, law, linguistics, logic, mathematical physics, statistics, theology and philosophy. The individual chapters are bound together by a general introduction followed by an opening chapter that surveys 2500 years of linguistic, philosophical, and scientific reflections on chance, coincidence, fortune, randomness, luck and related concepts.

A main conclusion that can be drawn is that, even after all this time, we still cannot be sure whether chance is a truly fundamental and irreducible phenomenon, in that certain events are simply uncaused and could have been otherwise, or whether it is always simply a reflection of our ignorance. Other challenges that emerge from this book include a better understanding of the contextuality and perspectival character of chance (including its scale-dependence), and the curious fact that, throughout history (including contemporary science), chance has been used both as an explanation and as a hallmark of the absence of explanation. As such, this book challenges the reader to think about chance in a new way and to come to grips with this endlessly fascinating phenomenon.

Contents:

Introduction (K. Landsman, E. van Wolde, N. ter Berg).- Conceptual and Historical Reflections on Chance (C. Lüthy, C. R. Palmerino).- The Mathematical Foundations of Randomness (S. A. Terwijn).- Randomness and the Madness of Crowds (U. Weitzel, S. Rosenkranz).- Randomness and the Games of Science (J. J. Goeman).- The Fine-Tuning Argument: Exploring the Improbability of our Existence (K. Landsman).- Views on Chance in the Hebrew Bible: Job and Genesis 1 (E. van Wolde).- Happiness and Invulnerability from Chance: Western and Eastern Perspectives (J.M.M.H. Thijssen, D. R. Loy).- The Experience of Coincidence: an Integrated Psychological and Neurocognitive Perspective (M. van Elk, K. Friston, H. Bekkering).- When Chance Strikes: Random Mutational Events as a Cause of Birth Defects and Cancer (H. G. Brunner).- Chance, Variation and the Nature of Causality in Ecological Communities (H. de Kroon, E. Jongejans).- The Size of History: Coincidence, Counterfactuality and Questions of Scale in History (O. Hekster).- Accidental Harm under (Roman) Civil Law (C. Jansen).- Taming Chaos: Chance and Variability in the Language Sciences (R. van Hout, Pieter Muysken).-&