Entropic Dynamics

Entropic Dynamics is a framework in which dynamical laws are derived as an application of entropic methods of inference. No underlying action principle is postulated. Instead, the dynamics is driven by entropy subject to the constraints appropriate to the problem at hand. In this paper we review three examples of entropic dynamics. First we tackle the simpler case of a standard diffusion process which allows us to address the central issue of the nature of time. Then we show that imposing the additional constraint that the dynamics be non-dissipative leads to Hamiltonian dynamics. Finally, considerations from information geometry naturally lead to the type of Hamiltonian that describes quantum theory.Comment: Invited contribution to the Entropy special volume on Dynamical Equations and Causal Structures from Observation

Towards a Statistical Geometrodynamics

Can the spatial distance between two identical particles be explained in terms of the extent that one can be distinguished from the other? Is the geometry of space a macroscopic manifestation of an underlying microscopic statistical structure? Is geometrodynamics derivable from general principles of inductive inference? Tentative answers are suggested by a model of geometrodynamics based on the statistical concepts of entropy, information geometry, and entropic dynamics.Comment: Invited talk at the Decoherence, Information, Entropy, and Complexity Workshop, DICE02, September 2000, Piombino, Ital

Layer potentials for general linear elliptic systems

In this paper we construct layer potentials for elliptic differential operators using the Lax-Milgram theorem, without recourse to the fundamental solution; this allows layer potentials to be constructed in very general settings. We then generalize several well known properties of layer potentials for harmonic and second order equations, in particular the Green's formula, jump relations, adjoint relations, and Verchota's equivalence between well-posedness of boundary value problems and invertibility of layer potentials.Comment: 20 page

Imagining Action in/Against the Anthropocene: Narrative Impasse and the Necessity of Alternatives to Effect Resistance

The Anthropocene has emerged as the dominant conception of the contemporary moment, centering the human individual as both responsible for and bearing the responsibility to counteract its numerous interrelated socioeconomic, political, and environmental issues including the staggering loss of biodiversity across the globe and the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This constitutes a significant psychological impasse that disempowers and disenfranchises humans living in this epoch, discouraging any substantive individual effort. Drawing on the posthuman feminist philosophy of theorists such as Rosi Braidotti and Stacy Alaimo together with a reflection of the power of science fiction as a literature of cognitive estrangement highlighting social issues, this paper reads “The Boston Hearth Project” by T.X. Watson as a short story demonstrative of an ethos of community and hope that resists the negative affects and oppressive social structures of the Anthropocene. I argue in the course of this paper that theorists and activists alike must turn to alternative narratives, such as those modelled in the emergent science fiction genre of solarpunk, in order to reject essentializing and individualizing forces and think multiply in order to realize meaningful resistance in a time of increasing fragmentation in society and destruction of the more-than-human world

Gory

Poetry by Ariel Gordo