The lecture series are part of the Thematic Einstein Forum "Scales of Temporality: Modeling Time and Predictability in the Literary and the Mathematical Sciences". The forum is organised within the framework of the Berlin Mathematics Research Center MATH+ in collaboration with EXC 2020 “Temporal Communities” and supported by the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

The collaborative Thematic Einstein Forum Scales of Temporality: Modeling Time and Predictability in the Literary and the Mathematical Sciences aims to explore shared interests, common grounds and similar problems both the mathematical sciences and the Humanities, particularly the philologies and the literary studies, entail.  

In the lecture series "Models of Time and Probability", experts from mathematics (dynamical systems, analysis, probability theory, applications and modelling, biomathematics) and from literary studies (narratology, rhetoric, literary history and philosophy) will give lectures to an open audience.

Stephan Hartmann (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy/LMU Munich) on "Reasoning in Physics: The Bayesian Approach":

In recent centuries, physics has greatly influenced the way philosophers have thought about the scientific method and the nature of good scientific reasoning. Generations of philosophers have aimed to taxonomize, formalize, and evaluate these patterns of argumentation. While this has been an extremely fruitful task, the major challenges facing physics today have led to fundamental changes in the way physicists formulate, evaluate, and apply their theories. The most prominent examples of this trend are found in the field of contemporary fundamental physics, where many of the most influential theories are beyond the reach of existing experimental methods and are therefore extremely difficult to test empirically. Now, the fact that entire communities of physicists have spent so much time and effort evaluating theories that are largely disconnected from experiment and empirical testing suggests that existing philosophical accounts of the epistemology of physics, based on a largely empiricist conception of physics, are no longer entirely accurate, or at least somewhat outdated. This, in turn, suggests that it is time to draw attention to and analyze the distinctive justificatory strategies of contemporary physics. In this talk, I will discuss these recent developments and show that the Bayesian framework is flexible enough to reconstruct and evaluate the proposed reasoning strategies. This points the way to a clarification of the epistemic structure of contemporary physics and, furthermore, shows how philosophers can constructively engage in methodological discussions within physics on an equal footing. 

Upcoming lectures:

8.12.22 | Anne Eusterschulte (FU Berlin, EXC 2020): TBA

5.01.23 | Manfred Laubichler (Arizona State University, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG)): TBA

12.01.23 | Jürgen Jost (Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (MiS) in Leipzig): TBA

19.01.23 | Hannes Leitgeb (LMU München, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy): TBA

26.01.23 | Xue-Mei Li (Imperial College London): Noise and Scales

2.02.23 | Paul Hager (HU Berlin): Time Scales in Rough Volatility

More information about the lecture series can also be found on the MATH+ website. The lectures start at 6:00 pm. Participation is possible both in person and online.