Bonn 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 8: Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: Bohm and Hidden Variables

AGPhil 8.2: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 13. März 2025, 11:30–12:00, HS XVII

From Data to Theory: Raw vs. Pre-Packaged Entities — •Nurida Boddenberg — University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

In the philosophy of science, entities, whether objects, processes, events, or relations, are often interpreted literally as they appear in our theories. Even within a practice-oriented view of science, experimental findings are frequently assigned to specific entities, typically accompanied by a predefined framework of what those entities are assumed to represent.

In my talk, I will examine what can be inferred from experimental data. I introduce the term ``raw entity" to describe entities whose properties are inferred directly from experimental data through causal reasoning, meeting criteria such as non-redundancy and empirical adequacy. In contrast, ``pre-packaged entity" refers to entities tied to additional hypotheses or embedded within a theoretical framework, offering a ready-made interpretation but potentially incorporating non-empirical elements, such as theoretical assumptions unsupported by the experimental evidence.

To illustrate this distinction and explore whether meaningful ``raw entities" exist, I will analyze three cases: the Cowan-Reines neutrino experiment (1956), often described as a direct detection of neutrinos; the Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) experiments of the 1960s, where partons, later identified as quarks and gluons, were the entities in question; and modern gravitational wave detections by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration.

Keywords: scientific entities; causal reasoning; experimental practice