The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal RealismThis book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency. |
Contents
Explaining Contingency | 1 |
Analysing Modality | 22 |
Diverging Everettian Quantum Mechanics | 74 |
Emergent Chance | 98 |
Laws of Nature | 145 |
Indeterminacy | 172 |
Anthropic Contingency | 185 |
An Expanding Reality | 198 |
| 201 | |
| 215 | |
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Common terms and phrases
actual world agent Alastair Wilson alethic modality approach argue Born rule branch number branch weights branching indifference causally isolated chance role chapter characterize coarse-grained context contingency counterfactuals counterpossible credence decision theory decision-theoretic decoherent histories distinct diverging EQM doomsday argument epistemic epistemology Everett multiverse Everett worlds Everettian multiverse Everettian probability explanation fine-tuning argument fundamental laws Humean indeterminacy of world indeterminate Indexicalism Individualism laws of nature Level 2 multiverse Lewis Lewis's Lewisian modal realism logic measure metaphysically possible worlds modal logic modalized regularity theory necessitarianism non-contingent non-fundamental objective chance objective probability occurrent matters ontology outcomes overlap Physical Actualism physically possible pluriverse precisification Principal Principle properties propositions quantifiers quantum doomsday quantum mechanics quantum modal realism question rational recombination restriction Saunders scenarios Schrödinger equation semantics sets of Everett spacetime spatiotemporal special-science laws Stalnaker-Lewis string landscape supervenience theoretical theory of laws undercutting universe Wallace Wallace's wavefunction WGSM world number