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  1. Metaphysics of Quantum Gravity.Baptiste Le Bihan & Annica Vieser - forthcoming - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The metaphysics of quantum gravity is a relatively small and new research field, and thus as of now, its focus has been on explaining how spacetime could emerge from a more fundamental and non-spatiotemporal ontology. Consequently, this entry is equally focused on questions regarding the status of spacetime and spacetime emergence. Section 1 situates the field within metaphysics of science more broadly. Sections 2 and 3 investigate, respectively, the status of spacetime in different approaches to quantum gravity and a number (...)
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  • The Great Loop: From Conformal Cyclic Cosmology to Aeon Monism.Baptiste Le Bihan - 2024 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 1:1-16.
    Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology describes the cosmos as a collection of successive universes, the so-called aeons. The beginning and ending of our universe are directly connected to two other, anterior and posterior, universes. Penrose considers but rules out a different interpretation of conformal cyclic cosmology: that the beginning of our universe is connected to its own end in a cosmic loop. The paper argues that the view, aeon monism, should be regarded as a natural interpretation of conformal cyclic cosmology and (...)
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  • On the Possibility of Feminist Philosophy of Physics.Maralee Harrell - 2016 - In Maria Cristina Amoretti & Nicla Vassallo (eds.), Meta-Philosophical Reflection on Feminist Philosophies of Science. Cham: Imprint: Springer. pp. 15-34.
    The dynamic nature of physics cannot be captured through an exclusive focus on the static mathematical formulations of physical theories. Instead, we can more fruitfully think of physics as a set of distinctively social, cognitive, and theoretical/methodological practices. An emphasis on practice has been one of the most notable aspects of the recent “naturalistic turn” in general philosophy of science, in no small part due to the arguments of many feminist philosophers of science. A major project of feminist philosophy of (...)
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  • Determinism and General Relativity.Chris Smeenk & Christian Wüthrich - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (4):638-664.
    We investigate the fate of determinism in general relativity, comparing the philosopher’s account with the physicist’s well-posed initial value formulations. The fate of determinism is interwoven with the question of what it is for a spacetime to be ‘physically reasonable’. A central concern is the status of global hyperbolicity, a putatively necessary condition for determinism in GR. While global hyperbolicity may fail to be true of all physically reasonable models, we analyze whether global hyperbolicity should be imposed by fiat; established (...)
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  • The temporal epistemic anomaly.Peter Riggs - 2018 - Manuscrito 41 (3):1-28.
    It is not uncommon in time travel stories to find that the mechanism by which the time travel is achieved is not invented. A time traveller could journey to his/her own past and give the designs of the time travel machine to his/her earlier self as s/he was given the designs as a younger person. These designs never get thought up by anyone. Such a situation would conflict with the usual conception of the acquisition of knowledge. This situation is called (...)
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  • On the Argument from Physics and General Relativity.Christopher Gregory Weaver - 2020 - Erkenntnis 85 (2):333-373.
    I argue that the best interpretation of the general theory of relativity has need of a causal entity, and causal structure that is not reducible to light cone structure. I suggest that this causal interpretation of GTR helps defeat a key premise in one of the most popular arguments for causal reductionism, viz., the argument from physics.
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  • Time travel and time machines.Chris Smeenk & Christian Wuthrich - 2011 - In Craig Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press. pp. 577-630.
    This paper is an enquiry into the logical, metaphysical, and physical possibility of time travel understood in the sense of the existence of closed worldlines that can be traced out by physical objects. We argue that none of the purported paradoxes rule out time travel either on grounds of logic or metaphysics. More relevantly, modern spacetime theories such as general relativity seem to permit models that feature closed worldlines. We discuss, in the context of Gödel's infamous argument for the ideality (...)
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  • Global Spacetime Structure.John Byron Manchak - 2013 - Cambridge University Press.
    This exploration of the global structure of spacetime within the context of general relativity examines the causal and singular structures of spacetime, revealing some of the curious possibilities that are compatible with the theory, such as `time travel' and `holes' of various types. Investigations into the epistemic and modal structures of spacetime highlight the difficulties in ruling out such possibilities, unlikely as they may seem at first. The upshot seems to be that what counts as a `physically reasonable' spacetime structure (...)
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  • Time Travel and Time Machines.Douglas Kutach - 2013 - In Adrian Bardon & Heather Dyke (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Time. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 301–314.
    Thinking about time travel is an entertaining way to explore how to understand time and its location in the broad conceptual landscape that includes causation, fate, action, possibility, experience, and reality. It is uncontroversial that time travel towards the future exists, and time travel to the past is generally recognized as permitted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, though no one knows yet whether nature truly allows it. Coherent time travel stories have added flair to traditional debates over the metaphysical (...)
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  • A remark on ‘time machines’ in honor of Howard Stein.J. B. Manchak - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 67:111-116.
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  • Time machines.John Byron Manchak - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 48 (2):124-127.
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  • (1 other version)Don Ross, James Ladyman, and Harold Kincaid: Scientific Metaphysics. [REVIEW]Cord Friebe - 2014 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (2):387-391.
    Scientific Metaphysics is a collection of essays in which prominent philosophers of science explore how metaphysics looks like that is judged by scientific standards. Common to all chapters is the requirement that scientific results and methods should be applied to metaphysical puzzle solving and, hence, the skepticism about philosophical reasoning that is based on the analysis of common-sense concepts and appeals to intuitions and a priori knowledge. It is, however, controversial what exactly naturalistic metaphysics might be, since at present there (...)
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  • Epistemic Holes and Determinism in Classical General Relativity.Juliusz Doboszewski - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (3):1093-1111.
    Determinism fails easily if spacetimes with points removed from the spacetime manifold are taken to be physically reasonable representations of a way the world could be according to classical general relativity. I discuss a recently proposed condition for determining which spacetimes have holes—epistemic hole freeness—and show that epistemic hole freeness gives the correct verdict in some non-globally hyperbolic spacetimes with a closed subset removed, certain spacetimes with genuinely indeterministic features count as having an epistemic hole, which implies that the requirement (...)
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  • Would the Existence of CTCs Allow for Nonlocal Signaling?Lucas Dunlap - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (1):215-234.
    A recent paper from Brun et al. has argued that access to a closed timelike curve would allow for the possibility of perfectly distinguishing nonorthogonal quantum states. This result can be used to develop a protocol for instantaneous nonlocal signaling. Several commenters have argued that nonlocal signaling must fail in this and in similar cases, often citing consistency with relativity as the justification. I argue that this objection fails to rule out nonlocal signaling in the presence of a CTC. I (...)
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  • Branching space-times, general relativity, the Hausdorff property, and modal consistency.Thomas Muller - unknown
    The logical theory of branching space-times, which is intended to provide a framework for studying objective indeterminism, remains at a certain distance from the discussion of space-time theories in the philosophy of physics. In a welcome attempt to clarify the connection, Earman has recently found fault with the branching approach and suggested ``pruning some branches from branching space-time''. The present note identifies the different---order theoretic vs. topological---points of view of both discussion as a reason for certain misunderstandings, and tries to (...)
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  • No no-go: A remark on time machines.John Byron Manchak - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 42 (1):74-76.
    We present a counterexample to Krasnikov's much discussed time machine no-go result. In addition, we prove a positive statement: a time machine existence theorem under a modest "no holes" assumption.
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  • How determinism can fail in classical physics and how quantum physics can (sometimes) provide a cure.John Earman - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (5):817-829.
    Various fault modes of determinism in classical physics are outlined. It is shown how quantum mechanics can cure some forms of classical indeterminism. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of HPS, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e‐mail: [email protected].
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  • (1 other version)Time travel and modern physics.Frank Arntzenius - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Time travel has been a staple of science fiction. With the advent of general relativity it has been entertained by serious physicists. But, especially in the philosophy literature, there have been arguments that time travel is inherently paradoxical. The most famous paradox is the grandfather paradox: you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, thereby preventing your own existence. To avoid inconsistency some circumstance will have to occur which makes you fail in this attempt to kill your grandfather. Doesn't (...)
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  • A physical interpretation of Lewis’ discrepancy between personal and external time in time travels.Vincenzo Fano & Giovanni Macchia - 2020 - Synthese 197 (11):4847-4866.
    This paper deals with those time travels mostly considered by physics, namely those in the form of the so-called closed timelike curves. Some authoritative scholars have raised doubts about the status of these journeys as proper time travels. By using David Lewis’ famous definition of time travels proposed in 1976, we show that this proper status may actually be recovered, at least in some cosmological contexts containing spacetime regions, such as those concerning black holes described by the Kerr–Newman metric, that (...)
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  • Malament–Hogarth Machines.J. B. Manchak - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (3):1143-1153.
    This article shows a clear sense in which general relativity allows for a type of ‘machine’ that can bring about a spacetime structure suitable for the implementation of ‘supertasks’. 1Introduction2Preliminaries3Malament–Hogarth Spacetimes4Machines5Malament–Hogarth Machines6Conclusion.
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  • Presentism and black holes.Geurt Sengers - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (1):1-15.
    In a recent publication in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science, Romero and Pérez claim to reveal new trouble for the already difficult life of presentism in relativistic spacetimes. Their argument purports to demonstrate the impossibility of postulating a viable present in the presence of black holes, in particular the Schwarzschild geometries. I argue that their argument is flawed, and that the Schwarzschild geometries they consider offer no novel threats to presentism. However, if we consider more general black holes, (...)
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  • On the existence of “time machines” in general relativity.John Byron Manchak - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (5):1020-1026.
    Within the context of general relativity, we consider one definition of a “time machine” proposed by Earman, Smeenk, and Wüthrich. They conjecture that, under their definition, the class of time machine spacetimes is not empty. Here, we prove this conjecture. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Washington, Box 353350, Seattle, WA 98195‐3350; e‐mail: [email protected].
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  • Twins' Paradox and Closed Timelike Curves: The Role of Proper Time and the Presentist View on Spacetime.Cord Friebe - 2012 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (2):313-326.
    Relativity allegedly contradicts presentism, the dynamic view of time and reality, according to which temporal passage is conceived of as an existentially distinguished ‘moving’ now. Against this common belief, the paper motivates a presentist interpretation of spacetime: It is argued that the fundamental concept of time—proper time—cannot be characterized by the earlier-later relation, i.e., not in the B-theoretical sense. Only the presentist can provide a temporal understanding of the twins’ paradox and of universes with closed timelike curves.
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  • (1 other version)Don Ross, James Ladyman, and Harold Kincaid (eds.): Scientific Metaphysics: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013, 243 pp, €44.18, ISBN: 978-0199696499. [REVIEW]Cord Friebe - 2014 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (2):387-391.
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  • Some Other “No Hole” Spacetimes Properties Are Unstable Too.Juliusz Doboszewski - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (5):379-384.
    Two interesting “no hole” spacetime properties, not being future nakedly singular) are unstable in the fine topology.
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  • On Time chez Dummett.Jeremy Butterfield - 2012 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 8 (1):77-102.
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