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  1. The problem of confirmation in the Everett interpretation.Emily Adlam - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 47:21-32.
    I argue that the Oxford school Everett interpretation is internally incoherent, because we cannot claim that in an Everettian universe the kinds of reasoning we have used to arrive at our beliefs about quantum mechanics would lead us to form true beliefs. I show that in an Everettian context, the experimental evidence that we have available could not provide empirical confirmation for quantum mechanics, and moreover that we would not even be able to establish reference to the theoretical entities of (...)
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  • Deutsch on the epistemic problem in Everettian Quantum Theory.Darren Bradley - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 57:111-114.
    I raise some problems for David Deutsch's (2016) attempt to develop a confirmation theory for branching worlds.
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  • (1 other version)Many Worlds: an introduction.Simon Saunders - unknown
    This is a self-contained introduction to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is the introductory chapter of Many Worlds? Everett, quantum theory, and reality, S. Saunders, J. Barrett, A. Kent, and D. Wallace, Oxford University Press.
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  • Self-locating Uncertainty and the Origin of Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics.Charles T. Sebens & Sean M. Carroll - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1):axw004.
    A longstanding issue in attempts to understand the Everett (Many-Worlds) approach to quantum mechanics is the origin of the Born rule: why is the probability given by the square of the amplitude? Following Vaidman, we note that observers are in a position of self-locating uncertainty during the period between the branches of the wave function splitting via decoherence and the observer registering the outcome of the measurement. In this period it is tempting to regard each branch as equiprobable, but we (...)
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  • Ecstatic Language of Early Daoism: A Sufi Point of View.Esmaeil Radpour - 2015 - Transcendent Philosophy Journal 16:213-230.
    Various esoteric traditions apply different modes of expression for the same metaphysical truths. We may name the two most known esoteric languages as ecstatic and scholastic. Early Daoist use of reverse symbolism as for metaphysical truths and its critical way of viewing formalist understanding of traditional teachings, common virtues and popular beliefs show that it applies an ecstatic language, which, being called shaṭḥ in Sufi terminology, has a detailed literature and technical description in Sufism. This article tries, after a short (...)
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  • The Everett Interpretation.David Wallace - unknown
    The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics - better known as the Many-Worlds Theory - has had a rather uneven reception. Mainstream philosophers have scarcely heard of it, save as science fiction. In philosophy of physics it is well known but has historically been fairly widely rejected. Among physicists, it is taken very seriously indeed, arguably tied for first place in popularity with more traditional operationalist views of quantum mechanics. In this article, I provide a fairly short and self-contained introduction to (...)
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  • (1 other version)Identity and uncertainty in Everett's multiverse.Paul Tappenden - unknown
    In the current debate on the concept of probability in the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics Saunders and Wallace argue for a notion of pre-measurement uncertainty whilst Greaves and Myrvold attempt to do without uncertainty altogether. Both these approaches are controversial and I suggest a middle way. I develop in detail an argument which Wallace has hinted at and Greaves has seen as beside the point in order to show that Vaidman’s concept of post-measurement uncertainty has more relevance to pre-measurement (...)
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  • Killer collapse: empirically probing the philosophically unsatisfactory region of GRW.Charles T. Sebens - 2015 - Synthese 192 (8):2599-2615.
    GRW theory offers precise laws for the collapse of the wave function. These collapses are characterized by two new constants, \ and \ . Recent work has put experimental upper bounds on the collapse rate, \ . Lower bounds on \ have been more controversial since GRW begins to take on a many-worlds character for small values of \ . Here I examine GRW in this odd region of parameter space where collapse events act as natural disasters that destroy branches (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Chance in the Everett interpretation.Simon Saunders - 2010 - In Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian Kent & David Wallace (eds.), Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    According to the Everett interpretation, branching structure and ratios of norms of branch amplitudes are the objective correlates of chance events and chances; that is, 'chance' and 'chancing', like 'red' and 'colour', pick out objective features of reality, albeit not what they seemed. Once properly identified, questions about how and in what sense chances can be observed can be treated as straightforward dynamical questions. On that basis, given the unitary dynamics of quantum theory, it follows that relative and never absolute (...)
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  • Confirmation in a Branching World: The Everett Interpretation and Sleeping Beauty.Darren Bradley - 2011 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (2):323-342.
    Sometimes we learn what the world is like, and sometimes we learn where in the world we are. Are there any interesting differences between the two kinds of cases? The main aim of this article is to argue that learning where we are in the world brings into view the same kind of observation selection effects that operate when sampling from a population. I will first explain what observation selection effects are ( Section 1 ) and how they are relevant (...)
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  • Branching and Uncertainty.Simon Saunders & David Wallace - 2008 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (3):293-305.
    Following Lewis, it is widely held that branching worlds differ in important ways from diverging worlds. There is, however, a simple and natural semantics under which ordinary sentences uttered in branching worlds have much the same truth values as they conventionally have in diverging worlds. Under this semantics, whether branching or diverging, speakers cannot say in advance which branch or world is theirs. They are uncertain as to the outcome. This same semantics ensures the truth of utterances typically made about (...)
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  • Probability in the Everett interpretation.Hilary Greaves - 2007 - Philosophy Compass 2 (1):109–128.
    The Everett (many-worlds) interpretation of quantum mechanics faces a prima facie problem concerning quantum probabilities. Research in this area has been fast-paced over the last few years, following a controversial suggestion by David Deutsch that decision theory can solve the problem. This article provides a non-technical introduction to the decision-theoretic program, and a sketch of the current state of the debate.
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  • Centered Chance in the Everett Interpretation.Jerome Romagosa - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Everettian quantum mechanics tells us that the fundamental dynamics of the universe are deterministic. So what are the `probabilities' that the Born rule describes? One popular answer has been to treat these probabilities as rational credences. A recent alternative, Isaac Wilhelm's centered Everett Interpretation (CEI), takes the Born probabilities to be centered chances: the objective chances that some centered propositions are true. Thus, the CEI challenges the `orthodox assumption’ that fundamental physical laws concern only uncentered facts. I provide three arguments (...)
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  • Centering the Everett Interpretation.Isaac Wilhelm - 2022 - Philosophical Quarterly 72 (4):1019-1039.
    I propose an account of probability in the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. According to the account, probabilities are objective chances of centered propositions. As I show, the account solves a number of problems concerning the role of probability in the Everett interpretation. It also challenges an implicit assumption, concerning the aim and scope of fundamental physical theories, that is made throughout the philosophy of physics literature.
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  • The Landscape and the Multiverse: What’s the Problem?James Read & Baptiste Le Bihan - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):7749-7771.
    As a candidate theory of quantum gravity, the popularity of string theory has waxed and waned over the past four decades. One current source of scepticism is that the theory can be used to derive, depending upon the input geometrical assumptions that one makes, a vast range of different quantum field theories, giving rise to the so-called landscape problem. One apparent way to address the landscape problem is to posit the existence of a multiverse; this, however, has in turn drawn (...)
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  • (1 other version)Evidence and Uncertainty in Everett’s Multiverse.Paul Tappenden - 2011 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (1):99-123.
    How does it come about then, that great scientists such as Einstein, Schrödinger and De Broglie are nevertheless dissatisfied with the situation? Of course, all these objections are levelled not against the correctness of the formulae, but against their interpretation. [...] The lesson to be learned from what I have told of the origin of quantum mechanics is that probable refinements of mathematical methods will not suffice to produce a satisfactory theory, but that somewhere in our doctrine is hidden a (...)
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  • Does science need intersubjectivity? The problem of confirmation in orthodox interpretations of quantum mechanics.Emily Adlam - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6):1–39.
    Any successful interpretation of quantum mechanics must explain how our empirical evidence allows us to come to know about quantum mechanics. In this article, we argue that this vital criterion is not met by the class of ‘orthodox interpretations,’ which includes QBism, neo-Copenhagen interpretations, and some versions of relational quantum mechanics. We demonstrate that intersubjectivity fails in radical ways in these approaches, and we explain why intersubjectivity matters for empirical confirmation. We take a detailed look at the way in which (...)
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  • Objective Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics.Alastair Wilson - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (4):709-737.
    David Wallace has given a decision-theoretic argument for the Born Rule in the context of Everettian quantum mechanics. This approach promises to resolve some long-standing problems with probability in EQM, but it has faced plenty of resistance. One kind of objection charges that the requisite notion of decision-theoretic uncertainty is unavailable in the Everettian picture, so that the argument cannot gain any traction; another kind of objection grants the proof’s applicability and targets the premises. In this article I propose some (...)
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  • (1 other version)Two dogmas about quantum mechanics.Jeffrey Bub & Itamar Pitowsky - 2010 - In Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian Kent & David Wallace (eds.), Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    We argue that the intractable part of the measurement problem -- the 'big' measurement problem -- is a pseudo-problem that depends for its legitimacy on the acceptance of two dogmas. The first dogma is John Bell's assertion that measurement should never be introduced as a primitive process in a fundamental mechanical theory like classical or quantum mechanics, but should always be open to a complete analysis, in principle, of how the individual outcomes come about dynamically. The second dogma is the (...)
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  • The Quantum Doomsday Argument.Alastair Wilson - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (2).
    If the most familiar overlapping interpretation of Everettian quantum mechanics is correct, then each of us is constantly splitting into multiple people. This consequence gives rise to the quantum doomsday argument, which threatens to draw crippling epistemic consequences from EQM. However, a diverging interpretation of EQM undermines the quantum doomsday argument completely. This appears to tell in favour of the diverging interpretation. But it is surprising that a metaphysical question that is apparently underdetermined by the physics should be settled by (...)
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  • Against the empirical viability of the Deutsch–Wallace–Everett approach to quantum mechanics.Richard Dawid & Karim P. Y. Thébault - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 47:55-61.
    The subjective Everettian approach to quantum mechanics presented by Deutsch and Wallace fails to constitute an empirically viable theory of quantum phenomena. The decision theoretic implementation of the Born rule realized in this approach provides no basis for rejecting Everettian quantum mechanics in the face of empirical data that contradicts the Born rule. The approach of Greaves and Myrvold, which provides a subjective implementation of the Born rule as well but derives it from empirical data rather than decision theoretic arguments, (...)
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  • (1 other version)Everett and evidence.Hilary Greaves & Wayne Myrvold - 2010 - In Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian Kent & David Wallace (eds.), Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Much of the evidence for quantum mechanics is statistical in nature. The Everett interpretation, if it is to be a candidate for serious consideration, must be capable of doing justice to reasoning on which statistical evidence in which observed relative frequencies that closely match calculated probabilities counts as evidence in favour of a theory from which the probabilities are calculated. Since, on the Everett interpretation, all outcomes with nonzero amplitude are actualized on different branches, it is not obvious that sense (...)
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  • Everett’s Missing Postulate and the Born Rule.Per Arve - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (7):665-692.
    Everett’s Relative State Interpretation has gained increasing interest due to the progress of understanding the role of decoherence. In order to fulfill its promise as a realistic description of the physical world, two postulates are formulated. In short they are for a system with continuous coordinates \, discrete variable j, and state \\), the density \=|\psi _j|^2\) gives the distribution of the location of the system with the respect to the variables \ and j; an equation of motion for the (...)
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  • Can Many-Worlds Survive a Quantum Doomsday.Brett Bevers - unknown
    A novel puzzle for the notion of probability in the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is presented. The puzzle makes use of a thought experiment that some have claimed would provide empirical support for Many-Worlds over alternatives. It is argued that, if the predictions of Many-Worlds do indeed differ from other interpretations as claimed, then Born’s rule must generally be invalid in Many-Worlds. It is shown that the thought experiment provides a counter example for recent decision-theoretic arguments that purport to (...)
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  • Everettian Confirmation and Sleeping Beauty.Alastair Wilson - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (3):573-598.
    Darren Bradley has recently appealed to observation selection effects to argue that conditionalization presents no special problem for Everettian quantum mechanics, and to defend the ‘halfer’ answer to the puzzle of Sleeping Beauty. I assess Bradley’s arguments and conclude that while he is right about confirmation in Everettian quantum mechanics, he is wrong about Sleeping Beauty. This result is doubly good news for Everettians: they can endorse Bayesian confirmation theory without qualification, but they are not thereby compelled to adopt the (...)
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  • Belief Update across Fission.Wolfgang Schwarz - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (3):659-682.
    When an agent undergoes fission, how should the beliefs of the fission results relate to the pre-fission beliefs? This question is important for the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, but it is of independent philosophical interest. Among other things, fission scenarios demonstrate that ‘self-locating’ information can affect the probability of uncentred propositions even if an agent has no essentially self-locating uncertainty. I present a general update rule for centred beliefs that gives sensible verdicts in cases of fission, without relying on (...)
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  • Everettian quantum mechanics and the ghost of fission.Josh Quirke - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    Arguments from fission cases, most notably made by Parfit, have historically been utilized in discussions of Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM) in an attempt to illuminate details of familiar accounts in which an agent ‘splits’. Whilst such imagery is often seen as an innocuous depiction of Everett's theory, it is in fact a poisoned chalice. I argue firstly that the fission case analogy is responsible for the conceptual foundations of probability arguments in EQM and secondly, following a number of disanalogies between (...)
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  • Quantum Mechanics and the Plight of Physicalism.Fernando Birman - 2009 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 40 (2):207-225.
    The literature on physicalism often fails to elucidate, I think, what the word physical in physical ism precisely means. Philosophers speak at times of an ideal set of fundamental physical facts, or they stipulate that physical means non-mental , such that all fundamental physical facts are fundamental facts pertaining to the non-mental. In this article, I will probe physicalism in the very much tangible framework of quantum mechanics. Although this theory, unlike “ideal physics” or some “final theory of non-mentality”, is (...)
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  • Many worlds: quantum theory and reality?Iñaki San Pedro - 2012 - Analysis 72 (2):386-395.
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