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  1. Agreement and Updating For Self-Locating Belief.Michael Caie - 2018 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 47 (3):513-547.
    In this paper, I argue that some plausible principles concerning which credences are rationally permissible for agents given information about one another’s epistemic and credal states have some surprising consequences for which credences an agent ought to have in light of self-locating information. I provide a framework that allows us to state these constraints and draw out these consequences precisely. I then consider and assess the prospects for rejecting these prima facie plausible principles.
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  • (1 other version)Quantum probability and many worlds.Meir Hemmo & Itamar Pitowsky - 2006 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (2):333-350.
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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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  • 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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  • Naturalistic Theories of Life after Death.Eric Steinhart - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (2):145-158.
    After rejecting substance dualism, some naturalists embrace patternism. It states that persons are bodies and that bodies are material machines running abstract person programs. Following Aristotle, these person programs are souls. Patternists adopt four-dimensionalist theories of persistence: Bodies are 3D stages of 4D lives. Patternism permits at least six types of life after death. It permits quantum immortality, teleportation, salvation through advanced technology, promotion out of a simulated reality, computational monadology, and the revision theory of resurrection.
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  • Chance and the dynamics of de se beliefs.Christopher G. J. Meacham - 2007 - Dissertation, Rutgers
    How should our beliefs change over time? The standard answer to this question is the Bayesian one. But while the Bayesian account works well with respect to beliefs about the world, it breaks down when applied to self-locating or de se beliefs. In this work I explore ways to extend Bayesianism in order to accommodate de se beliefs. I begin by assessing, and ultimately rejecting, attempts to resolve these issues by appealing to Dutch books and chance-credence principles. I then propose (...)
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  • (1 other version)Lewis's Philosophical Method.Daniel Nolan - 2015 - In Barry Loewer & Jonathan Schaffer (eds.), A companion to David Lewis. Chichester, West Sussex ;: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 25-39.
    Lewis is famous as a contemporary philosophical system-builder. The most obvious way his philosophy exhibited a system was in its content: Lewis’s metaphysics, for example, provided answers to many metaphysical puzzles in an integrated way, and there are illuminating connections to be drawn between his general metaphysical views and, for example, his various views about the mind and its place in nature.
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  • Branching of possible worlds.Philip Percival - 2013 - Synthese 190 (18):4261-4291.
    The question as to whether some objects are possible worlds that have an initial segment in common, i.e. so that their fusion is a temporal tree whose branches are possible worlds, arises both for those who hold that our universe has the structure of a temporal tree and for those who hold that what there is includes concrete universes of every possible variety. The notion of “possible world” employed in the question is seen to be the notion of an object (...)
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  • Branching and (in)determinism.Jiri Benovsky - 2013 - Philosophical Papers 42 (2):151-173.
    At a first glance, and even at a second one, it seems that if time is linear the threat of determinism is more severe than if time is branching, since in the latter case the future is open in a way it is not in the former one where, so to speak, there exists only one branch – one future. In this paper, I want to give a 'third glance' at this claim. I acknowledge that such a claim is intuitive (...)
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  • Should we fear quantum torment?István Aranyosi - 2012 - Ratio 25 (3):249-259.
    The prospect, in terms of subjective expectations, of immortality under the no-collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics is certain, as pointed out by several authors, both physicists and, more recently, philosophers. The argument, known as quantum suicide, or quantum immortality, has received some critical discussion, but there hasn't been any questioning of David Lewis's point that there is a terrifying corollary to the argument, namely, that we should expect to live forever in a crippled, more and more damaged state, that barely (...)
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  • Two mistakes regarding the principal principle.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2010 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (2):407-431.
    This paper examines two mistakes regarding David Lewis’ Principal Principle that have appeared in the recent literature. These particular mistakes are worth looking at for several reasons: The thoughts that lead to these mistakes are natural ones, the principles that result from these mistakes are untenable, and these mistakes have led to significant misconceptions regarding the role of admissibility and time. After correcting these mistakes, the paper discusses the correct roles of time and admissibility. With these results in hand, the (...)
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  • Understanding Deutsch's probability in a deterministic universe.Hilary Greaves - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35 (3):423-456.
    Difficulties over probability have often been considered fatal to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. Here I argue that the Everettian can have everything she needs from `probability' without recourse to indeterminism, ignorance, primitive identity over time or subjective uncertainty: all she needs is a particular *rationality principle*. The decision-theoretic approach recently developed by Deutsch and Wallace claims to provide just such a principle. But, according to Wallace, decision theory is itself applicable only if the correct attitude to a future (...)
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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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  • Why you don’t want to get in the box with schrödinger's cat.David Papineau - 2003 - Analysis 63 (1):51–58.
    By way of an example, Lewis imagines your being invited to join Schrödinger’s cat in its box for an hour. This box will either fill up with deadly poison fumes or not, depending on whether or not some radioactive atom decays, the probability of decay within an hour being 50%. The invitation is accompanied with some further incentive to comply (Lewis sets it up so there is a significant chance of some pretty bad but not life-threatening punishment if you don’t (...)
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  • Three proposals regarding a theory of chance.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2005 - Philosophical Perspectives 19 (1):281–307.
    I argue that the theory of chance proposed by David Lewis has three problems: (i) it is time asymmetric in a manner incompatible with some of the chance theories of physics, (ii) it is incompatible with statistical mechanical chances, and (iii) the content of Lewis's Principal Principle depends on how admissibility is cashed out, but there is no agreement as to what admissible evidence should be. I proposes two modifications of Lewis's theory which resolve these difficulties. I conclude by tentatively (...)
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  • When seeing is not believing: A critique of Priest's argument from perception.Paul Kabay - 2006 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (3):443 – 460.
    In this paper I critically examine an argument proposed by Graham Priest in support of the claim that the observable world is consistent. According to this argument we have good reason to think that the observable world is consistent, specifically we perceive it to be consistent. I critique this argument on two fronts. First, Priest appears to reason from the claim 'we know what it is to have a contradictory perception' to the claim 'we know what it is to perceive (...)
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  • Is quantum suicide painless? On an apparent violation of the principal principle.Milan M. Ćirković - 2004 - Foundations of Science 11 (3):287-296.
    The experimental setup of the self-referential quantum measurement, jovially known as the ‘quantum suicide’ or the ‘quantum Russian roulette’ is analyzed from the point of view of the Principal Principle of David Lewis. It is shown that the apparent violation of this principle – relating objective probabilities and subjective chance – in this type of thought experiment is just an illusion due to the usage of some terms and concepts ill-defined in the quantum context. We conclude that even in the (...)
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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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  • Future possible educational selves and the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.James Reveley - 2024 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 56 (5):401-406.
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  • مطالعۀ تطبیقی جهان‌های موازی فیزیک و جهان‌های ممکن دیوید لوئیس.Maryam Parvizi & Ashouri Kisomi Mohammad Ali - 2021 - Wisodom and Philosophy 17 (67):39-62.
    در نگاه نخست به نظر می‌رسد می‌توان شباهت‌هایی بین جهان‌های ممکن مورد نظر لوئیس و نظریۀ جهان‌های موازی فیزیک یافت. هر دو این نظریات به امکان وجود جهان‌هایی بیش از جهانی که در آن زندگی می‌کنیم، اشاره دارند. پس از رسالۀ اورت، توجه فیزیک‌دانان به چندجهانی و جهان‌های موازی جلب شد. اکنون جهان‌های موازی یکی از نظریه‌های مورد توجه دانشمندان و پژوهشگران حوزۀ فیزیک است. دیوید لوئیس با تکیه بر فیزیکالیسم و رئالیسم موجهاتی از جمله طرفداران نظریۀ جهان‌های ممکن است. (...)
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  • (1 other version)Making New Tools From the Toolbox of Metaphysics. [REVIEW]Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo - 2023 - Erkenntnis (5):2251-2257.
    In this review, I specify the metametaphysical background against which Alastair Wilson’s “_The Nature of Contingency_” (Oxford University Press, 2020) should be properly understood. Metaphysics, as a philosophical discipline, is standing on thin ice. The caricature of the situation is polarized, and is often presented as follows: metaphysics is either entirely extracted from science or it is entirely independent of science. There is a recent trend that focuses on the middle ground between these extremes, searching the philosophical literature for metaphysical (...)
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  • On physics, metaphysics, and metametaphysics.Jonas R. Becker Arenhart & Raoni Arroyo - 2021 - Metaphilosophy 52 (2):175-199.
    Nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (QM) works perfectly well for all practical purposes. Once one admits, however, that a successful scientific theory is supposed not only to make predictions but also to tell us a story about the world in which we live, a philosophical problem emerges: in the specific case of QM, it is not possible to associate with the theory a unique scientific image of the world; there are several images. The fact that the theory may be compatible with distinct (...)
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  • The Influence of Quantum Physics on Philosophy.F. A. Muller - 2023 - Foundations of Science 28 (1):477-488.
    We ponder the question whether quantum physics has had any influence on philosophy, and if not, whether it ought to have had any. Answers to these questions are provided, and they turn out to depend onwhichbranch of the tree of philosophy we sweep, sway and swing, and evenwhichtwig of the branch we touch when we sweep, sway and swing.
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  • (1 other version)Forever and Again.Alexey Turchin - 2018 - Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies 28 (1):31-56.
    This article explores theoretical conditions necessary for “quantum immortality” as well as its possible practical implications. It is demonstrated that QI is a particular case of “multiverse immortality”, which is based on two main assumptions: the very large size of the universe ; and a copy-friendly theory of personal identity. It is shown that a popular objection about lowering of the world-share of an observer in the case of QI does not succeed, as the world-share decline could be compensated by (...)
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  • Why Defend Humean Supervenience?Siegfried Jaag & Christian Loew - 2020 - Journal of Philosophy 117 (7):387-406.
    Humean Supervenience is a metaphysical model of the world according to which all truths hold in virtue of nothing but the total spatiotemporal distribution of perfectly natural, intrinsic properties. David Lewis and others have worked out many aspects of HS in great detail. A larger motivational question, however, remains unanswered: As Lewis admits, there is strong evidence from fundamental physics that HS is false. What then is the purpose of defending HS? In this paper, we argue that the philosophical merit (...)
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  • Relativistic Implications for Physical Copies of Conscious States.Andrew Knight - manuscript
    The possibility of algorithmic consciousness depends on the assumption that conscious states can be copied or repeated by sufficiently duplicating their underlying physical states, leading to a variety of paradoxes, including the problems of duplication, teleportation, simulation, self-location, the Boltzmann brain, and Wigner’s Friend. In an effort to further elucidate the physical nature of consciousness, I challenge these assumptions by analyzing the implications of special relativity on evolutions of identical copies of a mental state, particularly the divergence of these evolutions (...)
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  • Boltzmannian Immortality.Christian Loew - 2016 - Erkenntnis 82 (4):761-776.
    Plausible assumptions from Cosmology and Statistical Mechanics entail that it is overwhelmingly likely that there will be exact duplicates of us in the distant future long after our deaths. Call such persons “Boltzmann duplicates,” after the great pioneer of Statistical Mechanics. In this paper, I argue that if survival of death is possible at all, then we almost surely will survive our deaths because there almost surely will be Boltzmann duplicates of us in the distant future that stand in appropriate (...)
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  • Agreement theorems for self-locating belief.Michael Caie - 2016 - Review of Symbolic Logic 9 (2):380-407.
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  • Modal approaches in metaphysics and quantum mechanics.Vladislav E. Terekhovich - unknown
    Some interpretations of quantum mechanics use notions of possible states and possible trajectories. We investigate how this modal approach correlates with several metaphysical conceptions of a transition from potential to actual existence. The comparison is based on a discussion in contemporary analytic metaphysics of modality. We also consider an analogy between Leibniz’s theory of the possibilities striving towards existence, wave mechanics of Schrödinger, and Feynman path integral.
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  • Unravelling the Tangled Web: Continuity, Internalism, Non-Uniqueness and Self-Locating Beliefs.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2007 - In Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology: Volume 3. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 86.
    A number of cases involving self-locating beliefs have been discussed in the Bayesian literature. I suggest that many of these cases, such as the sleeping beauty case, are entangled with issues that are independent of self-locating beliefs per se. In light of this, I propose a division of labor: we should address each of these issues separately before we try to provide a comprehensive account of belief updating. By way of example, I sketch some ways of extending Bayesianism in order (...)
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  • Humean Supervenience in the Light of Contemporary Science.Vassilios Karakostas - 2009 - Metaphysica 10 (1):1-26.
    It is shown that Lewis’ ontological doctrine of Humean supervenience incorporates at its foundation the so-called separability principle of classical physics. In view of the systematic violation of the latter within quantum mechanics, the claim that contemporary physical science may posit non-supervenient relations beyond the spatiotemporal ones is reinforced on a foundational basis concerning constraints on the state representation of physical systems. Depending on the mode of assignment of states to quantum systems — unit state vectors versus statistical density operators (...)
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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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  • Metaphysical Compatibilism and the Ontology of Trans-World Personhood: A Neo-Lewisian Argument for the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge (Determinism) and Metaphysical Free Will.Bartlomiej Andrzej Lenart - 2022 - Metaphysica 23 (2):385-407.
    David Lewis’ contemplations regarding divine foreknowledge and free will, along with some of his other more substantial work on modal realism and his counterpart theory can serve as a springboard to a novel solution to the foreknowledge and metaphysical freedom puzzle, namely a proposal that genuine metaphysical freedom is compatible with determinism, which is quite different from the usual compatibilist focus on the compatibility between determinism and moral responsibility. This paper argues that while Lewis opens the doors to such a (...)
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  • Asymmetric Personal Identity.Theodore Sider - 2018 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (2):127-146.
    Personal identity is not always symmetric: even if I will not be a later person, the later person may have been me. What makes this possible is that the relations that are criterial of personal identity---such as memory and anticipation---are asymmetric and "count in favor of personal identity from one side only". Asymmetric personal identity can be accommodated by temporal counterpart theory but not by Lewisian overlapping aggregates of person stages. The question of uncertainty in cases of personal fission (and (...)
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  • Epistemology quantized: Circumstances in which we should come to believe in the Everett interpretation.David Wallace - 2006 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (4):655-689.
    I consider exactly what is involved in a solution to the probability problem of the Everett interpretation, in the light of recent work on applying considerations from decision theory to that problem. I suggest an overall framework for understanding probability in a physical theory, and conclude that this framework, when applied to the Everett interpretation, yields the result that that interpretation satisfactorily solves the measurement problem. Introduction What is probability? 2.1 Objective probability and the Principal Principle 2.2 Three ways of (...)
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  • The Everett Interpretation: Probability.Simon Saunders - 2022 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics. London, UK: Routledge.
    The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics divides naturally into two parts: first, the interpretation of the structure of the quantum state, in terms of branching, and second, the interpretation of this branching structure in terms of probability. This is the second of two reviews of the Everett interpretation, and focuses on probability. Branching processes are identified as chance processes, and the squares of branch amplitudes are chances. Since branching is emergent, physical probability is emergent as well.
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  • Modal realisms.Kris McDaniel - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):303–331.
    Possibilism—the view that there are non-actual, merely possible entities—is a surprisingly resilient doctrine.1 One particularly hardy strand of possibilism—the modal realism championed by David Lewis—continues to attract both foes who seek to demonstrate its falsity (or at least stare its advocates into apostasy) and friends who hope to defend modal realism (or, when necessary, modify modal realism so as to avoid problematic objections).2 Although I am neither a foe nor friend of modal realism (but some of my best friends are!), (...)
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  • Autoinfanticide Is No Biggie: The Reinstatement Reply to Vihvelin.Richard Mark Hanley - 2021 - Philosophies 6 (4):87.
    David Lewis’s attempt to defuse grandfather paradoxes consistently without special restrictions on the ability of time travelers to act in the past is controversial. Kadri Vihvelin uses the case of possible autoinfanticide—killing one’s infant self—to argue on Lewisian grounds that Lewis is wrong, since all counterfactual attempts at autoinfanticide would fail. I present a new defense of Lewis against Vihvelin premised on the possibility of personal _reinstatement_, where a person who dies prematurely is replicated from information collected from a previous (...)
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  • Why We Shouldn’t Pity Schrödinger’s Kitty: Revisiting David Lewis’ Worry About Quantum Immortality in a Branching Multiverse.Bartlomiej A. Lenart - 2019 - Metaphysica 20 (1):117-136.
    David Lewis cautions that although a no-collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics entails immortality for trans-world selves, the nature of the branching leaves us crippled, lonely, deathly ill (although never dead), and mentally infirm, meaning that immortal life, on such terms, amounts to an existence in eternal torment. This paper argues that the problem Lewis points to is in fact one of individuation and that a synthesis of Lewis’ own notion of perdurance and Robert Nozick’s closest continuer theory, when cast in (...)
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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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  • Wright and Suarez on the Verification Principle.Byeong&Ndashuk Yi - 2003 - Analysis 63 (1):58-61.
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  • (1 other version)Quantum probability and many worlds.Meir Hemmo - 2007 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (2):333-350.
    We discuss the meaning of probabilities in the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. We start by presenting very briefly the many worlds theory, how the problem of probability arises, and some unsuccessful attempts to solve it in the past. Then we criticize a recent attempt by Deutsch to derive the quantum mechanical probabilities from the nonprobabilistic parts of quantum mechanics and classical decision theory. We further argue that the Born probability does not make sense even as an additional probability (...)
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  • Against Magnetism.Wolfgang Schwarz - 2014 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (1):17-36.
    Magnetism in meta-semantics is the view that the meaning of our words is determined in part by their use and in part by the objective naturalness of candidate meanings. This hypothesis is commonly attributed to David Lewis, and has been put to philosophical work by Brian Weatherson, Ted Sider and others. I argue that there is no evidence that Lewis ever endorsed the view, and that his actual account of language reveals good reasons against it.
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  • A Defense of Russellian Descriptivism.Brandt H. van der Gaast - unknown
    In this dissertation, I defend a Russellian form of descriptivism. The main supporting argument invokes a relation between meaning and thought. I argue that the meanings of sentences are the thoughts people use them to express. This is part of a Gricean outlook on meaning according to which psychological intentionality is prior to, and determinative of, linguistic intentionality. The right approach to thought, I argue in Chapter 1, is a type of functionalism on which thoughts have narrow contents. On this (...)
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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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  • Self-location and Causal Context.Simon Friederich - 2016 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 93 (2):232-258.
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