Macroscopic Ontology in Everettian Quantum Mechanics

Alastair Wilson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)
354 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Simon Saunders and David Wallace have proposed an appealing candidate semantics for interpreting linguistic communities embedded in an Everettian multiverse. It provides a charitable interpretation of our ordinary talk about the future, and allows us to retain a principle of bivalence for propositions and to retain the Law of Excluded Middle in the logic of propositions about the future. But difficulties arise when it comes to providing an appropriate account of the metaphysics of macroscopic objects and events. In this paper, I evaluate various metaphysical frameworks which might be combined with the Saunders-Wallace semantics. I conclude that the most appropriate metaphysics to underwrite the semantics renders Everettian quantum mechanics a theory of non-overlapping worlds.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)363-382
Number of pages20
JournalThe Philosophical Quarterly
Volume61
Issue number243
Early online date14 Jul 2010
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2011

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