Title: Metaphysical Indeterminacy in the Multiverse
By Jessica Wilson (Toronto, Philosophy) (with Claudio Calosi, Geneva)
Date: Thursday April 1, 2021
Time: 1530-1700 (GMT+3)
This is an online event. All are welcome. If you would like to listen to the talk please click on the following link when the event is due to begin.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/95128594775?pwd=cUxBd1JVUVM0K2Z0ckRUSHRCUlNGdz09
Meeting ID: 951 2859 4775 Passcode: 856917
Abstract: Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM) might appear to be inhospitable to metaphysical indeterminacy (MI), given that, as Alastair Wilson (2020) puts it, “the central idea of EQM is to replace indeterminacy with multiplicity” (77). But as Wilson later observes, the popular decoherence-based understanding of EQM (DEQM) appears to admit of MI in world nature. After sketching DEQM (S1), we bolster the case for there being MI in world nature in DEQM (S2). The question remains of how to account for this MI. After briefly describing the two main contenders—a metaphysical supervaluationist approach as per Barnes and Williams (2011), and a determinable-based approach as per Wilson (2013) and Calosi and Wilson (2018 and forthcoming)—we offer four arguments in support of a determinable-based approach’s having a clear comparative advantage so far as accommodating MI in world nature in DEQM is concerned (S3).
About the speaker: Jessica M. Wilson is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses general metaphysics, the metaphysics of science/mind, metaphysical methodology, and epistemology. Her work has appeared in journals such as Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Studies, Philosophers’ Imprint, Analysis, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science. In addition, she has a just published a book with Oxford University Press entitled Metaphysical Emergence. She was awarded the Lebowitz Prize for excellence in philosophical thought by the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the American Philosophical Association.
Web: http://www.phil.bilkent.edu.tr/
