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10 - Other Multiverses

from Part IV - Wider Still andWilder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2021

Simon Friederich
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
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Summary

This chapter discusses further types of multiverse hypotheses: the branching worlds of Everettian quantum theory, the totality of possible worlds according to David Lewis’s modal realism, and the totality of mathematical structures, which – according to Max Tegmark – are all physically realized. I argue that suggested solutions to the probability problem in Everettian quantum theory are unconvincing. A recent proposal by Sebens and Carroll to derive the Born rule in the Everettian framework using considerations about self-locating belief turns out to suffer from a circularity problem because the central principle on which the derivation is based has no independent motivation besides, possibly, appeal to the Born rule itself. I further argue that it is not possible to coherently, in full seriousness, believe David Lewis's modal realism. Nor is it possible to coherently believe Max Tegmark's thesis that there is a multiverse of all mathematical structures in which they are physically realized. Tegmark's claim that our universe is itself a mathematical universe hypothesis is found to be incoherent.

Type
Chapter
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Multiverse Theories
A Philosophical Perspective
, pp. 155 - 177
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Other Multiverses
  • Simon Friederich, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Multiverse Theories
  • Online publication: 07 January 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108765947.011
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  • Other Multiverses
  • Simon Friederich, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Multiverse Theories
  • Online publication: 07 January 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108765947.011
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Other Multiverses
  • Simon Friederich, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Multiverse Theories
  • Online publication: 07 January 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108765947.011
Available formats
×