Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-21T11:23:12.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Did the Universe Have a Chance?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

In a world awash in statistical patterns, should we conclude that the universe’s evolution or genesis is somehow subject to chance? I draw attention to alternatives that must be acknowledged if we are to have an adequate assessment of what chance the universe might have had.

Type
Physical Sciences
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful to Heather Demarest for commenting on this essay at the 2018 Society for the Metaphysics of Science Conference in Milan. Thanks also to Richard Dawid, Alex Franklin, and Hicks for discussion, and to the audience at the 2018 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association in Seattle.

References

Albert, David. 2000. Time and Chance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Beisbart, Claus, and Hartmann, Stephan, eds. 2011. Probabilities in Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Menahem, Yemima, and Hemmo, Meir, eds. 2012. Probability in Physics. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bricmont, Jean, Dürr, Detlef, Galavotti, Maria, Ghirardi, Giancarlo, Petruccione, Francesco, and Zanghì, Nino, eds. 2001. Chance in Physics. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briggs, Rachael. 2010. “The Metaphysics of Chance.” Philosophy Compass 5:938–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briggs, Rachael. 2015. “Why Lewisians Should Love Deterministic Chance.” In A Companion to David Lewis, ed. Loewer, Barry and Schaffer, Jonathan, 278–94. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Callender, Craig, and McCoy, Casey. Forthcoming. “Time in Cosmology.” In The Routledge Handbook for Philosophy of Physics, ed. Wilson, Alistair and Knox, Eleanor. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carroll, Sean. 2010. From Eternity to Here. New York: Plume.Google Scholar
Demarest, Heather. 2016. “The Universe Had One Chance.” Philosophy of Science 83:248–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eagle, Antony. 2011. “Deterministic Chance.” Noûs 45:269–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earman, John. 1986. A Primer on Determinism. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earman, John, and Norton, John. 1987. “What Price Spacetime Substantivalism? The Hole Story.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38:515–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emery, Nina. 2015. “Chance, Possibility, and Explanation.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66:95120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feynman, Richard. 2017. The Character of Physical Law. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghirardi, Giancarlo. 2016. “Collapse Theories.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/qm-collapse.Google Scholar
Glynn, Luke. 2010. “Deterministic Chance.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61:5180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guttmann, Yair. 1999. The Concept of Probability in Statistical Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Edward. 2000. Cosmology: The Science of the Universe. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hoefer, Carl. 2016. “Causal Determinism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/determinism-causal.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1983. “New Work for a Theory of Universals.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61:343–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David. 1986. Philosophical Papers. vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Loewer, Barry. 1996. “Humean Supervenience.” Philosophical Topics 24:101–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewer, Barry. 2001. “Determinism and Chance.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 32:609–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewer, Barry. 2004. “David Lewis’s Humean Theory of Objective Chance.” Philosophy of Science 71:1115–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luczak, Joshua. 2016. “On How to Approach the Approach to Equilibrium.” Philosophy of Science 83:393411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyon, Aidan. 2011. “Deterministic Probability: Neither Chance Nor Credence.” Synthese 182:413–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maudlin, Tim. 2007. “What Could Be Objective about Probabilities?Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38:275–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maudlin, Tim. 2011. “Three Roads to Objective Probability.” In Beisbart and Hartmann 2011, 293319.Google Scholar
McCoy, Casey. 2018a. “An Alternative Interpretation of Statistical Mechanics.” Erkenntnis, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0015-7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCoy, Casey. 2018b. “Epistemic Justification and Methodological Luck in Inflationary Cosmology.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axy014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCoy, Casey. 2018c. “The Implementation, Interpretation, and Justification of Likelihoods in Cosmology.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 62:1935.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCoy, Casey. 2018d. “Interpretive Analogies between Quantum and Statistical Mechanics.” Preprint. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14479.Google Scholar
McCoy, Casey. Forthcoming. “Stability in Cosmology, from Einstein to Inflation.” In Thinking about Space and Time, ed. Beisbart, Claus, Sauer, Tilman, and Wüthrich, Christian. Basel: Birkhäuser.Google Scholar
Norton, John. 2008. “The Dome: An Unexpectedly Simple Failure of Determinism.” Philosophy of Science 75:786–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penrose, Roger. 1989. The Emperor’s New Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pynchon, Thomas. 1973. Gravity’s Rainbow. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan. 2010. “Monism: The Priority of the Whole.” Philosophical Review 119:3176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence. 1993. Physics and Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suppes, Patrick. 1993. “The Transcendental Character of Determinism.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 18:242–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Plato, Jan. 1994. Creating Modern Probability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wald, Robert. 2006. “The Arrow of Time and the Initial Conditions of the Universe.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37:394–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, David. 2014. “Probability in Physics: Stochastic, Statistical, Quantum.” In Chance and Temporal Asymmetry, ed. Wilson, Alistair, 194220. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Werndl, Charlotte. 2009. “Are Deterministic Descriptions and Indeterministic Descriptions Observationally Equivalent?Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40:232–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werndl, Charlotte. 2013. “On Choosing between Deterministic and Indeterministic Models: Underdetermination and Indirect Evidence.” Synthese 190:2243–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winsberg, Eric. 2008. “Laws and Chances in Statistical Mechanics.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 39:872–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wüthrich, Christian. 2011. “Can the World Be Shown to Be Indeterministic after All?In Beisbart and Hartmann 2011, 365–89.Google Scholar