Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-24T02:07:30.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How to Combine Chance and Determinism: Thinking about the Future in an Everett Universe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jenann Ismael
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I propose, in the context of Everett interpretations of quantum mechanics, a way of understanding how there can be genuine uncertainty about the future notwithstanding that the universe is governed by known, deterministic dynamical laws, and notwithstanding that there is no ignorance about initial conditions, nor anything in the universe whose evolution is not itself governed by the known dynamical laws. The proposal allows us to draw some lessons about the relationship between chance and determinism, and to dispel one source of the tendency among Everettians to introduce consciousness as a primitive element into physical description.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , October 2003 , pp. 776 - 790
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 very grateful to two anonymous reviewers, and also to Richard Healey, Bas van Fraassen, and David Lewis, who made the paper much better than it is in many close worlds. I would also like to thank Michel Bitbol and an audience at the Centre de Recherches en Epistémologie Appliquée in Paris for their patience and a very helpful discussion.

References

Giere, Ronald (1976), “A Laplacean Formal Semantics for Single-Case Propensities”, A Laplacean Formal Semantics for Single-Case Propensities 5:321–354.Google Scholar
Lockwood, Michael (1996), “‘Many Minds’ Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics”, ‘Many Minds’ Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics 47:159–188.Google Scholar
Loewer, Barry (1996) “Comment on Lockwood”, Comment on Lockwood 47:229–32.Google Scholar
Saunders, Simon (1993), “Decoherence, Relative States, and Evolutionary Adaptation” Foundations of Physics 23:1553–1585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saunders, Simon (1995), “Time, Quantum Mechanics, and Decoherence”, Time, Quantum Mechanics, and Decoherence 102:235–266.Google Scholar
Saunders, Simon (1996a), “Time, Quantum Mechanics, and Tense”, Time, Quantum Mechanics, and Tense 107:19–53.Google Scholar
Saunders, Simon (1996b), “Comment on Lockwood”, Comment on Lockwood 47:241–248.Google Scholar
Velleman, David (1987), “Self to Self”, in Varieties of Practical Reason, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zurek, Wojciech H. (1992), “Quantum, Classical and Decoherence”, Los Alamos preprint.Google Scholar