Branching and Uncertainty

Authors: Saunders, Simon; Wallace, David

Source: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Volume 59, Number 3, 7 September 2008 , pp. 293-305(13)

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Abstract:

Following Lewis, it is widely held that branching worlds differ in important ways from diverging worlds. There is, however, a simple and natural semantics under which ordinary sentences uttered in branching worlds have much the same truth values as they conventionally have in diverging worlds. Under this semantics, whether branching or diverging, speakers cannot say in advance which branch or world is theirs. They are uncertain as to the outcome. This same semantics ensures the truth of utterances typically made about quantum mechanical contingencies, including statements of uncertainty, if the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics is true. The incoherence problem of the Everett interpretation, that it can give no meaning to the notion of uncertainty, is thereby solved. <list list-type="order">

Introduction

Metaphysics<list list-type="order"><label>2.1</label>

Personal fission<label>2.2</label>

Branching worlds

Physics

Objections

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axn029

Publication date: 2008-09-07

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For over fifty years The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science has published the best international work in the philosophy of science under a distinguished list of editors including A. C. Crombie, Mary Hesse, Imre Lakatos, D. H. Mellor and David Papineau.