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574Self-Assembling NetworksBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (1): 1-25. 2019.We consider how an epistemic network might self-assemble from the ritualization of the individual decisions of simple heterogeneous agents. In such evolved social networks, inquirers may be significantly more successful than they could be investigating nature on their own. The evolved network may also dramatically lower the epistemic risk faced by even the most talented inquirers. We consider networks that self-assemble in the context of both perfect and imperfect communication and compare the b…Read more
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123Propositional content in signalsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 74 (C): 34-39. 2019.Propositional content arises from the practice of signaling with information transfer when a signaling process settles into some sort of a pattern, and eventually what we call meaning or propositional content crystallizes out. We give an evolutionary account of this process.
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40Typical worldsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 58 31-40. 2017.
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84Self-assembling GamesBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (2): 329-353. 2017.We consider how cue-reading, sensory-manipulation, and signaling games may initially evolve from ritualized decisions and how more complex games may evolve from simpler games by polymerization, template transfer, and modular composition. Modular composition is a process that combines simpler games into more complex games. Template transfer, a process by which a game is appropriated to a context other than the one in which it initially evolved, is one mechanism for modular composition. And polyme…Read more
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37On Everett’s Formulation of Quantum MechanicsThe Monist 80 (1): 70-96. 1997.Everett wanted a formulation of quantum mechanics that (i) took the linear dynamics to be a complete and accurate description of the time-evolution of all physical systems and (ii) logically entailed the same subjective appearances predicted by the standard formulation of quantum mechanics. While most everyone would agree with this description of Everett’s project, there is little agreement on exactly how his relative-state formulation was supposed to work. In this paper, I consider two very dif…Read more
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65Approximate Truth and Descriptive NestingErkenntnis 68 (2): 213-224. 2008.There is good reason to suppose that our best physical theories, quantum mechanics and special relativity, are false if taken together and literally. If they are in fact false, then how should they count as providing knowledge of the physical world? One might imagine that, while strictly false, our best physical theories are nevertheless in some sense probably approximately true. This paper presents a notion of local probable approximate truth in terms of descriptive nesting relations between cu…Read more
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20The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and WorldsOxford University Press UK. 1999.Jeffrey Barrett presents the most comprehensive study yet of a problem that has puzzled physicists and philosophers since the 1930s. The standard theory of quantum mechanics is in one sense the most successful physical theory ever, predicting the behaviour of the basic constituents of all physical things; no other theory has ever made such accurate empirical predictions. However, if one tries to understand the theory as providing a complete and accurate framework for the description of the behav…Read more
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Quantum Mechanics Without the Collapse PostulateDissertation, Columbia University. 1992.Because of the measurement problem, the standard theory of quantum mechanics is at best incomplete and at worst logically inconsistent. Everett suggested that the measurement problem could be resolved by taking the linear dynamics to be a complete and accurate description of the time-evolution of every physical system. The purpose of this dissertation is to see what happens when one takes Everett's proposal seriously. This dissertation includes a discussion of the standard theory of quantum mech…Read more
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188Relativistic Quantum Mechanics through Frame‐Dependent ConstructionsPhilosophy of Science 72 (5): 802-813. 2005.This paper is concerned with the possibility and nature of relativistic hidden-variable formulations of quantum mechanics. Both ad hoc teleological constructions of spacetime maps and frame-dependent constructions of spacetime maps are considered. While frame-dependent constructions are clearly preferable, they provide neither mechanical nor causal explanations for local quantum events. Rather, the hiddenvariable dynamics used in such constructions is just a rule that helps to characterize the s…Read more
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54The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and WorldsOxford University Press. 1999.Jeffrey Barrett presents the most comprehensive study yet of a problem that has puzzled physicists and philosophers since the 1930s.
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50Abstract: C. S. Peirce's psychological analysis of belief, doubt, and inquiry provides insights into the nature of scientific knowledge. These in turn can be used to construct an account of scientific knowledge where the notions of belief, truth, rational justification, and inquiry are determined by the relationships that must hold between these notions. I will describe this account of scientific knowledge and some of the problems it faces. I will also describe the close relationship between pra…Read more
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31Hugh Everett III's pure wave mechanics is a deterministic physical theory with no probabilities. He nevertheless sought to show how his theory might be understood as making the same statistical predictions as the standard collapse formulation of quantum mechanics. We will consider Everett's argument for pure wave mechanics, how it depends on the notion of branch typicality, and the relationship between the predictions of pure wave mechanics and the standard quantum probabilities.
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41Review of I. Ekeland, The Broken Dice, and Other Mathematical Tales of Chance (review)Philosophia Mathematica 3 (3): 310-313. 1995.
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70We consider how cue-reading, sensory-manipulation, and signaling games may initially evolve from ritualized decisions and how more complex games may evolve from simpler games by polymerization, template transfer, and modular composition. Modular composition is a process that combines simpler games into more complex games. Template transfer, a process by which a game is appropriated to a context other than the one in which it initially evolved, is one mechanism for modular composition. And polyme…Read more
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12Accuracy in the philosophical theory of rationality demands that we recognize particular beliefs as arising within the context of larger units, the cultural or conceptual schemes, patterns, or practices, involvement in which itself provides standards and grounds for their rational evaluation. At the same time, though, a satisfactory account of rationality cannot hold the standards, values, or commitments of one particular culture, practice, or conceptual scheme, even one’s own, immune from ratio…Read more
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101On the Evolution of TruthErkenntnis 81 (6): 1323-1332. 2016.This paper is concerned with how a simple metalanguage might coevolve with a simple descriptive base language in the context of interacting Skyrms–Lewis signaling games Lewis. We will first consider a metagame that evolves to track the successful and unsuccessful use of a coevolving base language, then we will consider a metagame that evolves a truth predicate for expressions in a coevolving base language. We will see how a metagame that tracks truth provides an endogenous way to break the symme…Read more
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52IntroductionTopoi 14 (1): 1-6. 1995.On Bohm's formulation of quantum mechanics particles always have determinate positions and follow continuous trajectories. Bohm's theory, however, requires a postulate that says that particles are initially distributed in a special way: particles are randomly distributed so that the probability of their positions being represented by a point in any regionR in configuration space is equal to the square of the wave-function integrated overR. If the distribution postulate were false, then the theor…Read more
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5Lewis signaling games illustrate how language might evolve from random behavior. The probability of evolving an optimal signaling language is, in part, a function of what learning strategy the agents use. Here we investigate three learning strategies, each of which allows agents to forget old experience. In each case, we find that forgetting increases the probability of evolving an optimal language. It does this by making it less likely that past partial success will continue to reinforce subopt…Read more
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120Dynamic partitioning and the conventionality of kindsPhilosophy of Science 74 (4): 527-546. 2007.Lewis sender‐receiver games illustrate how a meaningful term language might evolve from initially meaningless random signals (Lewis 1969; Skyrms 2006). Here we consider how a meaningful language with a primitive grammar might evolve in a somewhat more subtle sort of game. The evolution of such a language involves the co‐evolution of partitions of the physical world into what may seem, at least from the perspective of someone using the language, to correspond to canonical natural kinds. While the…Read more
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71The evolution, appropriation, and composition of rulesSynthese 195 (2): 623-636. 2018.This paper concerns how rule-following behavior might evolve in the context of a variety of Skyrms–Lewis signaling game, how such rules might subsequently evolve to be used in new contexts, and how such appropriation allows for the composition of evolved rules. We will also consider how the composition of simpler rules to form more complex rules may be significantly more efficient than evolving the complex rules directly. And we will review an example of rule following by pinyon and scrub jays a…Read more
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253On what it takes to be a worldTopoi 14 (1): 35-37. 1995.A many-worlds interpretation is of quantum mechanics tells us that the linear equations of motion are the true and complete laws for the time-evolution of every physical system and that the usual quantum-mechanical states provide complete descriptions of all possible physical situations. Such an interpretation, however, denies the standard way of understanding quantum-mechanical states. When the pointer on a measuring device is in a superposition of pointing many different directions, for exampl…Read more
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55Rule-Following and the Evolution of Basic ConceptsPhilosophy of Science 81 (5): 829-839. 2014.This article concerns how rule-following behavior might evolve, how an old evolved rule might come to be appropriated to a new context, and how simple concepts might coevolve with rule-following behavior. In particular, we consider how the transitive inferential rule-following behavior exhibited by pinyon and scrub jays might evolve in the context of a variety of the Skyrms-Lewis signaling game, then how such a rule might come to be appropriated to carry out inferences regarding stimuli differen…Read more
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5α-recursion lifts classical recursion theory from the first transfinite ordinal ω to an arbitrary admissible ordinal α [10]. Idealized computational models for α-recursion analogous to Turing machine models for classical recursion have been proposed and studied [4] and [5] and are applicable in computational approaches to the foundations of logic and mathematics [8]. They also provide a natural setting for modeling extensions of the algorithmic logic described in [1] and [2]. On such models, an …Read more
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1There is good reason to suppose that our best physical theories are false: In addition to its own internal problems, the standard formulation of quantum mechanics is logically incompatible with special relativity. There is also good reason to suppose that we have no concrete idea concerning what it might mean to claim that these theories are approximately or vaguely true. I will argue that providing a concrete understanding the approximate or vague truth of our current physical theories is not a…Read more
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38A field-theoretic version of Wigner’s friend (1961) illustrates how the quantum measurement problem arises for field theory. Similarly, considering spacelike separate measurements of entangled fields by observers akin to Wigner’s friend shows the sense in which relativistic constraints make the measurement problem particularly difficult to resolve in the context of a relativistic field theory. We will consider proposals by Wigner (1961), Bloch (1967), Helwig and Kraus (1970), and Bell (1984) for…Read more
Irvine, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Physical Science |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Mathematics |