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148Everett's relative-state formulation of quantum mechanicsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Everett's relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to solve the measurement problem by dropping the collapse dynamics from the standard von Neumann-Dirac theory of quantum mechanics. The main problem with Everett's theory is that it is not at all clear how it is supposed to work. In particular, while it is clear that he wanted to explain why we get determinate measurement results in the context of his theory, it is unclear how he intended to do this. There have been many att…Read more
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98The persistence of memory: Surreal trajectories in Bohm's theoryPhilosophy of Science 67 (4): 680-703. 2000.In this paper I describe the history of the surreal trajectories problem and argue that in fact it is not a problem for Bohm's theory. More specifically, I argue that one can take the particle trajectories predicted by Bohm's theory to be the actual trajectories that particles follow and that there is no reason to suppose that good particle detectors are somehow fooled in the context of the surreal trajectories experiments. Rather than showing that Bohm's theory predicts the wrong particle traje…Read more
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113Book review: Quantum chance and non-locality, by Michael Dickson (review)Foundations of Physics 29 (6): 1011-1018. 1999.
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1The bare theory is the standard von Neumann·Dirac formulation of quantum mechanics without the collapse postulate but with the eigenvalueeigenstate link. Albert (1992, 1i6-125) presented the bare theory as one way of understanding EverettRi7;s relative-state interpretation. At first glance, it looks as if the bare theory cannot possibly account for our experience. After all, at the end of a measurement an observer will typically be in a superposition of having recorded mutually incompatible resu…Read more
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78Computer implication and the Curry paradoxJournal of Philosophical Logic 33 (6): 631-637. 2004.There are theoretical limitations to what can be implemented by a computer program. In this paper we are concerned with a limitation on the strength of computer implemented deduction. We use a version of the Curry paradox to arrive at this limitation
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26Quantum Mechanics and DualismIn Antonella Corradini & Uwe Meixner (eds.), Quantum Physics Meets the Philosophy of Mind: New Essays on the Mind-Body Relation in Quantum-Theoretical Perspective, De Gruyter. pp. 65-82. 2014.
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83On the nature of experience in the bare theorySynthese 113 (3): 347-355. 1997.Quantum mechanics without the collapse postulate, the bare theory, was proposed by Albert (1992) as a way of understanding Everett's relative-state formulation of quantum mechanics. The basic idea is to try to account for an observer's beliefs by appealing to a type of illusion predicted by the bare theory. This paper responds to some recent objections to the bare theory by providing a more detailed description of the sense in which it can and the sense in which it cannot account for our experie…Read more
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3David Lewis (1969) introduced sender-receiver games as a way of investigating how meaningful language might evolve from initially random signals. In this report I investigate the conditions under which Lewis signaling games evolve to perfect signaling systems under various learning dynamics. While the 2-state/2- term Lewis signaling game with basic urn learning always approaches a signaling system, I will show that with more than two states suboptimal pooling equilibria can evolve. Inhomogeneous…Read more
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102The suggestive properties of quantum mechanics without the collapse postulateErkenntnis 41 (2). 1994.Everett proposed resolving the quantum measurement problem by dropping the nonlinear collapse dynamics from quantum mechanics and taking what is left as a complete physical theory. If one takes such a proposal seriously, then the question becomes how much of the predictive and explanatory power of the standard theory can one recover without the collapse postulate and without adding anything else. Quantum mechanics without the collapse postulate has several suggestive properties, which we will co…Read more
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32Entanglement and disentanglement in relativistic quantum mechanicsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 48 (2): 168-174. 2014.
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133The Evolution of Coding in Signaling GamesTheory and Decision 67 (2): 223-237. 2009.Signaling games with reinforcement learning have been used to model the evolution of term languages (Lewis 1969, Convention. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Skyrms 2006, “Signals” Presidential Address. Philosophy of Science Association for PSA). In this article, syntactic games, extensions of David Lewis’s original sender–receiver game, are used to illustrate how a language that exploits available syntactic structure might evolve to code for states of the world. The evolution of a langu…Read more
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260A Quantum-Mechanical Argument for Mind–Body DualismErkenntnis 65 (1): 97-115. 2006.I argue that a strong mind–body dualism is required of any formulation of quantum mechanics that satisfies a relatively weak set of explanatory constraints. Dropping one or more of these constraints may allow one to avoid the commitment to a mind–body dualism but may also require a commitment to a physical–physical dualism that is at least as objectionable. Ultimately, it is the preferred basis problem that pushes both collapse and no-collapse theories in the direction of a strong dualism in res…Read more
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150Review of Bas C. van Fraassen: Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective (review)Journal of Philosophy 106 (11): 634-639. 2009.
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20We consider an extension of signaling games to the case of prediction, where one agent perceives the current state of the world and sends a signal. The second agent perceives this signal, and makes a prediction about the next state of the world. We suggest that such games may be the basis of a model for the evolution of successful theorizing about the world.
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30Review of Daniel F. Styer: The Strange World of Quantum Mechanics (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (2): 393-396. 2001.
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59On the Coevolution of Theory and Language and the Nature of Successful InquiryErkenntnis 79 (S4): 1-14. 2014.Insofar as empirical inquiry involves the coevolution of descriptive language and theoretical commitments, a satisfactory model of empirical knowledge should describe the coordinated evolution of both language and theory. But since we do not know what conceptual resources we might need to express our future theories or to provide our best future faithful descriptions of the world, we do not now know even what the space of future descriptive options might be. One strategy for addressing this shif…Read more
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77Faithful description and the incommensurability of evolved languagesPhilosophical Studies 147 (1). 2010.Skyrms-Lewis signaling games illustrate how meaningful language may evolve from initially meaningless random signals (Lewis, Convention 1969; Skyrms 2008). Here we will consider how incommensurable languages might evolve in the context of signaling games. We will also consider the types of incommensurability exhibited between evolved languages in such games. We will find that sequentially evolved languages may be strongly incommensurable while still allowing for increasingly faithful description…Read more
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172The preferred-basis problem and the quantum mechanics of everythingBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (2): 199-220. 2005.argued that there are two options for what he called a realistic solution to the quantum measurement problem: (1) select a preferred set of observables for which definite values are assumed to exist, or (2) attempt to assign definite values to all observables simultaneously (1810–1). While conventional wisdom has it that the second option is ruled out by the Kochen-Specker theorem, Vink nevertheless advocated it. Making every physical quantity determinate in quantum mechanics carries with it sig…Read more
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117Description and the Problem of PriorsErkenntnis 79 (6): 1343-1353. 2014.Belief-revision models of knowledge describe how to update one’s degrees of belief associated with hypotheses as one considers new evidence, but they typically do not say how probabilities become associated with meaningful hypotheses in the first place. Here we consider a variety of Skyrms–Lewis signaling game (Lewis in Convention. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1969; Skyrms in Signals evolution, learning, & information. Oxford University Press, New York, 2010) where simple descriptive lan…Read more
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107The distribution postulate in Bohm's theoryTopoi 14 (1): 45-54. 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 the…Read more
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103Stability and Paradox in Algorithmic LogicJournal of Philosophical Logic 36 (1): 61-95. 2007.There is significant interest in type-free systems that allow flexible self-application. Such systems are of interest in property theory, natural language semantics, the theory of truth, theoretical computer science, the theory of classes, and category theory. While there are a variety of proposed type-free systems, there is a particularly natural type-free system that we believe is prototypical: the logic of recursive algorithms. Algorithmic logic is the study of basic statements concerning alg…Read more
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70Quantum WorldsPrincipia: An International Journal of Epistemology 20 (1): 45-60. 2016.Because of the conceptual difficulties it faces, quantum mechanics provides a salient example of how alternative metaphysical commitments may clarify our understanding of a physical theory and the explanations it provides. Here we will consider how postulating alternative quantum worlds in the context of Hugh Everett III’s pure wave mechanics may serve to explain determinate measurement records and the standard quantum statistics. We will focus on the properties of such worlds, then briefly cons…Read more
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61A resolution of the quantum measurement problem would require one to explain how it is that we end up with determinate records at the end of our measurements. Metaphysical commitments typically do real work in such an explanation. Indeed, one should not be satisfied with one's metaphysical commitments unless one can provide some account of determinate measurement records. I will explain some of the problems in getting determinate records in relativistic quantum field theory and pay particular at…Read more
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25On the Coevolution of Theory and Language and the Nature of Successful InquiryErkenntnis 79 (Suppl 4): 821-834. 2014.Insofar as empirical inquiry involves the coevolution of descriptive language and theoretical commitments, a satisfactory model of empirical knowledge should describe the coordinated evolution of both language and theory. But since we do not know what conceptual resources we might need to express our future theories or to provide our best future faithful descriptions of the world, we do not now know even what the space of future descriptive options might be. One strategy for addressing this shif…Read more
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219The strange world of quantum mechanics Daniel F. styer (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (2): 393-396. 2001.
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30Hugh 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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69We 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
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 |