Lewis's Worldmate Relation and the Apparent Failure of Humean Supervenience

Darby, George

doi:10.1111/j.1746-8361.2009.01192.x

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…7 In other words, Humean supervenience should be reformulated as the claim that everything supervenes on the spatiotemporal and quantum distribution of local intrinsic qualities, where the 'quantum distribution' is determined by irreducible entanglement relations. On this, see Darby (2009), especially section 3.…”

Section: Discussion Of the Argument From Quantum Physics And Emergencementioning

confidence: 99%

Ontological Priority, Fundamentality and Monism

Morganti

2009

Dialectica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent work, the interrelated questions of whether there is a fundamental level to reality, whether ontological dependence must have an ultimate ground, and whether the monist thesis should be endorsed that the whole universe is ontologically prior to its parts have been explored with renewed interest. Jonathan Schaffer has provided arguments in favour of ‘priority monism’ in a series of articles (2003, 2004, 2007a, 2007b, forthcoming). In this paper, these arguments are analysed, and it is claimed that they are not compelling: in particular, the possibility that there is no ultimate level of basic entities that compose everything else is on a par with the possibility of infinite ‘upward’ complexity. The idea that we must, at any rate, postulate an ontologically fundamental level for methodological reasons (Cameron 2008) is also discussed and found unconvincing: all things considered, there may be good reasons for endorsing ‘metaphysical infinitism’. In any event, a higher degree of caution in formulating metaphysical claims than found in the extant literature appears advisable.

show abstract

Section: Discussion Of the Argument From Quantum Physics And Emergencementioning

confidence: 99%

Ontological Priority, Fundamentality and Monism

Morganti

2009

Dialectica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As Wüthrich (2019) observes, this generates a tension between Lewisian metaphysics and non-spatial theories of quantum gravity. However, as Darby (2009) observes, Lewis regarded his thesis as fallible. Another "analogically spatiotemporal" relation could be the "worldmate relation" (Lewis 1986, p. 77) and still provide for a consistent metaphysics.…”

Section: World-making (In Minimalist Ontology)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Entanglement as the world-making relation: distance from entanglement

Jaksland

2020

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Distance, it is often argued, is the only coherent and empirically adequate worldmaking relation that can glue together the elements of the world. This paper offers entanglement as an alternative world-making relation. Entanglement is interesting since it is consistent even with quantum gravity theories that do not feature space at the fundamental level. The paper thereby defends the metaphysical salience of such non-spatial theories. An account of distance (space) is the predominant problem of empirical adequacy facing entanglement as a world-making relation. A resolution of this obstacle utilizes insights from the Ryu-Takayanagi formula (a holographic relation between entanglement and spacetime) and Susskind and Maldacena's related ER = EPR conjecture (a relation between bell pairs and wormholes). Together these indicate how distance can be recovered from entanglement and thus carves the way for entanglement fundamentalism.

show abstract

“…For an argument why we should not in general expect the fundamental relations in quantum gravity to be even analogically spatiotemporal, see Wüthrich ( 2020 ). Darby ( 2009 ) argues that the non-local relations sometimes obtaining between quantum-mechanical systems are neither pervasive nor discriminating and so not even analogically spatiotemporal. He thus pleads to further weaken the requirement and to take two objects as worldmates if and only if they stand in a natural external relation (see also (Bricker, 1996 ) for an earlier argument that Lewis’s criterion should be relaxed to a mere demand of the externality of the worldmate relation).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Laws beyond spacetime

Lam,

Wüthrich

2023

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Quantum gravity’s suggestion that spacetime may be emergent and so only exist contingently would force a radical reconception of extant analyses of laws of nature. Humeanism presupposes a spatiotemporal mosaic of particular matters of fact on which laws supervene; primitivism and dispositionalism conceive of the action of primitive laws or of dispositions as a process of ‘nomic production’ unfolding over time. We show how the Humean supervenience basis of non-modal facts and primitivist or dispositionalist accounts of nomic production can be reconceived, avoiding a reliance on fundamental spacetime. However, it is unclear that naturalistic forms of Humeanism can maintain their commitment to there being no necessary connections among distinct entities. Furthermore, non-temporal conceptions of production render this central concept more elusive than before. In fact, the challenges run so deep that the survival of the investigated analyses into the era of quantum gravity is questionable.

show abstract

Lewis's Worldmate Relation and the Apparent Failure of Humean Supervenience

Cited by 6 publications

References 11 publications

Ontological Priority, Fundamentality and Monism

Ontological Priority, Fundamentality and Monism

Entanglement as the world-making relation: distance from entanglement

Laws beyond spacetime

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About