<scp>Non‐Humean</scp>theories of natural necessity

Hildebrand, Tyler

doi:10.1111/phc3.12662

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…11 See Carroll (2020), Hildebrand (2020) and Bhogal (2020) for more detailed surveys. My reason for focusing on these two is because they are two of the mostly science-friendly views in the literature, especially regarding the form of modern physical laws and the issue of the direction of time.…”

Section: Reformed Humeanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strong Determinism

Chen¹

2022

Preprint

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A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), "it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed, according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time." Such an extraordinary feature may appear unattainable in any realistic and simple theory of physics. In this paper, I propose a definition of strong determinism and contrast it with those of standard determinism and super-determinism. Next, I discuss its consequences for explanation, causation, prediction, fundamental properties, free will, and modality. Finally, I present the first example of a realistic, simple, and strongly deterministic physical theory-the Everettian Wentaculus. As a consequence of physical laws, the history of the Everettian multiverse could not have been different. If the Everettian Wentaculus is empirically equivalent to other quantum theories, we can never empirically find out whether or not our world is strongly deterministic. Even if strong determinism fails to be true, it is closer to the actual world than we have presumed, with implications for some of the central topics in philosophy and foundations of physics.

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Section: Reformed Humeanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strong Determinism

Chen¹

2022

Preprint

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“…In response to the claim that there are more chaotic Humean mosaics than regular ones the Humean could reasonably respond that this is no special problem for them—if anti‐Humean laws can be arbitrarily complicated then there are more chaotic anti‐Humean worlds than there are regular ones. (Although, whether this Humean response works may depend upon the exact version of anti‐Humeanism they are targeting, see Hildebrand (2013, 2020a, forthcoming)).…”

Section: The Case Against Humeanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Although not all anti‐Humean approaches think of laws as this separate, governing entity. See Hildebrand (2020a, forthcoming) for an excellent survey of anti‐Humean approaches).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humeanism about laws of nature

Bhogal

2020

Philosophy Compass

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Humeanism about laws of nature is, roughly, the view that the laws of nature are just patterns, or ways of describing patterns, in the mosaic of events. In this paper, I survey some of the (many!) objections that have been raised to Humeanism, considering how the Humean might respond. And I consider how we might make a positive case for Humeanism. The common thread running through all this is that the viability of the Humean view relies on the Humean having an importantly different conception of explanation to the anti‐Humean.

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“…According to the so-called DTA account, the term "second order" simply means that the necessitation relation concerns universals rather than particulars; it does not mean that this modal relation can be reduced to something else that is non-modal. Nevertheless, according to the advocates of the DTA theory, all universals are fundamental properties or relations, including the secondorder necessitation relation, and their nature is categorical and not dispositional.14 For the different versions of anti-Humean theories of laws, seeHildebrand (2020).…”

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confidence: 99%