Fatalism as a Metaphysical Thesis

Even though fatalism has been an intermittent topic of philosophy since Greek antiquity, this paper argues that fate ought to be of little concern to metaphysicians. Fatalism is neither an interesting metaphysical thesis in its own right, nor can it be identified with theses that are, such as realism about the future or determinism

Philosophical lessons of entanglement

The quantum-mechanical description of the world, including human observers, makes substantial use of entanglement. In order to understand this, we need to adopt concepts of truth, probability and time which are unfamiliar in modern scientific thought. There are two kinds of statements about the world: those made from inside the world, and those from outside. The conflict between contradictory statements which both appear to be true can be resolved by recognising that they are made in different perspectives. Probability, in an objective sense, belongs in the internal perspective, and to statements in the future tense. Such statements obey a many-valued logic, in which the truth values are identified as probabilities.Comment: Talk given at 75 Years of Quantum Entanglement, Kolkata, India, 10 January 201

The Everett-Wheeler interpretation and the open future

I discuss the meaning of probability in the Everett-Wheeler interpretation of quantum mechanics, together with the problem of defining histories. To resolve these, I propose an understanding of probability arising from a form of temporal logic: the probability of a future-tense proposition is identified with its truth value in a many-valued and context-dependent logic. In short, probability is degree of truth. These ideas appear to be new (though I expect correction on this), but they are natural and intuitive, and relate to traditional naive ideas of time and chance. Indeed, I argue that Everettian quantum mechanics is the only form of scientific theory that truly incorporates the perception that the future is open.Comment: 11 page