The Department of Philosophy is pleased to invite you to our 2022/2023 coll oquium series.
Our next talk will be given by Dr. Eddy Keming Chen\, assistant professor in philosophy at the University of California\, San Die go (UCSD).
Talk Title: "Strong Determinism"
Time: 3 - 5 pm\, March 24\, 2023
Location: Buchanan A103
Abstract : A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly on e 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 ex traordinary feature may appear unattainable in any realistic theory of phys ics. In this talk\, I show how it can be achieved\, in a universe like ours . First\, I propose a definition of strong determinism and explain how it d iffers from standard determinism and super-determinism. Next\, I discuss it s attractions\, implications\, and some toy examples. The possibility of st rong determinism has interesting consequences for explanation\, causation\, prediction\, and modality. Finally\, I show that Everettian quantum mechan ics\, with a new version of the Past Hypothesis\, provides an easy route to strong determinism. On a theory that I call the Everettian Wentaculus\, the quantum state of the multiverse is a fundamental mixed state with exactly one possible history. As a conse quence of physical laws\, the history of the multiverse could not have been different.
#You are encouraged but not required to read the preprint before attending the talk: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.02886.pdf
Speaker Bio: Eddy Keming Chen is an assistant professor in p
hilosophy at the University of California\, San Diego (UCSD). He works at t
he intersection of philosophy of physics\, philosophy of science\, and meta
physics. He also has interests in philosophy of mind\, decision theory\, fo
rmal epistemology\, philosophy of mathematics\, philosophy of religion\, an
d Chinese philosophy. He is an associate editor of the journal Foundations of Physics\, a fellow of the John
Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics\, an affiliated faculty memb
er of the UCSD Chinese studies program\, and a member of the interdisciplin
ary project "Life on the Edge.” He has written about time's arrow\, laws of
nature\, quantum ontology\, physical space\, scientific explanations\, inf
initary decision theory\, and temporal self-location. In several recent pap
ers\, he has been developing a new account of time’s arrow in a quantum uni
verse\, called the “Wentaculus.” One of these papers\, published in the