Gomes, Henrique and Butterfield, Jeremy (2023) The Hole Argument and Beyond: Part I: The Story so Far. [Preprint]
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Abstract
In this two-part paper, we review, and then develop, the assessment of the hole argument for general relativity. This first Part reviews the literature hitherto, focussing on the philosophical aspects. It also introduces two main ideas we will need in Part II: which will propose a framework for making comparisons of non-isomorphic spacetimes.
In Section 1 of this paper, we recall Einstein’s original argument. Section 2 recalls the argument's revival by philosophers in the 1980s and 1990s. This includes the first main idea we will need in Part II: namely, that two spacetime points in different possible situations are never strictly identical—they are merely counterparts.
In Section 3, we report---and rebut---more recent claims to “dissolve” the argument. Our rebuttal is based on the fact that in differential geometry, and its applications in physics such as general relativity, points are in some cases identified, or correspond with each other, between one context and another, by means other than isometry (or isomorphism). We call such a correspondence a “threading” of points. This is the second main idea we shall use in Part II.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Additional Information: | Forthcoming in the Journal of Physics: Proceedings of the DICE Conference, Castiglioncello, Italy, September 2022 | |||||||||
| Keywords: | the hole argument, substantivalism, spacetime points as counterparts, identifying points other than by isomorphism | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory |
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| Depositing User: | Jeremy Butterfield | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 26 Mar 2023 15:59 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 26 Mar 2023 15:59 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 21911 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory |
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| Date: | March 2023 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/21911 |
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