Satta, Mark (2019) Evil Twins and the Multiverse: Distinguishing the World of Difference between Epistemic and Physical Possibility. [Preprint]

Text Evil Twins and the Multiverse Synthese Final Draft.docx Download (35kB)

Abstract

Physicists Brian Greene and Max Tegmark both make variants of the claim that if the universe is infinite and matter is roughly uniformly distributed that there are infinitely many “people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices.” In this paper I argue that, while our current best theories in astrophysics may allow one to conclude that we have infinitely many duplicates whose lives are identical to our own from start to finish, without either further advances in physics or advances in fields like biology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Greene’s and Tegmark’s claims about the ways in which our duplicates lives will differ from our own are not a consequence of our best current scientific theories. Rather, I argue that Greene and Tegmark’s conclusions rely on philosophically imprecise usages of the language of “possibility.”

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Satta, Mark
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Epistemology Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology Specific Sciences > Physics
Depositing User:	Dr. Mark Satta
Date Deposited:	11 Jan 2019 20:39
Last Modified:	11 Jan 2019 20:39
Item ID:	15582
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Epistemology Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology Specific Sciences > Physics
Date:	11 January 2019
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15582

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item