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Indeterminism is a modal notion: branching spacetimes and Earman’s pruning

Placek, Tomasz and Belnap, Nuel (2011) Indeterminism is a modal notion: branching spacetimes and Earman’s pruning. Synthese. ISSN 1573-0964

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Abstract

The paper defends an Aristotelian notion of indeterminism, as rigorously formulated in the framework of branching space-times (BST) of Belnap (1992), against criticism by Earman’s (2008) based on a model-theoretic characterization of indeterminism. It delineates BST branching against the background provided by Earman’s (2008) distinction between individual versus ensemble branching. Partly in order to motivate our responses to Earman, it describes a construction of physically motivated BST models, in which histories are isomorphic to Minkowski spacetime. Finally it responds to Earman’s criticisms leveled against BST by addressing a topological issue, the question of an actual future, the past/future asymmetry, and some semantical questions.


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Item Type: Published Article or Volume
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Placek, Tomasztomasz.placek@uj.edu.pl
Belnap, Nuelbelnap@pitt.edu
Keywords: determinism, spacetime, branching space-times
Subjects: General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Depositing User: Tomasz Placek
Date Deposited: 28 May 2011 22:04
Last Modified: 28 May 2011 22:04
Item ID: 8631
Journal or Publication Title: Synthese
Publisher: Springer (Springer Science+Business Media B.V.)
Official URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/n77521u7467n02...
Subjects: General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Date: 20 May 2011
ISSN: 1573-0964
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/8631

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