Romagosa, Jerome (2026) A Dilemma for Divergence in the Many Worlds Interpretation. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Do the worlds described by the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI)—the most prominent Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics—genuinely ‘branch’? According to the overlap view, the relationship between branching worlds is described in terms of mereological overlap: worlds share parts with one another through some temporal intervals.
In recent years, an alternative known as the divergence view has gained prominence. The divergence view eschews ‘splitting’ and instead holds that Everettian worlds are mereologically disjoint parallel worlds whose histories diverge. I introduce a dilemma for the divergence view to demonstrate that it is metaphysically unsuitable for the MWI.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Romagosa, Jerome jjromagosa@ucdavis.edu 0000-0002-5826-3984
Keywords:	many worlds interpretation; Everettian quantum mechanics; divergence; overlap; decoherence; perdurantism
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Depositing User:	Jerome Romagosa
Date Deposited:	31 Mar 2026 12:51
Last Modified:	31 Mar 2026 12:51
Item ID:	28830
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Date:	2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28830

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