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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2006 57(4):655-689; doi:10.1093/bjps/axl023
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© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Epistemology Quantized: circumstances in which we should come to believe in the Everett interpretation

David Wallace

Department of Philosophy Balliol College Oxford OX1 3BJ, UK david.wallace{at}balliol.ox.ac.uk


  Abstract

I consider exactly what is involved in a solution to the probability problem of the Everett interpretation, in the light of recent work on applying considerations from decision theory to that problem. I suggest an overall framework for understanding probability in a physical theory, and conclude that this framework, when applied to the Everett interpretation, yields the result that that interpretation satisfactorily solves the measurement problem.

  1. Introduction
  2. What is probability?
    2.1 Objective probability and the Principal Principle
    2.2 Three ways of satisfying the functional definition
    2.3 Cautious functionalism
    2.4 Is the functional definition complete?
  3. The Everett interpretation and subjective uncertainty
    3.1 Interpreting quantum mechanics
    3.2 The need for subjective uncertainty
    3.3 Saunders' argument for subjective uncertainty
    3.4 Objections to Saunders' argument
    3.5 Subjective uncertainty again: arguments from interpretative charity
    3.6 Quantum weights and the functional definition of probability
  4. Rejecting subjective uncertainty
    4.1 The fission program
    4.2 Against the fission program
  5. Justifying the axioms of decision theory
    5.1 The primitive status of the decision-theoretic axioms
    5.2 Holistic scepticism
    5.3 The role of an explanation of decision theory
  6. Conclusion


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