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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access originally published online on August 8, 2008
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2008 59(3):293-305; doi:10.1093/bjps/axn029
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© The Author (2008). 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

Branching and Uncertainty

Simon Saunders and David Wallace

Philosophy Centre, Oxford University
Balliol College, Oxford University

simon.saunders{at}philosophy.ox.ac.uk david.wallace{at}balliol.ox.ac.uk


  Abstract

Following Lewis, it is widely held that branching worlds differ in important ways from diverging worlds. There is, however, a simple and natural semantics under which ordinary sentences uttered in branching worlds have much the same truth values as they conventionally have in diverging worlds. Under this semantics, whether branching or diverging, speakers cannot say in advance which branch or world is theirs. They are uncertain as to the outcome. This same semantics ensures the truth of utterances typically made about quantum mechanical contingencies, including statements of uncertainty, if the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics is true. The ‘incoherence problem’ of the Everett interpretation, that it can give no meaning to the notion of uncertainty, is thereby solved.

  1. Introduction
  2. Metaphysics
    2.1 Personal fission
    2.2 Branching worlds

  3. Physics
  4. Objections


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Saunders and Wallace on Everett and Lewis
Brit J Philos Sci, September 1, 2008; 59(3): 307 - 314.
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