Charles "Chip" T. Sebens
Department of Philosophy
University of California, San Diego
 Teaching Philosophy of Physics, UC San Diego, Fall 2016 [syllabus] Philosophical Issues in Quantum Physics, Caltech, Spring 2016 [syllabus] Knowledge and Reality, Caltech, Spring 2016 [syllabus] Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics (focusing on electromagnetism), Caltech, Fall 2015 [syllabus] Science Fiction and Philosophy, University of Michigan, Fall 2013 [syllabus] Reading Group Other Guest Post: Chip Sebens on the Many-Interacting-Worlds Approach to Quantum Mechanics (2014), on Sean Carroll's Preposterous Universe blog Quantum Mechanics, Three Ways (2014), poster presented to undergraduate physics students | I study the philosophy of physics, focusing on the foundations of
quantum theory. I use tools from metaphysics and epistemology to assess competing proposals about what physical laws govern the motion of subatomic particles (such as Bohmian mechanics, Everettian quantum mechanics, and GRW theory). In particular, I am interested in the ways in which self-locating uncertainty arises in quantum mechanics and how we ought to respond to it. I am an assistant professor in the department of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. As a student I studied physics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford, and the University of Michigan. This poster situates some of my recent research questions in the broader project of figuring out how to best formulate quantum mechanics. For an accessible introduction to the debate, check out this video. Publications
Constructing and Constraining Wave Functions for Identical Quantum Particles (forthcoming), in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics [abstract] [arXiv] [slides] Killer Collapse: Empirically Probing the Philosophically Unsatisfactory Region of GRW (2015), in Synthese [abstract] [PhilSci archive] Quantum Mechanics as Classical Physics (2015), in Philosophy of Science [abstract] [arXiv] [handout] [blog] [featured in Nature News] Many Worlds, the Born Rule, and Self-Locating Uncertainty (2014), with Sean Carroll, in Quantum Theory: A Two-Time Success Story, Yakir Aharonov Festschrift [abstract] [arXiv (updated version)] In Progress
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