Research Projects

Under Review

A paper on the metaphysics of divergence and overlap in the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics.

In Progress

EQM and Quantum Gravity (with David Glick)

A project on the prospects for Everettian quantum gravity. 

Unlucky Branches & Humeanism about Laws

I argue that in order for the MWI to be susceptible to ordinary scientific inference, one must give up a common motivation for Humeanism about laws of nature:  that laws are in principle knowable in virtue of observing occurrent matters of fact. 

The Metaphysics and Semantics of Overlap

I defend the overlap view from several arguments posed in the literature. I first consider an argument from Tappenden (2008) that the overlap view cannot secure indexical reference in the present tense. I then examine arguments from Wilson (2011, 2013) that the overlap view cannot account for the truth-values of some future-oriented statements. The third concern I consider is that the overlap theorist cannot give a coherent explanation of subjective uncertainty in an Everettian multiverse. I show that these problems posed for the Everettian overlap view are not unique to EQM: self-locating uncertainty, the semantics of future-directed indexical sentences, and the theory of indexical reference present the same puzzles whether multiplicity arises from Everettian branching or analogous non-quantum cases of fission explored in the metaphysics and personal identity literature. So insofar as we have adequate solutions to these puzzles in non-Everettian contexts, those solutions should extend to EQM.

Given the plausibility that fission cases occur in non-Everettian contexts—e.g., through Parfittian teleporters, lab-grown duplicate humans (e.g., in the film Mickey 17 ) or mind-uploading (see Chalmers (2014))—it is pertinent to have metaphysics of identity, a semantics, and an account of subjective uncertainty that can accommodate overlapping agents irrespective of issues involving EQM.