Abstract

This paper constructs a model of metaphysical indeterminacy that can accommodate a kind of ‘deep’ worldly indeterminacy that arguably arises in quantum mechanics via the Kochen–Specker theorem, and that is incompatible with prominent theories of metaphysical indeterminacy such as that in Barnes and Williams (Oxf Stud Metaphys 6:103–148, 2011). We construct a variant of Barnes and Williams’s theory that avoids this problem. Our version builds on situation semantics and uses incomplete, local situations rather than possible worlds to build a model. We evaluate the resulting theory and contrast it with similar alternatives, concluding that our model successfully captures deep indeterminacy.

Highlights

  • This paper presents a model of metaphysical indeterminacy

  • We propose an account of metaphysical indeterminacy which neatly aligns with quantum mechanical motivations for understanding reality as unsettled

  • We have offered a model which uses the basic insight of the Barnes–Williams account of metaphysical indeterminacy with some vital adjustments

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Summary

Introduction

This paper presents a model of metaphysical indeterminacy. It attempts to provide a structure that captures the sort of ‘deep’ metaphysical indeterminacy which causes problems for a number of existing theories. Metaphysical indeterminacy arises when something is true on some precisifications of the world and not on others This class of models are called ‘meta-level’ accounts by Wilson (contrasting with her own ‘object-level’ view). The main idea in Barnes and Williams (2011) (‘BW’) is that we should treat metaphysical indeterminacy in much the same way as the supervaluationist treats cases of vagueness: namely by considering different candidate precisifications and regarding something as indeterminate when the different precisifications disagree about that thing. The ersatz worlds are representations of reality, and some group of them are distinctive by being those which do not determinately represent actuality inaccurately These worlds, which are complete and precise, are the mechanism by which to express indeterminacy. We shall set out the issue arising for the BW model from deep indeterminacy

The challenge of deep indeterminacy
Situations and indeterminacy
The model
Disagreement without contradiction
A restriction on persistence
Application to other quantum cases
Superposition
Entanglement
Evaluation
Persistence as worldly
Imprecise worlds
Primitive indeterminacy of parthood
Evaluation summary
Conclusion

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