"I'm willing to consider the thought experiment where there aren't any experiments we could do," he says. "If my best theory of the universe is here are the laws of physics, and I'm a brain in a vat versus here are thelaws of physics, here are the initial conditions ... both of those theories make exactly the same predictions." If they're observationally equivalent, if they don't say anything different across the board, it's not worth worrying about which one is more explanatory, he adds. 'We shouldn't worry about these like very high-flute questions'
Is metaphysics like physics, but cooler? Or is it a relic of an outdated, pre-empirical way of thinking about the world? Closer to the former than the latter. Rather than building specific quantitative theories about the world, metaphysics aims to get a handle on the basic logical structures that help us think about it. I talk with philosopher Katie Elliott on how metaphysics helps us think about questions like counterfactuals, possible worlds, time travel, mathematical equivalence, and whether everything happens for a reason.
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/07/24/244-katie-elliott-on-metaphysics-chance-and-time/
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Katrina (Katie) Elliott received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. After being an assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA, she is now on the faculty at Brandeis. Her research covers topics in metaphysics and the philosophy of science, including explanation, chances, and the logic of time travel.
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