Quantum correlations and the explanatory power of radical metaphysical hypotheses

Philosophical Studies 179 (7):2391-2414 (2022)
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Abstract

I argue that, in at least one important sense, the hypothesis that you are a brain in a vat provides better explanations than the explanations provided by standard ways of interpreting our best scientific theories. This puts pressure on anyone who—like me!—wishes to resist taking this radical hypothesis seriously when doing science and scientifically-informed metaphysics. Insofar as our resistance is justified, it can’t be justified simply by claiming that the brain in a vast hypothesis is explanatorily impoverished.

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Nina Emery
Mount Holyoke College

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References found in this work

The metaphysics within physics.Tim Maudlin - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
After Physics.David Z. Albert - 2015 - Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
The matrix as metaphysics.David J. Chalmers - 2005 - In Christopher Grau (ed.), Philosophers Explore the Matrix. Oxford University Press. pp. 132.

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