Philosophy of Physics Graduate Lunch Seminar (Tuesday - Week 6, HT23)

philosophy of physics grad lunch seminar

I argue, pace Baron, that there is no generic conceptual problem with the emergence of spacetime from fundamentally non-spatiotemporal ontology due to mereology. This is consistent with the moral of Wüthrich and Huggett (2013) – we must consider each theory individually, and the ease of giving a metaphysical story doesn’t correspond simply to degree of spatiotemporal concepts at the fundamental level. I discuss in what sense such a story might be necessary for physical salience of mathematically derived structure, and how this fits into the functionalist story about emergence of spacetime.

The PoP-grunch (Philosophy of Physics Graduate Lunch) is a weekly informal seminar in which graduate students in Philosophy of Physics present their work in progress. Anyone can attend. Anyone interested in presenting or being added to the mailing list should contact Dominik Ehrenfels dominik.ehrenfels@wolfson.ox.ac.uk.


Philosophy of Physics Graduate Lunch Seminar Convenor: Dominik Ehrenfels