Laws beyond spacetime.
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BORIS DOI
Publisher DOI
PubMed ID
37637937
Description
Quantum gravity's suggestion that spacetime may be emergent and so only exist contingently would force a radical reconception of extant analyses of laws of nature. Humeanism presupposes a spatiotemporal mosaic of particular matters of fact on which laws supervene; primitivism and dispositionalism conceive of the action of primitive laws or of dispositions as a process of 'nomic production' unfolding over time. We show how the Humean supervenience basis of non-modal facts and primitivist or dispositionalist accounts of nomic production can be reconceived, avoiding a reliance on fundamental spacetime. However, it is unclear that naturalistic forms of Humeanism can maintain their commitment to there being no necessary connections among distinct entities. Furthermore, non-temporal conceptions of production render this central concept more elusive than before. In fact, the challenges run so deep that the survival of the investigated analyses into the era of quantum gravity is questionable.
Date of Publication
2023
Publication Type
Article
Subject(s)
Keyword(s)
Dispositionalism Emergence of spacetime Humeanism Laws of nature Primitivism Quantum gravity
Language(s)
en
Contributor(s)
Wüthrich, Christian |
Additional Credits
Series
Synthese
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
ISSN
0039-7857
Access(Rights)
open.access