Careful with those scissors, Eugene! Against the observational indistinguishability of spacetimes.
We discuss Manchak (2009a)'s result that there are locally (but not globally) isometric universes observationally indistinguishable from our own. This theorem makes the epistemic predicament of modern cosmology particularly problematic and the prospects of ever gaining knowledge of the global struct...
| Publicado en: | Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A Vol. 89; pp. 103 - 114 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Elsevier B.V.
Oct2021
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=152847484&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 152847484 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00393681 HPS jtl: Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A issn: 00393681 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2021 vid: 89 pid: 2410 pub: Elsevier B.V. artinfo: ui: 152847484 10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.07.007 ppf: 103 ppct: 11 formats: tig: atl: Careful with those scissors, Eugene! Against the observational indistinguishability of spacetimes. aug: au: Cinti, Enrico Fano, Vincenzo affil: University of Urbino, DISPeA, Via Timoteo Viti 10, 61029, Urbino PU, Italy Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva, rue de Candolle 5, CH-1211, Genève 4, Switzerland su: Physical cosmology Spacetime General relativity (Physics) Theory of knowledge sug: subj: Physical cosmology Spacetime General relativity (Physics) Theory of knowledge keyword: Cosmology Epistemology General relativity No-go theorem Observational indistinguishability Underdetermination ab: We discuss Manchak (2009a)'s result that there are locally (but not globally) isometric universes observationally indistinguishable from our own. This theorem makes the epistemic predicament of modern cosmology particularly problematic and the prospects of ever gaining knowledge of the global structure of the universe rather unlikely in the context of general relativity. We argue however that this conclusion is too quick; indeed, Manchak's theorem deploys spacetimes which are not physically reasonable, since they have features which are not the product of any physical process. This ultimately rests on the fact that local isometry between two spacetimes is not sufficient to guarantee that they are both physically reasonable. We propose an additional condition to properly define when a spacetime is physically reasonable, and we show that Manchak's spacetimes do not satisfy this further demand. • We critically discuss a fundamental result in epistemology of cosmology. • We argue that the belief that cosmology is underdetermined is not justified. • We discuss various formal criteria to capture physical reasonableness of spacetime. • We show that indistinguishable spacetimes are not physically reasonable. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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