A Generalized Manifold Topology for Branching Space-Times.

The logical theory of branching space-times, which provides a relativistic framework for studying objective indeterminism, remains mostly disconnected from discussions of space-time theories in philosophy of physics. Earman has criticized the branching approach and suggested "pruning some branches f...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Philosophy of Science Vol. 80; no. 5; pp. 1089 - 1101
Autor principal: Müller, Thomas
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Cambridge University Press Dec2013
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:The logical theory of branching space-times, which provides a relativistic framework for studying objective indeterminism, remains mostly disconnected from discussions of space-time theories in philosophy of physics. Earman has criticized the branching approach and suggested "pruning some branches from branching space-time." This article identifies the different--order-theoretic versus topological--perspective of both discussions as a reason for certain misunderstandings and tries to remove them. Most important, we give a novel, topological criterion of modal consistency that usefully generalizes an earlier criterion, and we introduce a differential-geometrical version of branching space-times as a non-Hausdorff generalized manifold.