Worlds and strings: ontology and epistemology in fundamental physics

• Ano de defesa: 2018
• Autor(a) principal: Taschetto, Diana
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Confirmação não-empírica; Fundamentalism; Fundamentalismo; Many-worlds theories; Non-empirical confirmation; Physical possibility; Possibilidade física; String theory; Teoria das cordas; Teorias de muitos mundos
• Link de acesso: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8133/tde-12072018-142239/

This work is divided into two major topics: many-worlds (or multiverse) theories in cosmology and Richard Dawids string theory-based epistemology, or non-empirical confirmation theory, as he calls it. The former is discussed in part I and the latter in part II of this dissertation. These topics are not intertwined in this work, as are not the essays that compose each chapter: in part I, first chapter, probability arguments that are presented in the literature as indications a multiverse must exist are accessed, whereas the second chapter is concerned with analyzing the metaphysical view that motivates many-world theory building, namely, the need to find unconditioned explanations in physics. Non-empirical confirmation theory is built upon three arguments, the No Alternatives Argument, the Meta-Inductive Argument from the Success of Other Theories in the Research Program and the Unexpected Explanatory Coherence Argument. Each compose a chapter in part II of this work, as they encode different philosophical issues that require for their assessment different tools from the philosophers arsenal. Skeptical conclusions are drawn at the end of each chapter. The wide spectrum of questions this work touches are designed to give at least slight indication that critical exploration of foundational theories made upon grounds familiar to philosophers can be found as internal to scientific practice itself, if that practice is concerned with the discovery, refinement and revision of fundamental theories.