Cian Dorr

This project investigates three central philosophical questions about quantum mechanics: (i) What kind of fundamental structure in reality could make true the sorts of descriptions of the world that quantum mechanics provides? (ii) What would such a world with that kind of fundamental structure have to be like to contain ordinary things like tables, trees, and people? (iii) What evidence would make it reasonable for us to believe that our world is like that? One conclusion is that we can account for the world of our ordinary experience in quantum-mechanical terms without having to believe in anything like the notorious "collapse of the wavefunction," or in "hidden variables," or in the currently popular theory of "branching universes."