MIT Philosophy of Physics Reading Group

This reading group is for philosophy graduate students; we tend to read material that is more technical than I can assign in class. To give a sense of what we do in this group, and to encourage more people to join, I include here a list of what we have read. The next meeting's reading is always at the top of the list.

Fall 2008

• Albert, Time and Chance, chapter 7.

• Huggett, "Atomic Metaphysics."

• Timpson, Quantum Information Theory and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Part II.

• Belot, Chaos and Fundamentalism.

• Earman, A Primer on Determinism, excerpt; Strogatz, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, excerpt.

• Batterman, "Defining Chaos."

• Lewis, Quantum Sleeping Beauty.

Spring 2008

• Maudlin, "On the Passing of Time."

• Strevens, "Inferring Probabilities from Symmetries."

• Arntzenius, "Transition Chances and Causation."

• Maudlin, "Secret Messages."

• Deutsch, "Quantum Mechanics Near Closed Timelike Lines."

• Wallace, Quantum Probability from Subjective Likelihood.

• Arntzenius and Greaves, "Time Reversal in Classical Electromagnetism."

Fall 2007

• Arntzenius, "Gunk, Topology, and Measure."

• Ladyman et al, Everything Must Go, Chapter 1.

• David Baker, "Measurement Outcomes and Probability in Everettian Quantum Mechanics."

• Schlosshauer, Decoherence, excerpts.

• Schlosshauer, [survey article on Decoherence].

• Bub, Interpreting the Quantum World, Appendix on quantum formalism.