Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 4: Foundations of Classical Gravity

AGPhil 4.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 11:00–11:30, A 060

Prediction in General Relativity — •Casey McCoy — University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA

Various prominent physicists and philosophers have claimed that prediction is essentially impossible in the general theory of relativity, the case being particularly strong, it is maintained, when one fully considers the epistemic predicament of the observer. I argue that the conditions on prediction advocated by these authors rest on philosophically misguided and unphysical intuitions, and should therefore be rejected as inadequately explicating the concept of prediction in general relativity. Along the way I clarify the epistemic situation of observers and discuss the significance of these arguments for cosmology.