Tim Maudlin
speaker
4,767 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 31 Aug
Tim Maudlin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Whatever meaning as uh whatever the meaning assigned to the term complete, the following requirement for a complete theory seems to be a necessary one.
Every element of the physical reality must have a counterpart in the physical theory.
So think of the physical theory as the mathematical apparatus together with all the commentary and so on that you're given when you're given the mathematical apparatus, so that it becomes an attempt to represent physical reality.
We should call this the condition of completeness.
The second question is thus easily answered as soon as we're able to decide what are the elements of the physical reality, right?
If we know something's real, we can then ask, is that represented in this formalism?
What they're going to give us is a criterion for the existence of an element of physical reality.
And again, you have to remember a criterion is not a definition.
It's not something that will cover every case.
It is just a sufficient condition.
If the criterion is met, then they say there must be an element of physical reality.
Why?
Because of course, how do we get our hands on elements of physical reality?
So, the elements of physical reality cannot be determined by a priori philosophical considerations, but must be found by an appeal to the results of experiments and measurements.
A comprehensive definition of reality is, however, unnecessary for our purpose.
We shall be satisfied with the following criterion, which we regard as reasonable, and this is the main
If you're not going to be able to do
Without in any way disturbing a system, we can predict with certainty, that is, with probability equal to unity, the value of a physical quantity, by which they really mean the outcome of an experiment, the outcome of a measurement, or something like that.
Then there exists an element of physical reality corresponding to this physical quantity, right?
If I can predict the outcome of a momentum measurement on a system.
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