Publications

There is a question of whether de-idealization is needed for justified use of -- for 'checking' -- idealizations. We argue that the standard philosophical account of de-idealization has become too idealized, but that this does not preclude the possibility of justificatory practices which show how models can be used to make inferences about the world. In turn, motivated by examples in physics, we provide a more expansive and practice-driven account of de-idealization by relaxing the standards for closeness to more realistic theoretical items, identifying at least three kinds of procedures for de-idealization: intra-model, inter-model, and measurement de-idealizations. These examples highlight how idealizations can be -- and indeed have been -- scrutinized within physics without appealing to the philosopher's idealized notion of de-idealization. 

This paper diagnoses a much-discussed problem in quantum thermodynamics, that of generalizing classical work into the quantum domain. I begin with the no-go theorem of Perarnau-Llobet et al (2017): no universal measurement scheme for quantum work satisfies two intuitive, classically consilient desiderata. I assess this incompatibility as stemming from the measurement problem. Decoherence restores compatibility for all practical purposes, but raises questions about what 'universality' should mean and whether any measurement scheme can be 'universal'. I consider a different standard of universality -- in terms of ontology -- by defining a trajectory-based notion of quantum work using the quantum potential. While this preserves the classical role of work as the integral of forces over distances, and evades the tension of the no-go theorem, consilience fails elsewhere; no single quantum work concept seems capable of preserving all classical features, raising questions for what it takes for successful generalization of the work concept to quantum thermodynamics.

The Tolman effect is well-known in relativistic cosmology but rarely discussed outside it. That is surprising because the effect -- that systems extended over a varying gravitational potential exhibit temperature gradients while in thermal equilibrium -- conflicts with ordinary classical thermodynamics. In this paper we try to better understand this effect from a foundational perspective. We make five claims. First, as Tolman knew, it was Einstein who first discovered the effect, and furthermore, Einstein's derivation helps us appreciate how robust it is. Second, the standard interpretation of the effect in terms of 'local temperature' leads to the breakdown of much of classical thermodynamics. Third, one can rescue thermodynamics by using Einstein's preferred interpretation in terms of the 'wahre Temperatur' -- what we'll call global temperature -- but it too has some costs. Fourth, the effect is perhaps best understood in terms of clocks as opposed to energy loss. Fifth, inspired by a proposal of Einstein's elsewhere, we sketch an interpretation of the effect in terms of a third novel temperature, which we call the 'wahre-local temperature'. On this view, temperature -- and thermodynamics -- is defined only in relation to local clocks. In sum, we view the fragmentation of temperature in thermodynamics as a natural and expected result of the fragmentation of time in general relativity. 

Much of the century-old debate surrounding the status of thermodynamics in relativity has centered on the search for a suitably relativistic temperature; recent work by Chua (2023) and Chua and Callender (forthcoming) have suggested that the classical temperature concept -- consilient as it is in classical settings -- 'falls apart' in relativity. However, these discussions typically assume an unproblematic Lorentz transformation for -- specifically, the Lorentz invariance of -- the pressure concept. Here I argue that, just like the classical temperature, the classical concept of pressure breaks down in relativistic settings. I discuss how this might suggest a new thermodynamic limit -- a u -> 0 limit -- without which an unambiguous thermodynamic description of systems doesn't emerge.

Electromagnetism is the paradigm case of a theory that satisfies relativistic locality.  This can be proven by demonstrating that, once the theory’s laws are imposed, the state of a region fixes what happens in a certain portion of the future: the contracting light-cone with that region as its base.  The Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations meet the same standard.  We show that this standard can also be applied to quantum field theory (without collapse), examining two different ways of assigning states (reduced density matrices) to regions of space.  Our preferred method begins from field wave functionals and judges quantum field theory to be local.  Another method begins from particle wave functions (states in Fock space) and leads to either non-locality or an inability to assign states to regions, depending on the choice of creation operators.  We take this analysis of Everettian (no collapse) quantum field theory to show that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is local at the fundamental level.  We argue that this fundamental locality is compatible with either local or global (non-local) accounts of the non-fundamental branching of worlds, countering an objection that has been raised to the Sebens-Carroll derivation of the Born Rule from self-locating uncertainty.

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly proposed as scalable solutions to the global mental health crisis. But their deployment in psychiatric contexts raises a distinctive ethical concern: the problem of atypicality. Because LLMs generate outputs based on population-level statistical regularities, their responses—while typically appropriate for general users—may be dangerously inappropriate when interpreted by psychiatric patients, who often exhibit atypical cognitive or interpretive patterns. We argue that standard mitigation strategies, such as prompt engineering or fine-tuning, are insufficient to resolve this structural risk. Instead, we propose dynamic contextual certification (DCC): a staged, reversible and context-sensitive framework for deploying LLMs in psychiatry, inspired by clinical translation and dynamic safety models from artificial intelligence governance. DCC reframes chatbot deployment as an ongoing epistemic and ethical process that prioritises interpretive safety over static performance benchmarks. Atypicality, we argue, cannot be eliminated—but it can, and must, be proactively managed.

In Everettian quantum mechanics, justifications for the Born rule appeal to self-locating uncertainty or decision theory. Such justifications have focused exclusively on a pure-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a wavefunction. Recent works in quantum foundations suggest that it is viable to consider a mixed-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a (mixed-state) density matrix. Here, we discuss the conceptual foundations for decoherence and branching in a mixed-state multiverse, and extend arguments for the Born rule to this setting. This extended framework provides a unification of `classical' and `quantum' probabilities, and additional theoretical benefits, for the Everettian picture.

A family of arguments for black hole evaporation relies on conservation laws, defined through symmetries represented by Killing vector fields which exist globally or asymptotically. However, these symmetries often rely on the idealizations of stationarity and asymptotic flatness, respectively. In non-stationary or non-asymptotically-flat spacetimes where realistic black holes evaporate, the requisite Killing fields typically do not exist. Can we `de-idealize' these idealizations, and subsequently the associated arguments for black hole evaporation? Here, I critically examine the strategy of using `approximately Killing' fields to de-idealize black hole spacetimes and approximately extend conservation laws to non-idealized cases. I argue that this approach encounters significant challenges, undermining the use of these idealizations to justify the evaporation of realistic -- rather than idealized -- black holes, and raising questions about the justified use of such idealizations.

Preparing general relativity for quantization in the Hamiltonian approach leads to the `problem of time,' rendering the world fundamentally timeless. One proposed solution is the `thermal time hypothesis,' which defines time in terms of states representing systems in thermal equilibrium. On this view, time is supposed to emerge thermodynamically even in a fundamentally timeless context. Here, I develop the worry that the thermal time hypothesis requires dynamics -- and hence time -- to get off the ground, thereby running into worries of circularity. 

Taking the formal analogies between black holes and classical thermodynamics seriously seems to first require that classical thermodynamics applies in relativistic regimes. Yet, by scrutinizing how classical temperature is extended into special relativity, I argue that it falls apart. I examine four consilient procedures for establishing the classical temperature: the Carnot process, the thermometer, kinetic theory, and black-body radiation. I show how their relativistic counterparts demonstrate no such consilience in defining relativistic temperature. As such, classical temperature doesn’t appear to survive a relativistic extension. I suggest two interpretations for this situation: eliminativism akin to simultaneity, or pluralism akin to rotation.

Lakatos’s analysis of progress and degeneration in the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes is well-known. Less known, however, are his thoughts on degeneration in Proofs and Refutations. I propose and motivate two new criteria for degeneration based on the discussion in Proofs and Refutations – superfluity and authoritarianism. I show how these criteria augment the account in Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, providing a generalized Lakatosian account of progress and degeneration. I then apply this generalized account to a key transition point in the history of entropy – the transition to an information-theoretic interpretation of entropy – by assessing Jaynes’s 1957 paper on information theory and statistical mechanics.

​Programs in quantum gravity often claim that time emerges from fundamentally timeless physics. In the semiclassical time program time arises only after approximations are taken. Here we ask what justifies taking these approximations and show that time seems to sneak in when answering this question. This raises the worry that the approach is either unjustified or circular in deriving time from no–time.

Conventional wisdom holds that the von Neumann entropy corresponds to thermodynamic entropy, but Hemmo and Shenker (2006) have recently argued against this view by attacking von Neumann's (1955) argument. I argue that Hemmo and Shenker's arguments fail due to several misunderstandings: about statistical mechanical and  thermodynamic domains of applicability, about the nature of mixed states, and about the role of approximations in physics. As a result, their arguments fail in all cases: in the single-particle case, the finite-particles case, and the infinite-particles case.

Explainability algorithms such as LIME have enabled machine learning systems to adopt transparency and fairness, which are important qualities in commercial use cases. However, recent work has shown that LIME's naive sampling strategy can be exploited by an adversary to conceal biased, harmful behavior. We propose to make LIME more robust by training a generative adversarial network to sample more realistic synthetic data which the explainer uses to generate explanations. Our experiments demonstrate that our proposed method demonstrates an increase in accuracy across three real-world datasets in detecting biased, adversarial behavior compared to vanilla LIME. This is achieved while maintaining comparable explanation quality, with up to 99.94% in top-1 accuracy in some cases.

The laws of classical logic are taken to be logical truths, which in turn are taken to hold objectively. However, we might question our faith in these truths: why are they true? One general approach, proposed by Putnam and more recently Dickson or Maddy, is to adopt empiricism about logic. On this view, logical truths are true because they are true of the world alone – this gives logical truths an air of objectivity. Putnam and Dickson both take logical truths to be true in virtue of the world’s structure, given by our best empirical theory, quantum mechanics. This assumes a determinate logical structure of the world given by quantum mechanics. Here, I argue that this assumption is false, and that the world’s logical structure, and hence the related ‘true’ logic, are underdetermined. This leads to what I call empirical conventionalism.

The increasing demand for mental healthcare and the persistent shortfall in supply for mental healthcare providers creates a problem of access, something that large language models (LLMs) seem poised to ameliorate. However, we sketch out some potential ethical risks which may arise for LLM-powered psychiatry, starting from LLMs' back-end stochastic nature, to hyperparameter tuning, fine-tuning and prompting. We end with some questions about whether LLMs can really resolve the problem of access.