Related papers: Disregarding the 'Hole Argument'
We make some remarks on the mathematics and metaphysics of the hole argument, in response to a recent article in this journal by Weatherall ([2018]). Broadly speaking, we defend the mainstream philosophical literature from the claim that…
The 'hole argument'(the English translation of German 'Lochbetrachtung') was formulated by Albert Einstein in 1913 in his search for a relativistic theory of gravitation. The hole argument was deemed to be based on a trivial error of…
I argue that the Hole Argument is based on a misleading use of the mathematical formalism of general relativity. If one is attentive to mathematical practice, I will argue, the Hole Argument is blocked.
The hole argument was developed by Einstein in 1913 while he was searching for a relativistic theory of gravitation. Einstein used the language of coordinate systems and coordinate invariance, rather than the language of manifolds and…
The celu of the philosophical literature on the hole argument is the 1987 paper by Earman \& Norton ["What Price Space-time Substantivalism? The Hole Story" Br. J. Phil. Sci.]. This paper has a well-known back-story, concerning work by…
In this two-part paper, we review, and then develop, the assessment of the hole argument for general relativity. This first Part reviews the literature hitherto, focussing on the philosophical aspects. It also introduces two main ideas we…
Arguing from his "hole" thought experiment, Einstein became convinced that, in cases in which the energy-momentum-tensor source vanishes in a spacetime hole, a solution to his general relativistic field equation cannot be uniquely…
This expository paper relates the Hole Argument in general relativity (GR) to the well-known theorem of Choquet-Bruhat and Geroch (1969) on the existence and uniqueness of globally hyperbolic solutions to the Einstein field equations. Like…
Einstein presented the Hole Argument against General Covariance, understood as invariance with respect to a change of coordinates, as a consequence of his initial failure to obtain covariant equations that, in the weak static limit, contain…
This paper reviews the hole argument as an argument against spacetime substantivalism. After a careful presentation of the argument itself I review possible responses.
The hole argument of general relativity threatens a radical and pernicious form of indeterminism. One natural response to the argument is that points belonging to different but isometric models should always be identified, or…
We argue that several apparently distinct responses to the hole argument, all invoking formal or mathematical considerations, should be viewed as a unified "mathematical response". We then consider and rebut two prominent critiques of the…
Upon reading Einstein's views on quantum incompleteness in publications or in his correspondence after 1935 (the EPR paradox), one gets a very intense feeling of deja-vu. Einstein presents a quantum hole argument, which somewhat reminds of…
For the past two decades, Einstein's Hole Argument (which deals with the apparent indeterminateness of general relativity due to the general covariance of the field equations) and its resolution in terms of Leibniz equivalence (the…
Stephen Toulmin once observed that `it has never been customary for philosophers to pay much attention to the rhetoric of mathematical debate'. Might the application of Toulmin's layout of arguments to mathematics remedy this oversight?…
It has been claimed that wormholes are just as good a prediction of Einstein's theory as black holes, but they are subject to severe restrictions from quantum field theory. The purpose of this paper is to show that the claim can be…
We argue that for the proof of Bell's theorem no assumptions about realism or free will are necessary. The key formula \[E(AB|a,b) = \int A(a,b,\lambda)B(a,b,\lambda)\rho(\lambda) d\lambda\] follows from the logic of plausible reasoning…
Nieuwenhuizen argued that there exists some "contextuality loophole" in Bell's theorem. This claim is unjustified. In Bell's theorem non-contextuality is not presupposed but derived from Einstein causality using the EPR argument.
Einstein identified singularities in spacetimes, such as at the Schwarzschild radius, where later relativists only find a coordinate system assigning multiple values to a single spacetime event. These differing judgments derive from…
Information theory is increasingly invoked by physicists concerned with fundamental physics, including black hole physics. But to what extent is the application of information theory in those contexts legitimate? Using the case of black…