Humean Supervenience and Dense Worlds

Assume that all facts in our world are determined by the distribution of basic intrinsic properties at space-time points. Some of the space-time points in our world might be empty, that is, no basic intrinsic property might be instantiated there (either by some particle or by the point itself). If so, consider another world which is exactly like ours except that at all these empty points some basic intrinsic property is instantiated (say, the basic intrinsic property that plays the role of a certain mass in our world -- "some mass", for short) which however has no effect at all on what goes on in the world. (So if that property is some mass, the laws of nature at this world must be different from the laws at our world since our laws don't accept masses that have no effects.) By the definition of "intrinsic" and a rather weak principle of recombination, such a "dense" world is possible. And obviously, it is in principle indistinguishable from our world.

Again by the definition of "intrinsic" and recombination, we can rearrange the distribution of basic intrinsic properties in that dense world. For example, there is another such world in which some mass and some spin have traded places. This world is also indistinguishable from our world. To distinguish between rearranged worlds we would have to know which roles are played by which basic intrinsic properties, but we can only identify basic properties bye the roles they play. (I ignore any alleged direct acquaintance with basic intrinsic properties. Unless we are acquainted with all of them this does not make an essential difference.)

There are further worlds where one role is played by several basic intrinsic properties. For example, at half of those points we regard as empty some idle mass might be instantiated, whereas at the other half there is some idle spin. At yet another world, some spin and some mass trade places every second. And so on. Of course, stated in terms of basic intrinsic properties, the laws governing such worlds are strange and complicated, but I can see no reason to rule them out.

So in the end, for every dense distribution of basic intrinsic properties there is some world with this distribution which is nevertheless indistinguishable from our world.

Now consider a world that is distinguishable from our world, say one in which Al Gore won the presidency (not just the election). Again, there is some dense world indistinguishable from this one. By the result of the last paragraph, the distribution of basic intrinsic properties at this world is also the distribution of basic intrinsic properties of a world that is indistinguishable from our world. Hence the distribution of basic intrinsic properties does not settle all facts about dense worlds. In fact, it does not settle any fact we care about, like who won the presidency.

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