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Counterfactual Definiteness and Local Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Brian Skyrms
Brian Skyrms*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of California at Irvine
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Abstract

Bell's Theorem is proved for locality and conservation formulated in terms of subjunctive conditionals with chance consequents, rather than the usual conditional probability formulation. This brings into sharp focus the minimal counterfactual assumptions needed for Bell's theorem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 43 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

An earlier version of this note was circulated in 1978 and formed part of a lecture, “Randomness and Physical Necessity” delivered at the University of Pittsburgh in January 1979. For helpful comments, I am indebted to Nancy Cartwright, Henry Krips, Abner Shimony, and the referees for this journal. David Malament and Jon Jarrett caused me to improve my formulation of Conservation. Arthur Fine called my attention to Suppes and Zanotti (1976). Bas van Fraassen called my attention to Herbert and Karush (1978). van Fraassen's own discussion of Bell's theorem, which will address some of the concerns of this paper, will appear in a future issue of Synthese.

References

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