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Isolation, not locality
Author(s) -
Demarest Heather,
Hicks Michael Townsen
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/phpr.12731
Subject(s) - quantum nonlocality , locality , epistemology , isolation (microbiology) , constraint (computer aided design) , point (geometry) , order (exchange) , philosophy of science , space (punctuation) , philosophy , theoretical physics , physics , mathematics , economics , quantum mechanics , quantum entanglement , microbiology and biotechnology , quantum , biology , linguistics , geometry , finance
Abstract There is a long tradition of preferring local theories to ones that posit lawful or causal influence at a spacetime distance. In this paper, we argue against this preference. We argue that nonlocality is scientifically unobjectionable and that nonlocal theories can be known. Scientists can gather evidence for them and confirm them in much the same way that they do for local theories. We think these observations point to a deeper constraint on scientific theorizing and experimentation: the (quasi‐) isolation of causal or lawful influence. We argue that this requirement ought to replace the locality desideratum in science. We then explore the possibility that the order of explanation has been reversed: perhaps it is isolatable influence that determines what counts as local in the first place.