Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

David Chalmers (2012) describes a familiar kind of skeptical scenario:   “There is a computer running a complete simulation of the physical universe...with concretely implemented data structures for each [object], and computational properties of these structures for each [ordinary property].  When we take it that one [object] affects another in our world, the data structure corresponding to the first [object] really does affect the data structure corresponding to the second...All in all: the computer instantiates all of the nomic and causal structure of the universe it is simulating.”  How can we know that we’re not in this sort of situation?  One thing to notice is how similar this challenge is to the inverted spectrum problem in the philosophy of mind.  David Lewis (2009) suggested a general template that fits both: Quidditism + Combinatorialism implies Skepticism.  Combinatorialism is the Humean thesis that, roughly speaking, anything can cause anything else.
Chalmers himself advocates a structuralist response to skepticism that denies Quidditism; I explore an approach that challenges Combinatorialism.  More specifically, I suggest, certain necessary truths about material objects confer an explanatory advantage on our ordinary picture of the world, giving us a reason to reject the skeptic’s thoroughgoing alternative.