About
I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the project The
Causal Power of Information in a Quantum World at the University
of Queensland and visitor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. I was previously a postdoc on the project
New Agendas for the Study of Time:
Connecting the Disciplines at the University of
Sydney's Centre for Time, researching on
the philosophy and physics of the arrow of time. In 2013, I achieved
my PhD in Philosophy at the University of Bristol
under the supervision of James Ladyman.
I work on conceptual issues concerning time, causation and explanation, particularly what it means for time to 'have a direction' and what this has to do with various time symmetries and asymmetries in philosophy and physics. I have some unusual views on the distinction between past, present and future (including a stubborn belief that the past is as 'open' as the future), and an interest in novel perspectives on standard philosophical problems offered by quantum foundations. In a nearby possible world I make my living as a drummer.
I work on conceptual issues concerning time, causation and explanation, particularly what it means for time to 'have a direction' and what this has to do with various time symmetries and asymmetries in philosophy and physics. I have some unusual views on the distinction between past, present and future (including a stubborn belief that the past is as 'open' as the future), and an interest in novel perspectives on standard philosophical problems offered by quantum foundations. In a nearby possible world I make my living as a drummer.
Projects
My current project investigates the causal nature of quantum information, with researchers in philosophy, and
theoretical and experimental physics. My work within the project concerns the applicability of different philosophical theories of causation to quantum mechanics and the metaphysics of quantum information.
My previous project concerns the study of time across philosophy and the sciences, with focus on physics and experimental psychology (and everything between).
Activites
Until recently, I organised the Sydney Foundations of Physics
seminar series and have organised/co-organised the following conferences:
Free Will and Retrocausality in a Quantum World (with Huw Price); Time
Symmetry: A Unified Approach (with Sam Baron);
The Present State of Presentism;
Conventional Principles in Science (with Milena Ivanova).
Teaching
I'm currently coordinating the following courses:
Online Publications
Research Articles
- 2013. A Relic of a Bygone Age? Causation, Time Symmetry and the Directionality Argument (with Alexander Reutlinger). Erkenntnis.
- 2012. On A- and B-Theoretic Elements of Branching Spacetimes. Synthese.
Works in Progress
- Pre-entanglement shows that individual quantum systems do not possess states (with David Miller).
- Causation and Time Reversal.
- 'Initial' Conditions and the Direction of Time.
- Supertemporal Ontology and the 'Triviality' Problem.
- The C Theory of Time.
PhD Thesis
- Towards a C Theory of Time: An Appraisal of the Physics and Metaphysics of Time Direction.
University of Bristol, 2013.
Talks
- Causation and Time Reversal.
- 'Initial' Conditions and the Direction of Time.
- Time: Inside and Out.
- Supertemporal Ontology and the 'Triviality' Problem.
- Explaining Time and Time Explaining.
- Does time have a direction?
- Difference-Making and the Direction of Time. (With Alexander Reutlinger.)
- Non-Reductive Naturalism about Time Direction?
- On Some Problems with A- and B-Theoretic Models of Branching Spacetime.
- Towards a C Theory of Time.
