106. Huw Price | Metaphysics, Decision

Can quantum “spookiness” be explained without nonlocal action if we take seriously the idea that later measurement choices can constrain earlier physical states?My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy.1. GuestHuw Price is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Bonn and an Emeritus Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His work has covered a wide range of topics, including metaphysics, physics and time, causation, probability, decision, language, and more.2. Interview SummaryHuw Price’s conversation ranges across the foundations of quantum theory, the nature of causation, and a broadly pragmatist stance toward metaphysics. He lays out the familiar problem: Bell-type correlations tempt us toward “spooky” nonlocal influence, but if we allow a correlation between measurement settings and underlying variables, two broad strategies open up. One is a common-cause story often labeled “superdeterminism”; the other is a genuinely retrocausal or “input-dependent” approach, where later measurement choices influence earlier physical states, so the apparent nonlocality can be replaced by a “zigzag” influence that stays within light cones. Price argues this is attractive partly because it can preserve relativity by avoiding spacelike action and privileged frames, even if it still feels counterintuitive in a “temporal nonlocality” sense.From there, Price connects retrocausality to a more general point about what we should demand from “causation.” He notes that some philosophers treat forward-directedness as definitional, but he emphasizes that causation’s link to rational agency (means–ends reasoning) is at least as central, and he invokes Michael Dummett’s discussion of whether it even makes sense to deliberate “for the sake of” the past. Dummett’s idea of “quasi-causation” (a deliberately loosened notion) becomes a template for how retrocausality might be intelligible without forcing a terminological fight over the word “cause.” He also ties this to decision-theoretic themes, using simple cases to illustrate how an agent’s deliberative standpoint partitions the world into what’s held fixed versus what’s treated as choice-sensitive, a partition that usually tracks past versus future but need not do so in exotic setups.On the metaphilosophical side, Price frames his “neo-pragmatist / expressivist” approach as shifting attention from metaphysical structure to the role our concepts play for creatures like us: for causation, the illuminating questions are psychological/functional (“why do we think this way?”) rather than ontological (“what is the relation?”). He’s especially skeptical about familiar “heavy-duty” metaphysical disputes, suggesting that questions like whether tables are “really” collections of particles, or whether ordinary objects are spacetime-extended worms versus wholly present at instants, often lack an interesting fact of the matter and can dissolve into interchangeable frameworks. He then criticizes a two-stage “Canberra/Cambridge Plan”-style methodology (Ramsey-sentence first, then hunt for realizers) on the grounds that it leans on robust semantic notions like reference, truthmaking, and coreference in ways that risk indeterminacy or circularity for a naturalist. He closes by defending philosophy’s value as a transferable toolkit of careful distinctions and conceptual scrutiny, especially at the foundations of other disciplines like physics, alongside its broader normative and social contributions.3. Interview Chapters00:00 - Introduction00:45 - Quantum mechanics and retrocausality08:02 - Still spooky?11:48 - Superdeterminism13:52 - Causation24:22 - Decision and causation27:39 - Deliberating over the past33:25 - EDT and the past37:27 - Retrocausality and free will40:07 - Pragmatism46:07 - Metaphysical questions51:41 - Modern metaphysics56:03 - Value of philosophy58:59 - Conclusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fric.substack.com/subscribe