Absolute representations and modern physics

Journal article

Abstract:: Famously, Adrian Moore has argued that an absolute representation of reality is possible: that it is possible to represent reality from no particular point of view. Moreover, Moore believes that such absolute representations are a desideratum of physics. Recently, however, debates in the philosophy of physics have arisen regarding the apparent impossibility of an absolute representation of certain aspects of nature in light of our current best theories of physics. Throughout this article, we take gravitational energy as a particular case study of an aspect of nature that seemingly does not admit of an absolute representation. There is, therefore, a prima facie tension between Moore’s a priori case on the one hand, and the state-of-play in modern physics on the other. This article overcomes this tension by demonstrating how, when formulated in the correct way, modern physics admits of an absolute representation of gravitational energy after all. In so doing, the article offers a detailed case study of Moore’s argument for absolute representation, clarifying its structure and bringing it into contact with the distinction drawn by philosophers of physics between coordinate-freedom and coordinate-independence, as well as the philosophy of spacetime physics.

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Language:: English
Keywords:: pseudotensors

geometric objects

general relativity

absolute representations

gravitational energy

fibre bundles
Pubs id:: 2090978
Local pid:: pubs:2090978
Deposit date:: 2025-02-21

Copyright holder:: Jacobs et al.
Rights statement:: Copyright © 2025, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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