A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), “it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed, according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time.” Such an extraordinary feature may appear unattainable in any realistic theory of physics. In this talk, I show how it can be achieved in a universe like ours. First, I propose a definition of strong determinism and explain how it differs from standard determinism and super-determinism. Next, I discuss its attractions, implications, and some toy examples. The possibility of strong determinism has interesting consequences for explanation, causation, prediction, and modality. Finally, I show that Everettian quantum mechanics, with a new version of the Past Hypothesis, provides an easy route to strong determinism. On the new theory that I call the Everettian Wentaculus, the quantum state of the multiverse is a fundamental mixed state with exactly one possible history. As a consequence of physical laws, the history of the multiverse could not have been different. (The paper version is forthcoming in Philosophers’ Imprint; the preprint is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.02886)

Speaker 
Prof. Eddy Chen
Associate Professor of Philosophy, the University of California, San Diego

Delivered in English.
All are welcome.

Joining the Seminar face-to-face:
Limited seats for face-to-face seminar. Registrations will be handled on a first come, first served basis.
Register by 15 September 2023: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13671712

Joining the Seminar online:
No registration is required.
Link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/94822592694
Meeting ID: 948 2259 2694

On 4 September, more than 200 freshmen and over 40 faculty members joined together at the Welcoming Tea Reception. The Faculty Dean, Professor Max Xiaobing Tang delivered a welcome address, sending our warmest welcome to all freshmen. He encouraged students not only to study, but also to participate actively in university, faculty, programme activities, and seize overseas learning opportunities to make the most of university life.

Associate Dean (Student Affairs), Professor Peggy Mok, Associate Dean (Education), Professor Jette Hansen Edwards and Associate Dean (Publicity and Outreach), Professor Wong Nim Yan shared some useful information with the new students to help plan their study journey ahead.

The Faculty looks froward to diving into many amazing experiences together with all the faculty members and students in the upcoming academic year!

Prof. Fan Yang (Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County [UMBC]) will give a talk at 16:30 PM on September 28 (Thursday). The seminar discusses two interconnected human-made nonhuman entities stemming from Shenzhen, China’s first Special Economic Zone, that have become dominant figures in mapping the city’s – and by extension, China’s – future: the robot and the drone. Prof. Yang brings an interdisciplinary, cultural studies approach to the multiple meaning-making practices that engage with these two objects; both participate in enacting the vision for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay as an extension of the success of Shenzhen. These practices simultaneously normalize aspirations for a future fueled by the power of nonhuman technological agents while offering glimpses into the uneven power relations between different humans that underpin such future making. At the same time, they also point to the emergent possibilities of meaning making that conjoin the human and the nonhuman.
 

Speaker 
Prof. Fan Yang (Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County [UMBC])

Dr. Fan Yang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communication Studies and a faculty affiliate in Asian Studies, Global Studies, and the Ph.D. program in Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She is the author of Faked in China: Nation Branding, Counterfeit Culture, and Globalization (2016). Yang has published widely in cultural studies, urban studies, and transnational media studies. Her new book, Disorienting Politics: Chimerican Media and Transpacific Entanglements, is forthcoming in 2024 from the University of Michigan Press.

This lecture focuses on the discourses on “conversion" contained in late imperial Daoist biographies. It begins by introducing a tentative theoretical framework that establishes the definitions of religion and conversion as the foundational bedrock for analysing the historical data. Subsequently, it scrutinises an array of biographical accounts that describe the processes whereby individuals from diverse social backgrounds decided to embrace a Daoist-inspired lifestyle. These accounts will be classified according to a specific taxonomy based on the declared reasons of the conversion. The lecture will explore how late imperial society comprehended and attributed meaning to different modalities of conversion to Daoism.

 

Speaker 
Jacopo Scarin（甘雪松教授, 威尼斯大學兼任教授）
Jacopo Scarin specialised in Daoism at the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2017, defending a doctoral dissertation on the history of the Tongbai Palace in Zhejiang Province. He has published a series of articles in peer-reviewed journals and, in 2023, his first monograph based on his doctoral dissertation was released. His research interests encompass the history of Daoism during the Qing dynasty, scriptural exegesis and the religiosity of the Chinese diaspora in Italy. He is currently conducting research on conversion in late imperial China and holds positions as adjunct professor and researcher at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

At its height the Mongol Empire stretched from the Pacific coast to the borders of Hungary, and from the Indian Ocean to the forests of Siberia. The sheer size of the Mongol conquests was astonishing and, during the course of the thirteenth century, many societies were subjected to their rule. This talk focuses on one major region within the Mongol Empire – the Near East. It explores the wars of conquest that brought much of the area under Mongol dominion, and later the successful resistance offered by the Mamluk Empire which brought the Mongol war machine to a halt. Alongside the wars of this era, we shall consider how communities sought to survive under Mongol rule and how they were treated by their new overlords. We shall consider how the Mongol Empire enabled the sharing of technologies across the contingent and also the part they played in the spread of the Black Death.

Speaker
Prof. Nicholas MORTON
School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University

ZOOM Meeting ID: 990 8868 4183
Meeting link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/99088684183

Speaker 
Prof. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra is currently Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Oxford and Colin Prestige Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Oriel College, where he has been the Senior Tutor since 2019. He studied Philosophy as an undergraduate in the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Argentina, and then went to do an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where he worked under the supervision of D H Mellor. After the PhD he was a Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, and then he had his first permanent appointment at the University of Edinburgh. From there he moved to Oxford and in 2005 he moved to a joint appointment between the University of Nottingham and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires. In 2007 he moved back to Oxford, where he took up his current position.

He has published extensively in Metaphysics and Early Modern Philosophy. His main publications are Resemblance Nominalism; a solution to the Problem of Universals (2002), Leibniz’s Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (2014), Leibniz’s Discourse on Metaphysics; translation and commentary (2020) and Two Arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles (2022), all published with Oxford University Press.

Joining the Talks Online (No registration is needed):
Zoom Meeting ID: 962 7437 7535
Link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/96274377535?pwd=cWI0WkhXa3p6Z1RIL3hBcVY5YWtFZz09

Speaker 
Prof. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra
Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Oxford
Colin Prestige Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Oriel College

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra is currently Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Oxford and Colin Prestige Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Oriel College, where he has been the Senior Tutor since 2019. He studied Philosophy as an undergraduate in the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Argentina, and then went to do an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where he worked under the supervision of D H Mellor. After the PhD he was a Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, and then he had his first permanent appointment at the University of Edinburgh. From there he moved to Oxford and in 2005 he moved to a joint appointment between the University of Nottingham and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires. In 2007 he moved back to Oxford, where he took up his current position.

He has published extensively in Metaphysics and Early Modern Philosophy. His main publications are Resemblance Nominalism; a solution to the Problem of Universals (2002), Leibniz’s Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (2014), Leibniz’s Discourse on Metaphysics; translation and commentary (2020) and Two Arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles (2022), all published with Oxford University Press.

Joining the Talks Online (No registration is needed):
Zoom Meeting ID: 962 7437 7535
Link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/96274377535?pwd=cWI0WkhXa3p6Z1RIL3hBcVY5YWtFZz09

Taking the advantage of Professor Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra’s Tang Chun-I Visiting
Professorship at CUHK, this one-day workshop will bring together Rodriguez-Pereyra and five HK-based scholars in the field of analytic metaphysics to engage in profound discussions, share groundbreaking insights, and explore the fundamental questions that shape our understanding of reality. Throughout the day, our speakers will engage in presentations and discussions that traverse a rich array of cutting-edge topics in analytic metaphysics, including but not limited to grounding, identity, modality, and properties.

Keynote Speaker:
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Oxford)

Invited Speakers:
Andrew Brenner (HKBU)
Tien-Chun Lo (CUHK)
Dan Marshall (Lingnan)
Nick Rimell (CUHK)
James Dominic Rooney (HKBU)