Discerning Elementary Particles

Müller, Frederik; Seevinck, Michael

doi:10.1086/647486

Cited by 96 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…From this Saunders [9,12,13] concludes that fermions are physical individuals, albeit only weakly discernible ones. Muller and Seevinck extend this argument to bosons [10]. They observe that quite generally there exist irreflexive relations between the indices: operators that belong to different Hilbert spaces, indexed by different indices, always commute, whereas this is not the case for operators belonging to the same Hilbert space.…”

Section: Weak Discernibilitymentioning

confidence: 91%

“…The whole issue is therefore interpretation dependent; our discussion here stays within the standard interpretational framework adopted by most recent discussions about the individuality of identical particles. the individuality of identical particles to be a fundamental property itself ("haecceity", "fundamental thisness"), there may be the option of weakening Leibniz's principle by introducing a weak form of discernibility, based on the existence of irreflexive relations between the particles (see [2,5,15] for general discussion, [9,10,[12][13][14] for elaboration of the just-mentioned position, [3,4] for criticism).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How Classical Particles Emerge From the Quantum World

Dieks

Lubberdink

2010

Found Phys

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The symmetrization postulates of quantum mechanics (symmetry for bosons, antisymmetry for fermions) are usually taken to entail that quantum particles of the same kind (e.g., electrons) are all in exactly the same state and therefore indistinguishable in the strongest possible sense. These symmetrization postulates possess a general validity that survives the classical limit, and the conclusion seems therefore unavoidable that even classical particles of the same kind must all be in the same state-in clear conflict with what we know about classical particles. In this article we analyze the origin of this paradox. We shall argue that in the classical limit classical particles emerge, as new entities that do not correspond to the "particle indices" defined in quantum mechanics. Put differently, we show that the quantum mechanical symmetrization postulates do not pertain to particles, as we know them from classical physics, but rather to indices that have a merely formal significance. This conclusion raises the question of whether many discussions in the literature about the status of identical quantum particles have not been misguided.

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Section: Weak Discernibilitymentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Classical Particles Emerge From the Quantum World

Dieks

Lubberdink

2010

Found Phys

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“…Another interesting consequence is that in any non-GMWentangled joint state, any two individual fermions are discernible by monadic predicates (which Muller & Saunders (2008) call absolutely discernible). This is contrary to the orthodoxy in the quantum literature, in which bosons and fermions are taken to be either merely weakly discernible or utterly indiscernible (French & Redhead 1988;Butterfield 1993;Huggett 2003;French & Krause 2006;Muller & Saunders 2008;Muller & Seevinck 2009;Caulton 2013). But this orthodoxy relies on adopting an alternative interpretation of permutation invariance, in which we can still give physical meaning to the labels of the factor Hilbert spaces in the joint Hilbert space.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Is Mereology Empirical? Composition for Fermions.

Caulton¹

2016

Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics

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How best to think about quantum systems under permutation invariance is a question that has received a great deal of attention in the literature. But very little attention has been paid to taking seriously the proposal that permutation invariance reflects a representational redundancy in the formalism. Under such a proposal, it is far from obvious how a constituent quantum system is represented. Consequently, it is also far from obvious how quantum systems compose to form assemblies, i.e. what is the formal structure of their relations of parthood, overlap and fusion.In this paper, I explore one proposal for the case of fermions and their assemblies. According to this proposal, fermionic assemblies which are not entangled-in some heterodox, but natural sense of 'entangled'-provide a prima facie counterexample to classical mereology. This result is puzzling; but, I argue, no more intolerable than any other available interpretative option.

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“…It has been contended (Saunders 2006;Muller and Saunders 2008;Muller and Seevinck 2009) that quantum particles are not discernible on the basis of the "canonical" versions of PII -which only quantify over monadic properties -but are in fact discerned "weakly" by non-supervenient, irreflexive and symmetric relations such as "has opposite spin to" and, consequently, via some Leibnizian principle that takes relations of this type into account.…”

Section: The Argument From the Primacy Of Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is There a Compelling Argument for Ontic Structural Realism?

Morganti¹

2011

Philos. of Sci.

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Structural realism first emerged as an epistemological thesis aimed to avoid the so-called pessimistic meta-induction on the history of science. Some authors, however, suggested that the preservation of structure across theory-change is best explained by endorsing the metaphysical thesis that structure is all there is. While the possibility of this latter, "ontic" form of structural realism has been extensively debated, though, not much has been said concerning its justification. In this paper, I distinguish between two arguments in favour of ontic structural realism that can be reconstructed from the literature, and find both of them wanting. Matteo MorgantiDepartment of Philosophy University of Rome "Roma TRE" Via Ostiense, 234 00144 Rome Italy E-mail: mmorganti@uniroma3.it Word count: 4967 AbstractStructural realism first emerged as an epistemological thesis aimed to avoid the so-called pessimistic meta-induction on the history of science. Some authors, however, suggested that the preservation of structure across theory-change is best explained by endorsing the metaphysical thesis that structure is all there is. While the possibility of this latter, "ontic" form of structural realism has been extensively debated, though, not much has been said concerning its justification. In this paper, I distinguish between two arguments in favour of ontic structural realism that can be reconstructed from the literature, and find both of them wanting.

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Discerning Elementary Particles

Cited by 96 publications

References 21 publications

How Classical Particles Emerge From the Quantum World

How Classical Particles Emerge From the Quantum World

Is Mereology Empirical? Composition for Fermions.

Is There a Compelling Argument for Ontic Structural Realism?

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