4,043 research outputs found
The roads to non-individuals (and how not to read their maps)
Ever since its beginnings, standard quantum mechanics has been associated
with a metaphysical view according to which the theory deals with
non-individual objects, i.e., objects deprived of individuality in some sense
of the term. We shall examine the grounds of the claim according to which
quantum mechanics is so closely connected with a metaphysics of
non-individuals. In particular, we discuss the attempts to learn the required
`metaphysical lessons' required by quantum mechanics coming from four distinct
roads: from the formalism of the theory, treating separately the case of the
physics and the underlying logic; from the ontology of the theory, understood
as the furniture of the world according to the theory; and, at last, we analyze
whether a metaphysics of non-individuals is indispensable from a purely
metaphysical point of view. We argue that neither non-individuality nor
individuality is not to be found imposed on us in any of these levels so that
it should be seen as a metaphysical addition to the theory, rather than as a
lesson from it.Comment: Forthcoming in J. R. B. Arenhart, R. W. Arroyo (eds.), Non-Reflexive
Logics, Non-Individuals, and the Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: Essays in
Honour of the Philosophy of D\'ecio Krause, Springer, Synthese Library 476,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31840-5_
On Time chez Dummett
I discuss three connections between Dummett's writings about time and
philosophical aspects of physics.
The first connection (Section 2) arises from remarks of Dummett's about the
different relations of observation to time and to space. The main point is
uncontroversial and applies equally to classical and quantum physics. It
concerns the fact that perceptual processing is so rapid, compared with the
typical time-scale on which macroscopic objects change their observable
properties, that it engenders the idea of a 'common now', spread across space.
The other two connections are specific to quantum theory, as interpreted
along the lines of Everett. So for these two connections, the physics side is
controversial, just as the philosophical side is.
In Section 3, I connect the subjective uncertainty before an Everettian
'splitting' of the multiverse to Dummett's suggestion, inspired by McTaggart,
that a complete, i.e. indexical-free description of a temporal reality is
impossible. And in Section 4, I connect Barbour's denial that time is real---a
denial along the lines of Everett, rather than McTaggart---to Dummett's
suggestion that statements about the past are not determinately true or false,
because they are not effectively decidable.Comment: 25 pages; no figure
The structure of causal sets
More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of
physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently
precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a
paradigmatic case of a physical theory predestined to be interpreted in
structuralist terms. It is shown how employing structuralism lends itself to a
natural interpretation of the physical meaning of causal sets theory.
Conversely, the conceptually exceptionally clear case of causal sets is used as
a foil to illustrate how a mathematically informed rigorous conceptualization
of structure serves to identify structures in physical theories. Furthermore, a
number of technical issues infesting structuralist interpretations of physical
theories such as difficulties with grounding the identity of the places of
highly symmetrical physical structures in their relational profile and what may
resolve these difficulties can be vividly illustrated with causal sets.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure
Is mereology empirical? Composition for fermions
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.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur
'Reflexive Monism' versus 'Complementarism': An analysis and criticism of the conceptual groundwork of Max Velmans's 'reflexive model' of consciousness
From 1990 on, the London psychologist Max Velmans developed a novel approach to (phenomenal) consciousness according to which an experience of an object is phenomenologically identical to an object as experienced. On the face of it I agree; but unlike Velmans I argue that the latter should be understood as comparable, not to a Kantian, but rather to a noematic ‘phenomenon’ in the Husserlian sense. Consequently, I replace Velmans’s reflexive model with a complementaristic approach in a strict sense which leaves no room for either monistic or dualistic views (including Velmans’s ontological monism and his dual-aspect interpretation of complementarity) and hence requires us to radically reinterpret the concept of psychophysical causation
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