Jantzen, Benjamin C. (2020) Ad hoc identity, Goyal complementarity, and counting quantum phenomena. [Preprint]
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Abstract
I introduce a thin concept of ad hoc identity -- distinct from metaphysical accounts of either relative identity or absolute identity -- and an equally thin account of concepts and their content. According to the latter minimalist view of concepts, the content of a concept has behavioral consequences (though it may not be identical to those consequences), and so content can be bounded if not determined by appeal to linguistic and psychological evidence. In the case of counting practices, this evidence suggests that the number concept depends on a notion of identity at least as strong as ad hoc identity. In the context of nonrelativistic QM in particular, all of the counting procedures appealed to in the existing literature on nonindividuality are shown to involve ad hoc identity. I then show that Goyal Complementarity (Goyal 2019) and the associated derivation of a strong symmetrization principle in QM can be understood in terms ad hoc identity. Specifically, persistence and non-persistence models of quantum processes are seen to be complementary in the sense that they involve two relations of ad hoc identity that occasionally overlap in empirically meaningful ways. Finally, I attempt to draw out consequences for theories of nonindividuality from the above conceptual analysis. The upshot is that counting and definite cardinality are incompatible with nonindividuality, and that none of the counting procedures cited for quantum phenomena offer positive support for an interpretation in terms of nonindividuals.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | To appear in _Individuals and Non-Individuals in Quantum Mechanics_, a volume in the Synthese Library. | ||||||
| Keywords: | particle individuality, identity, cardinality, nonindividual, complementarity | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics |
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| Depositing User: | Benjamin Jantzen | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 07 Dec 2020 15:53 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 07 Dec 2020 15:53 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 18487 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics |
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| Date: | 2020 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/18487 |
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