Bremen 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 2: Philosophie der Physik II

AGPhil 2.5: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 16. März 2017, 10:30–11:00, GW2 B2900

Dualities in physics: A conceptual discussion — •Keizo Matsubara — Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago

It is often difficult to interpret what a physical theory is supposed to tell us about reality. For instance when dealing with so-called “dualities” in modern physics. When a duality is at hand there exist dual descriptions, which may seem to describe completely different worlds with different and conflicting accounts of what the world is like. Despite this they entail the same empirical predictions. A standard view among physicists is that dual descriptions portray the same underlying reality. While this can be contested, I will defend this standard view for a large class of dualities and articulate what it entails regarding what kind of ontology we might infer from them. Given the prevalence of dualities in modern physics it is important to try to better understand how we should interpret what these theories - if taken seriously - tell us about the world. In the case of the dualities here considered a key aspect of making sense of them is to clarify how the classical and quantum formulations of the theories are connected and how different classical pictures may arise in relevant limits. Thus different effective ontology may arise in different solutions.