Heidelberg 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 10: Quantum Mechanics II

AGPhil 10.1: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 24. März 2022, 14:00–14:30, AGPhil-H14

How to distinguish between indistinguishable particles — •Michael te Vrugt — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Center for Soft Nanoscience, Philosophisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany

A long and intense debate in philosophy is concerned with the question whether there can be haecceistic differences between possible worlds, that is, nonqualitative differences that only arise from different de re representations. According to haecceitism, it can give rise to a different situation if the positions of two qualitatively identical particles are exchanged, while according to anti-haecceitism, this is not the case. It has been suggested that classical statistical mechanics might provide evidence for one of these positions. However, most philosophers of physics argue that it does not. In this work [1], I show that order-preserving dynamics, a novel method from statistical mechanics developed for the description of nonergodic systems, changes this situation: It is intrinsically haecceistic and makes different experimental predictions than non-haecceistic alternatives. Thereby, it provides an empirical argument for the existence of modality de re.

[1] M. te Vrugt, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (forthcoming), https://doi.org/10.1086/718495