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Objects or Events?: Towards an Ontology for Quantum Field Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Andreas Bartels
Andreas Bartels*
Affiliation:
University of Paderborn
*
†Universität-GH Paderborn, Fachbereich 1—Philosophie, Warburger Straβe 100, D-33095 Paderborn, Germany.
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Abstract

The recent work of Paul Teller and Sunny Auyang in the philosophy of Quantum Field Theory (QFT) has stimulated the search for the fundamental entities in this theory. In QFT, the classical notion of a particle collapses. The theory does not only exclude classical, i.e., spatiotemporally identifiable particles, but it makes particles of the same type conceptually indistinguishable. Teller and Auyang have proposed competing ersatz-ontologies to account for the ‘loss of particles’: field quanta vs. field events. Both ontologies, however, suffer from serious defects. While quanta lack numerical identity, spatiotemporal localizability, and independence of basis-representations, events—if understood as concrete measurement events—are related to the theory only statistically. I propose an alternative solution: The entities of QFT are events of the type ‘Quantum system, S, is in quantum state, Ψ‘. These are not point events, but Davidsonian events, i.e., they can be identified by their location within the causal net of the world.

Type
Foundations of Statistical Physics, Spacetime Theories, and Quantum Field Theory
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S170 - S184
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I am very grateful to Sunny Auyang, Paul Teller, and Richard Healey for discussions and valuable criticism at the PSA meeting. I also owe much to discussions with Daniela Bailer-Jones.

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