The Theory of Indistinguishables : A Search for Explanatory Principles Below the Level of Physics - A.F. Parker-Rhodes

The Theory of Indistinguishables

A Search for Explanatory Principles Below the Level of Physics

By: A.F. Parker-Rhodes

Hardcover | 30 November 1981

At a Glance

Hardcover


$169.00

or 4 interest-free payments of $42.25 with

 or 

Ships in 7 to 10 business days

It is widely assumed that there exist certain objects which can in no way be distinguished from each other, unless by their location in space or other reference-system. Some of these are, in a broad sense, 'empirical objects', such as electrons. Their case would seem to be similar to that of certain mathematical 'objects', such as the minimum set of manifolds defining the dimensionality of an R -space. It is therefore at first sight surprising that there exists no branch of mathematics, in which a third parity-relation, besides equality and inequality, is admitted; for this would seem to furnish an appropriate model for application to such instances as these. I hope, in this work, to show that such a mathematics in feasible, and could have useful applications if only in a limited field. The concept of what I here call 'indistinguishability' is not unknown in logic, albeit much neglected. It is mentioned, for example, by F. P. Ramsey [1] who criticizes Whitehead and Russell [2] for defining 'identity' in such a way as to make indistinguishables identical. But, so far as I can discover, no one has made any systematic attempt to open up the territory which lies behind these ideas. What we find, on doing so, is a body of mathematics, offering only a limited prospect of practical usefulness, but which on the theoretical side presents a strong challenge to conventional ideas.

More in Philosophy of Science

God, the Science, the Evidence - Michel-Yves Bollore

RRP $48.99

$38.75

21%
OFF
Prove It : A Scientific Guide for the Post-Truth Era - Elizabeth Finkel
The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
Creative Machines : AI, Art & Us - Maya Ackerman

RRP $57.95

$44.75

23%
OFF
Meditations : The Philosophy Classic - Marcus Aurelius

RRP $24.95

$21.75

13%
OFF
Bernard Stiegler : Memories of the Future - Bart  Buseyne
The Architecture of Forever : Governing Life After Aging - Amos Behana
Human/Nature : On life in a wild world - Jane Rawson

RRP $34.99

$29.99

14%
OFF
Life 3.0 : Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence - Max Tegmark
The Logic of Scientific Discovery : Routledge Classics - Karl Popper
The Poetics of Space : Penguin Classics - Gaston Bachelard

RRP $32.99

$23.75

28%
OFF
Man-Made : How the bias of the past is being built into the future - Tracey Spicer
Reality+ : Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy - David J. Chalmers