From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Fri Feb 06 2009 - 09:37:56 MST
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 "Mike Dougherty" <msd001@gmail.com> said:
> How many electrons are there? One? More than one?
I never denied there were 2 bodies in that symmetrical room, but the
point is they are completely interchangeable with no way to even be sure
that a change had even happened. There is no change
objectively and there is no change subjectively. In that regard they are
just like electrons.
> how can you tell them apart? OK, the one on the left is
> different from the one on the right? Suppose I say I've
> rearranged their position, how do you verify if I'm lying?
I can’t tell if you’re lying because I can’t tell them apart. The idea
was discovered by Liebniz
about 300 years ago and is called "The Identity of Indiscernibles".
Until about 80 years ago it had
no practical implications because nobody could find two things that were
identical, but today it leads
to one of the foundations of modern physics, Exchange Forces. On the
Extropian List I used nothing but
The Identity of Indiscernibles and high school algebra to derive The
Pauli Exclusion Principle; and that is the root of chemistry, and that
is the root of biology. By the way I’m rather pleased with that
derivation.
If you insist that identical things are not interchangeable then throw
all your physics and chemistry and biology books away, not to mention
logic.
John K Clark
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