Tuesday, 25 January 2005
Holism and Nonsupervenience in Quantum Mechanics
Martin Thomson-Jones
Oberlin College
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning
Abstract: I will argue that although part-whole
relations in quantum-mechanical systems are indeed metaphysically
striking, the most promising of the available approaches to understanding
talk of holism in quantum mechanics, according to which holism is
nonsupervenience of a certain sort, can only be maintained by taking
on a significant range of previously unnoticed metaphysical and
interpretive commitments - significant enough to provide most of
us with reason for rejecting the idea that holism is nonsupervenience.
I will also argue, nonetheless, that there is good reason to link
the appearance of nonlocal correlations to the instantiation of
peculiar part-whole relations in quantum mechanics. The upshot is
we are still in need of a satisfying account of what it means to
say that there is holism in quantum mechanics.
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