Re: More on identifiers

In message <Oo6Wl.770$u86.24_at_nwrddc01.gnilink.net>, Walter Mitty <wamitty_at_verizon.net> writes

>Consider two electrons. They both have the same mass, and they have the
>same charge. They might have opposite spins. But the minute we add a third
>electron, the spin of two of them is going to be identical. It seems that,
>on the surface at least, electrons do not have enough properties to carry
>identity. As you descend into lower level particles like quarks, things get
>even more this way. Particles seem more and more interchangeable.
>Subatomic particles might not have much to do with your objects in a box,
>but it seems to me that any theory of reality and identity that falls apart
>at the subatomic level should at least take that into account.

I don't think the analogy to electrons is particularly useful here. It's not clear that electrons have an attribute called Identity. Electrons in different locations can change places with each other (insofar as the concept of place has meaning here.) It's provably impossible to measure all of the properties of an electron even if we only consider it as a particle. When we add wavelike properties it only gets worse.

-- 
Bernard Peek