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Full Idea
Is the 'new' electron in the lower orbit the one that was in the higher orbit? Physics, as far as I can tell, has nothing to say about this.
Gist of Idea
When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron?
Source
Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14)
Book Ref
Inwagen,Peter van: 'Material Beings' [Cornell 1995], p.159
A Reaction
I suspect that physicists would say that philosophers are worrying about such questions because they haven't grasped the new conceptual scheme that emerged in 1926. The poor mutts insist on hanging on to 'objects'.
| 12505 | One thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning [Locke] |
| 21302 | If a ruined church is rebuilt, its relation to its parish makes it the same church [Hume] |
| 12851 | Intermittence is seen in a toy fort, which is dismantled then rebuilt with the same bricks [Chisholm, by Simons] |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| 17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
| 12856 | Intermittent objects would be respectable if they occurred in nature, as well as in artefacts [Simons] |
| 12885 | Objects like chess games, with gaps in them, are thereby less unified [Simons] |