Will_Pearson comments on Can You Prove Two Particles Are Identical? - Less Wrong
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Comments (106)
Adirian - Thanks, I think I see what you are saying.
I find the following quote from Wikipedia article for QFT far more to my liking to this talk of identical things somehow differentiating.
"Many physicists prefer to take the converse interpretation, which is that quantum field theory explains what identical particles are. In ordinary quantum mechanics, there is not much theoretical motivation for using symmetric (bosonic) or antisymmetric (fermionic) states, and the need for such states is simply regarded as an empirical fact. From the point of view of quantum field theory, particles are identical if and only if they are excitations of the same underlying quantum field. Thus, the question "why are all electrons identical?" arises from mistakenly regarding individual electrons as fundamental objects, when in fact it is only the electron field that is fundamental."
I really need to get into QFT if I am going to understand things. It seems a lot more physical than the QM I have come across.