Scott, I can’t imagine any possible overthrow of QM that would resurrect the idea of two electrons having distinct individual identities.
Suppose we discovered our universe was being simulated on a classical computer. Then, at the fundamental level, there would be particles with individual identities. But the “electrons” we see today, would still be computed as amplitude flows between simulated configurations—they would not have identity as fundamental particles.
It wouldn’t be enough to discover something new underneath QM—discover a new level transition, even if it was a transition to a classical level. That wouldn’t do the trick.
You’d need something that threw out our existing, very-highly-tested knowledge about an already-known level transition between already-understood levels of organization. We already know how the illusion of an “individual electron” arises from approximate independence in an amplitude distribution over a joint configuration space.
Undiscovering this would be like undiscovering that atoms were made out of nucleons and electrons.
It’s in this sense that I say that the observed universe would have to be a lie.
Scott, I can’t imagine any possible overthrow of QM that would resurrect the idea of two electrons having distinct individual identities.
Suppose we discovered our universe was being simulated on a classical computer. Then, at the fundamental level, there would be particles with individual identities. But the “electrons” we see today, would still be computed as amplitude flows between simulated configurations—they would not have identity as fundamental particles.
It wouldn’t be enough to discover something new underneath QM—discover a new level transition, even if it was a transition to a classical level. That wouldn’t do the trick.
You’d need something that threw out our existing, very-highly-tested knowledge about an already-known level transition between already-understood levels of organization. We already know how the illusion of an “individual electron” arises from approximate independence in an amplitude distribution over a joint configuration space.
Undiscovering this would be like undiscovering that atoms were made out of nucleons and electrons.
It’s in this sense that I say that the observed universe would have to be a lie.