Identity, Individuality and Indistinguishability in Physics and Mathematics

Online Workshop: Identity, Individuality and Indistinguishability in Physics and Mathematics

Dates: October6-8th, 2021, 14h-17h UTC.

Registration Deadline: September 30th, 2021.

Aims and scope

The aim of the workshop is to gather experts coming from philosophy, physics, and mathematics to discuss the notions of identity, individuality and indistinguishability from philosophical, historical, and scientific standpoints. In particular, the workshop is intended to provide an update with respect to the state of the art of the corresponding debates, and to prospectively explore different avenues of research.

Some of the main topics included in the workshop are:

• The current debates around the principle of identity of indiscernibles (and the so-called « problem of identity » in mathematical structuralism).

• The problem of understanding quantum indistinguishability and the quasi-set-theoretic framework proposed to deal with this notion.

• The far-reaching reconceptualizations of the notions of equality and identity brought forward by category theory and homotopy type theory.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Workshop will be held online. To attend the Workshop, all participants must register before September 30th.

Sponsors:

Laboratoire International Associé (LIA) Identities, Forces, Chaos, Quanta (Laboratoire SPHERE - Sciences, Philosophie, Histoire, Université Paris Diderot-CNRS).

Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANCyPT), Argentina.