〈 Berger | Dillon 〉

Hmm I guess the path from correlation function —> Smatrix seems to involve changes in information to me. Like if it was only a Fourier transform I’d be able to conceptualize how they’re the same, but I have a hard time of doing so now

You’re right about that ontologically

I was speaking purely mathematically, to my detriment

Yeah I think this could be a weakness of structural realism, but no matter how much I think about it it’s still hard to say anything that makes sense ontologically of correlation functions and the other mathematical objects/processes that we’re dealing with

Possible that there are better questions to ask: does this have physical significance? Yes. Should we expect it to be preserved in a more fundamental theory? Yes. Then, here’s why....

But the question of what is being preserved isn’t even obvious lol

Yeah I think it’s still more tractable than asking “what do these mathematical objects, and the particular values this function takes, say the world is like?” I’m unsure if we even have the conceptual resources as humans to answer that

That said, I guess you can still say stuff like “quarks exist” and be counted as a realist