Talk:Indiscernibles

comments
I think the reference to the "Identity of indiscernibles" is misleading.

The point of the idea is not that members of a set I can not be differentiated.

The point is that if any two tuples from I have the same length, and the same Delta_0 type for some (intuitively small) set Delta_0 of formulas, then they also have the same Delta_1 type, where Delta_1 is some intuitively larger set of formulas.

It is usually assumed that Delta_0 is either {x=y} (in which case I is an indiscernible *set*) or {x < y} (in which case I is an indiscernible *sequence*). The larger set Delta_1 is taken as L in most cases.

Thus to compare a set of (mathematical) indiscernibles to a (philosophical) collection of indiscernibles is not correct, because the latter notion is of a group which is in principle indifferentiable, whereas in the former case the set may be highly non-homogeneous with respect to Delta_0.

Hunter

Also, "indiscernible" is misspelled as "indiscernable". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hunter.r.johnson (talk • contribs) 18:42, 12 October 2006

Examples?
What about giving some elementary examples?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 20:48, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * In set theory with urelements, if no distinguishing properties are given to the urelements, then they will be indiscernible. In particle physics, elementary particles of the same type and in the same state are indiscernible which is why they obey Bose–Einstein statistics instead of Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics. Sorry, but that is about as elementary as it gets. JRSpriggs (talk) 20:43, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, well, in the complex numbers, i and &minus;i are indiscernible, as long as you avoid adding something to the language that allows you to distinguish them. The example is elementary; the caveat, perhaps, is a bit more subtle. --Trovatore (talk) 21:38, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, so what about adding an "examples" section to the article?--pokipsy76 (talk) 12:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I am planning to rewrite the article (so far there were only 9 edits to it, and it's not good at all), and then I will of course mine this thread for examples. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * To Trovatore: Good example! JRSpriggs (talk) 21:11, 24 November 2008 (UTC)