Quasi-set Theory - Motivation

Motivation

The American Mathematical Society sponsored a 1974 meeting to evaluate the resolution and consequences of the 23 problems Hilbert proposed in 1900. An outcome of that meeting was a new list of mathematical problems, the first of which, due to Manin (1976, p. 36), questioned whether classical set theory was an adequate paradigm for treating collections of indistinguishable elementary particles in quantum mechanics. He suggested that such collections cannot be sets in the usual sense, and that the study of such collections required a "new language".

The use of the term quasi-set follows a suggestion in da Costa's 1980 monograph Ensaio sobre os Fundamentos da Lógica (see da Costa and Krause 1994), in which he explored possible semantics for what he called "Schrödinger Logics". In these logics, the concept of identity is restricted to some objects of the domain, and has motivation in Schrödinger's claim that the concept of identity does not make sense for elementary particles (Schrödinger 1952). Thus in order to provide a semantics that fits the logic, da Costa submitted that "a theory of quasi-sets should be developed", encompassing "standard sets" as particular cases, yet da Costa did not develop this theory in any concrete way. To the same end and independently of da Costa, Dalla Chiara and di Francia (1993) proposed a theory of quasets to enable a semantic treatment of the language of microphysics. The first quasi-set theory was proposed by D. Krause in his PhD thesis, in 1990 (see Krause 1992).

On the use of quasi-sets in philosophical discussions of quantum identity and individuality, see French (2006) and French and Krause (2006). On Schrödinger logics, see da Costa and Krause (1994, 1997), and French and Krause (2006).