Concept
Schrödinger logic
Overview
Schrödinger logics are a kind of non-classical logic in which the law of identity is restricted.
These logics are motivated by the consideration that in quantum mechanics, elementary particles may be indistinguishable, even in principle, on the basis of any measurement. This in turn suggests that such particles cannot be considered as self-identical objects in the way that such things are usually treated within formal logic and set theory.
Schrödinger logics are many-sorted logics in which the expression x = y is not a well-formed formula in general. A formal semantics can be provided using the concept of a quasi-set. Schrödinger logics were introduced by da Costa and Krause.
Schrödinger logic is not related to quantum logic, which is a propositional logic that rejects the distributivity laws of classical logic.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
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Writers on this subject have begun to show a singular unanimity as to what the laws of nature and elements of fact mean, when formulated by mathematicians, physicists and chemists. When the first mathematical, logical and natural uniformities, the first LAWS, were discovered, men were so carried away by the clearness, beauty and simplification that resulted, that they believed themselves to have deciphered…
William James, Pragmatism
States what Schrödinger logic is.
Any such select set is called the set of postulates, or premises, from which the reasoning proceeds. The reasoning is nothing else than the exhibition of the whole pattern of general conditions involved in the pattern derived from the selected postulates.
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the modern world
States what Schrödinger logic is.
To save the credit of the doctrine that definitions are the premises of scientific knowledge, the proviso is sometimes added, that they are so only under a certain condition, namely, that they be framed conformably to the phenomena of nature; that is, that they ascribe such meanings to terms as shall suit objects actually existing. But this is only an instance of the attempt so often made, to escape from the…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Schrödinger logic is.
Related ideas
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Non-classical logic.