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Structural Pluralism and S-Dualities: A Project in String Realism

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Romanian Studies in Philosophy of Science

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 313))

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Abstract

In string theory with S-dualities, there is an object-oriented realism and a structure-oriented realism. This paper discusses the advantages of “string structural realism”, a form of the latter, having a multi-aspected structure with a “model-oriented” pluralistic ontology, and grounded in the relation among fundamental objects of various string models.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a comprehensive discussion of the early string theory and its deep connection to S-matrix theory, see Cappelli et al. (2012) and Rickles (2014). The “second string revolution” is marked by E. Witten’s conjecture about dualities and the M-theory (Witten, 1995).

  2. 2.

    N. Cartwright argued against the fundamentalism about both laws of nature and theories (Cartwright, 1999). L. Sklar and P. Teller offered reactions to Cartwright’s attack (Sklar, 2003; Teller, 2004).

  3. 3.

    The philosophical literature about string theory is still dearth, but is growing rapidly. See Callender and Huggett (2001), Dawid (2006, 2007, 2009, 2013), Matsubara (2013), Muntean (2015), Rickles (2011, 2013, 2014), Taylor (1988), and Weingard (1988). This paper refers more often to work of D. Rickles and R. Dawid and ignores aspects of dualities important for theory-choice and theory-development.

  4. 4.

    Coupling, as defined below, is not a energy scale or length/time scale, but a combination of two and many other aspects of strings.

  5. 5.

    This section overlaps with Muntean (2015).

  6. 6.

    The “intrinsic” string length is \(\ell_{S} = \sqrt{\alpha ^{{\prime}}}\), where α ′ is the Regge slope, which at its turn is the inverse of the string “tension” \(T = \frac{1} {2\pi \alpha ^{{\prime}}}\). As one expands the dynamics of a phenomenon in terms of α ′, one moves from a classical description to a stringy description of the phenomenon. Informally α ′ is a measure of the quantization of geometry and of its dynamical nature. g S is related to the topology of spacetime and the length ℓ s to the “size” of the spacetime.

  7. 7.

    Technical details about dualities can be found in Sen (1998). The foundational discussions referred here are Rickles (2011, 2013), and (Polchinski, 1996, 1998, esp Ch. 14).

  8. 8.

    From a metaphysical point of view “extended simples” may constitute a problem. The metaphysician may need to put some effort in accommodating such new entities: see arguments for and against in Baker (2014), Hudson (2005), McDaniel (2007), and Muntean (2015).

  9. 9.

    An extensive discussion on particle realism in quantum field theory is in Ch. 9 of French and Krause (2006).

  10. 10.

    For an argument against this, see D. Baker’s analysis of the particle picture and the field picture of quantum field theory (Baker, 2009). In his view, none fares better.

  11. 11.

    As closed strings always contain in their spectrum the graviton, this choice is not physically innocent: it corresponds to the fact that gravitational interaction is always present in the physical world.

  12. 12.

    This is probably grist to the mill for “autonomous models” view of M. Morrison, N. Cartwright, etc. See Morgan and Morrison (1999).

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks go to Jeremy Butterfield, Craig Callender, Antonio Cancio, Richard Dawid, Steven French, Jeffrey Harvey, Don Howard, Nick Huggett, Ken Intrilligator, James Maxin, Dean Rickles, for suggestions, comments and ideas that have morphed finally in this paper. I am indebted to the audience, the organizers and the referees of the Philosophy of Science Association meeting (Montreal, 2010), Structure and Identity workshop, (Bristol, 2012), the Bucharest Colloquium in Analytic Philosophy. New Directions in the Philosophy of Physics (2013). Last but not least, special acknowledgments to Ilie Pârvu and Iulian Toader for throughout suggestions and corrections that improved the quality of the argument. This material is complemented by a similar work on “string metaphysics” (Muntean, 2015), with several overlaps in form and content: thanks to the referee and editors of the Poznan Studies.

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  1. The Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values, University of Notre, Dame, IN, USA

    Ioan Muntean

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  1. Ioan Muntean
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  1. Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Ilie Pȃrvu

  2. Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Gabriel Sandu

  3. Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Iulian D. Toader

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Muntean, I. (2015). Structural Pluralism and S-Dualities: A Project in String Realism. In: Pȃrvu, I., Sandu, G., Toader, I. (eds) Romanian Studies in Philosophy of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 313. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16655-1_13

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