2025/12/30 by Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo, Jonas R. Becker Arenhart · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · Psychology · #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Philosophy and Theoretical Science #Relativity and Gravitational Theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.36446/af.e1203
openalex publication_date 2025/12/30 · openalex created_date 2026/01/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
It is a widespread consensus among metaphysicians that the bundle and substratum theories are substantially different metaphysical theories of individuality. In a realist stance towards metaphysics, they cannot both track the truth when describing fundamental reality, thus they’re rival metaphysical theories. Against that consensus, Jiri Benovsky has advanced a metametaphysical thesis that they are in fact metaphysically equivalent. This paper challenges Benovsky’s equivalence thesis with two counter-arguments based on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics: quantum metaphysical indeterminacy and wavefunction realism. As we shall argue, while both substratum and bundle theories arguably fail in standard quantum mechanics, they fail in different ways. Hence, given Benovsky’s own notion of metaphysical equivalence, they are not equivalent.