Against quantum mereology

Title: Against quantum mereology

Author: Ding Jia

Abstract: The quantum mereology program seeks to identify quantum systems by (generalized) tensor product structure of Hilbert spaces. I argue that this program is misguided, because it fails to account for systemness: Physical systems of interest, such as atoms, molecules, conductors, organisms, planets and galaxies, contain interacting parts that form a unity. The latter property depends on the content of particular states, and cannot be captured at the level of Hilbert space. An example is given where the quantum system cannot be identified through quantum mereology programs that focus on the irrelevant aspects of entanglement generation, quasi-classical dynamics, and/or information scrambling.

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