If I have to take a precise position, it’s a layered reductionist with emergent structure, not an eliminativist.

Let me make that explicit in operational terms.

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1) What I would not claim (eliminativism)

An eliminativist stance would say something like:

“Photons don’t really exist in classical regimes—only fields do.”

That’s too strong and actually misaligned with the underlying theory:

• The quantum electromagnetic field is still the correct substrate

• Photon number is still a well-defined operator in appropriate bases

• The theory that predicts all observables still contains photons

What does disappear is not photons themselves, but:

their operational identifiability as discrete events

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2) Reductionist core (what everything reduces to)

At the base level:

• The electromagnetic field is quantized

• States (including coherent states) evolve unitarily

• All classical behavior is derivable as a limit of that theory

So in that sense:

classical radio waves are reducible to quantum field states with large occupation numbers

That’s the reductionist commitment.

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3) Emergent layer (why photons “fade out”)

In the classical regime:

• The system is well-described by coherent states

• Photon number becomes:

• very large

• highly uncertain (Poisson fluctuations ~ √N)

Crucially:

• There is no stable way to individuate “this photon” vs “that photon”

• Detection integrates over many quanta

So:

the field amplitude and phase become the stable observables, not photon counts

This is emergence in a precise sense:

• New variables (continuous fields) become sufficient statistics

• Old variables (individual quanta) lose operational resolution

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4) What “photon existence” means across regimes

We can make this sharper:

Quantum (low N, high resolution)

• Photon number is:

• measurable

• stable under repeated experiments

• “Photon” is a good observable

Classical (high N, coarse measurement)

• Photon number:

• fluctuates strongly relative to resolution

• is not directly measured

• “Photon” is a latent variable, not a useful descriptor

So:

photons don’t stop existing—they stop being the right coordinates for the system

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5) A more formal way to state the position

• Ontology: quantum electromagnetic field (with photon excitations)

• Effective description:

• classical fields arise as expectation values of coherent states

• Observables:

• shift from number operators → field amplitudes

So the mapping is:

photon ontology retained

photon-level description abandoned when it ceases to be stable or informative

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6) Why this isn’t just philosophical preference

You can test the boundary:

• Reduce signal power → photon statistics reappear

• Use photon-counting detectors → discreteness becomes observable

• Measure g^{(2)}(0) → distinguish classical vs non-classical light

So:

the “existence” of photons is tied to whether the experimental setup can resolve their signatures

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Bottom line

The most coherent position is:

• Reductionist: everything is grounded in the quantum field and its excitations

• Emergentist: classical fields are stable, higher-level structures that replace photon descriptions when occupation is large

• Not eliminativist: photons don’t disappear—they become operationally irrelevant in that regime

If you want to push this further, the next step is to ask whether “photon” is basis-dependent (it is) and what that implies for treating it as an ontological primitive. That’s where things get really interesting.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5853795&forum_id=2E#49795514)

said to myself "this is like talking to LTM"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5853795&forum_id=2E#49795518)