Resheathing

Abstract

By looking at the process of resheathing, we can gain insight into the nature of “stuff,” including the similarities between properties and objects. Newtonian and analytical mechanics differ in their metaphysical commitments vis-à-vis reduction to the micro universe: analytical mechanics allows for action at higher scales (and is thus more friendly to resheathing) and lacks the commitments to supervenience that we find in Newtonian mechanics. Quantum mechanics stands in the legacy of analytical mechanics in this respect. It also (along with analytical mechanics) dispenses with the notion of an entity “in isolation.” We cannot say that an electron is an electron (and not a half of a Cooper pair, for example) without knowing anything about the environment (how it is currently sheathed). This is important, and not just for theoretical reasons; resheathing is how human beings create; we don’t do it from the ground up.