If I have a detached entity and I do a merge() for various reasons Hibernate does a SELECT against the database.

My question is: if I have a detached entity and I know that it exists in the database and the data that it holds is identical to the one in the database, is there is a way to prevent Hibernate from doing the SELECT when I do the merge and make the entity directly managed by the persistence context so I can now use it or modify it as needed?