Eise

Dean Radin is a paranormal believer.

That is a rather perverted way of saying that. Kant tried to show with his cosmological antinomies that if you try to answer questions about the reality we live in based on reason alone ("pure reason") you come to contradicting conclusions. See here (search in the page for 'FIRST CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS'). It is one of his arguments against metaphysics as science. Therefore the title of his book: Critique of pure reason. If our reasoning about the (in)finity of the universe is based on empirical data, it is not metaphysics anymore, but physics. And then it is not a stupid question anymore, but an empirical one.

I think that the discussion about scientific method, if it is set in stone, is a topic in itself. This is my last reaction on this here. Open another thread if you want. The point in this thread is just that philosophy is a discipline in itself, that it can give important intellectual insights, but that it is not a science. A physicist reflecting on his way of working is philosophising. A physicist reflecting on what the status of his theories is, is philosophising. Any human reflecting on the basic assumptions and values behind his thinking is philosophising. Any human reflecting on the validity of his values is philosophising. Any human reflecting on the precise meaning of concepts he uses in his thinking is philosophising. And if this person has made a academic career in the systematic study of these kinds of reflecting, he is a philosopher. What philosophy definitely is not: another way of trying to find out how the world around us is: that is the domain of the sciences.

If this were true, then there would be no 'scientismists' under scientists. That is just not true. I would even say: the best physicists can reflect about the status of their science. Doing so, they are not doing science, but philosophy. And I would add, if they end up with scientism, they have done their philosophical job badly. As a counterpoint to your fixed believe in one single scientific method, set in stone for ages, read this Wikipedia article about 'epistemological anarchism'.

Science and the scientific method are no persons, so they do not know of limitations. Scientists, and science fans however do not always. I wrote about scientism elsewhere, under a slightly different perspective, namely 'science as religion' : except point 1, it are different forms of scientism:

That is too easy. It needed a hell of a philosophical discussion when it turned out that QM did not fulfill the expectations of classical mechanics, that we can observe the world as it is and that it is completely determined. Nice article. This is a nice one too. Another thing to note: also here on the forum, philosophy is not rubricated under science. But as said, to think that only scientific questions (i.e. questions that potentially can be answered by science) are important in life is scientism.

Two questions: Are these the only two possibilities? I.e. when one of them is false, the other one is automatically true? Can you explain what you mean with 'the collapse of the wave function is an epiphenomenon due to the Uncertainty principle'?

Yes. Clear. I did not say "Bohr is wrong", I said he could have said it a tiny bit clearer. I have no point with Bohr, but what you said originally differed from Bohr's quotation. I understood what you wanted to say, but it was not so precise.

Scientific method is not set in stone. See the early discussions in QM, and the present day ones about string theory and multiverses. Saying this you reduce philosophy to scientific method only. Well, while a nice 'bon mot' I do not agree. There is also a lot we do not know in the area of physics, but that does not make it philosophy. Physics is concerned with nature, philosophy with clarifying our thinking. They are just different disciplines. But if course the study of how physicist think might be a topic of philosophy, which btw is mostly successfully done by the physicists themselves (but not always! Yes, Krauss...) No, I was just thinking about old-fashioned metaphysics, as a way to find out what is 'behind the scenes' of our physical world based on pure thinking. Well, that is highly speculative. I want to amend this: the only worthy answers on scientific questions are scientific answers. But I repeatedly stated there are other question that maybe just as relevant for our lives that are not scientific questions:

The 'can' is missing in your previous citation. Makes a huge difference. I would even extend Bohr's sentence a little, just to make it clearer: Physics concerns what we, methodologically justified, can say about nature.

Yeah. Could have written '<nitpickingmode>'. In the course of this discussion I thought it not very important to nuance Itoero's reaction. 'Physical existence' is just different for objects, processes, and spacetime: it is not that some of them do not exist physically.

<Antfuckermode>Wrong. Disciplines that concern themselves with what physicists say about nature could be linguists and sociologists. Physicists try to describe how nature behaves. Therefore they use models, which of course are not how nature is. (or better: of which we cannot know if they describe nature as it really is).</Antfuckermode> 'Physical existence' is not well-defined. E.g. objects and processes are different 'be-ables' (I think it was Bell who used this term for everything that possibly can exist), both are subject of physics. Space and time are a separate physical category. Processes can cause other processes. Objects are the points at which processes 'touch each other'. It is clear that space and time are none of these. Processes and objects exist in space and time. In special relativity the Lorenz transformations can be seen as rotations in spacetime. But rotations have no influence on what is rotated, i.e. objects themselves do not change: observers see distances and periods differently dependent on the inertial frame they are in. I assume something similar holds in general relativity. But that would mean that the bending of light in a gravity field is also an effect of perspective, and no causal effect as with processes in spacetime. @Physicists here: does that make sense?

Feel free to open a new thread... I might participate.

I really intend to write as clear as possible. Maybe I do not succeed always, but just note that the length of a text is not a measure for its complexity. So, apology accepted. That would be another topic. I described academic philosophy, which I surely think is not useless, just because it is not aiming at enlightenment. My personal philosophy (take care, this is a slightly other meaning of 'philosophy', more in the direction of 'world view') is a bit different. E.g. I am practicing Zen meditation. But that is another story.

Sorry, but it was not clear what you said you would apologise me for: you quoted the complete posting of MigL. I expect nothing, but I am curious what you want to apologise for. I already did in one of my previous postings. @Beecee, thanks for your long and thoughtful post. As I am not retired, I cannot react in full on all your arguments now. However I want to mention one observation. You did not react on my last remark to you: In your latest post you say: And I agree also: it is not science. It is philosophy! To find our way in life, we must have our facts straight. That is what science is for. But what are the right methods to find facts? And to what visions and values do we want to adhere? What are the right things to do and strive for? As soon as the discourse about these kind of topics becomes difficult and nuanced it becomes philosophy. So are you a 'scientismist'? (Yep the word 'scientist' is already occupied, so I had to invent a new word for somebody who adheres to scientism. A typical philosophical move: noting that a word can be interpreted in different ways, and therefore introduce new words to keep them separated.)

Did I imply there is no difference? Of course there is! And so I use the adjective 'modern' again and again. Did you read my post, or was it too long? With the same right I can say that philosophy is the core of all thinking about thinking, and how to apply it. What you describe is more or less the 'trickle down' effect from the for a layperson ununderstandable theories of theoretical physicists, via experimental physicists, engineers, and mechanics to usable technology. Same holds for philosophers, but the way is different, from academic philosophers, via publicists, journalists, politicians, literature to the lay persons. And you will be astonished about the broad spectrum of jobs philosophers work in. See e.g. here and here. If you say "but many of them are not typical jobs as philosophers", I guarantee you many people who have a degree in physics do not work in typical 'physics jobs'. Academics in general have proven to have mastered high levels of abstract thinking, which can be useful in many jobs. You should also not forget that a lot of physics will have no practical usage ever*. Do you think we will build technology built on Higgs particles? The societal justification of spending billions in fundamental research can be compared by the money spent on art. It might not be of any instrumental use, but it broadens the view on the world we live in, and changes our views about our place in it. And this is true for philosophy par excellence. Tell'm. But I like the comparison. * Of course I don't know where the border is between theoretical physics that may lead to useful technology and that which doesn't.

There are a few things to say here. The first thing is that you create a false dichotomy: between questions we (obviously!) cannot answer and questions that are answered empirically. This leaves out a whole lot of other questions, e.g. about morality, meaning of words, values, meaning of life etc. Some of these questions can be answered, some of them must be answered, because they will result in an action. E.g. in moral questions: when one stands for a choice, and one must choose, we answer the questions at least implicitly by acting as we do. Reflecting on the moral reasons for our actions is ethics. Next is that the object of study of physics is physical reality. As soon as one reflects on the scientific method one is doing philosophy. How funny it may sound, but the topic of physics is not physics. Reflecting on how to do physics correctly is philosophy. At the same time, the best philosophers of physics mostly are physicists themselves. They have the practical experience how they get at valid results, or even what 'valid results' in physics means. The opposite is not true: that all physicists also are philosophers. And even great physicists can be bad philosophers. Yes, Krauss comes to mind. Third, it seems to me that when you say 'philosophy' you think about old-fashioned metaphysics: the question how the world is behind the (empirical) scenes. However there are not many philosophers today anymore who try to answer such questions, simply because there is no method how to decide about the correctness of possible answers. While in science observations, experiments and theoretical consistency always have the last word, such a judge does not exist in old-fashioned metaphysics. Also, one can ask what the relevance of empirically unjustifiable answers are. Think (deeply!) about it: is it really relevant for our lives to know that we in fact live in a giant simulation? Or that solipsism would be true? If you think solipsism is true, aren't you just being hurt the same by real other persons, or by persons who only exist in your personal world, but you cannot effect in anyway? On the other side, modern metaphysics is concerned with totally different questions. What are facts? What are laws of nature? Do they exist, and if so, in what way? In short: you are close to the risk of adhering to scientism: the believe that the only questions that are worth trying to ask, are scientific, i.e. empirical questions. That is simply not true. Sorry that this posting is muuuuuch too long for dimreepr...

It was an apt reaction to a disrespectful and dismissive post: You seem to be unwilling to read more than two lines of text. I won't try to be more concise than I was in the linked post, with the risk of being misunderstood. Intellectual clarity is not free on offer, it takes a little effort. Different from what?

I did not deny that there are more meanings of the word 'philosophy'. But most of academic philosophy is not about enlightenment, but about conceptual clarity. But this is what dimreepr said: So really, my translation of this is 'academic philosophy is useless' (asking stupid questions is useless, isn't it?). Then there is the meaning in the sense of 'Our company's philosophy is...' which more or less means the background ideas of a company's actions. If one sees Buddhism as 'philosophy' then it is more or less in this sense. And thereby (as it is also a religion) it is more or less static, referring to what the Buddha or some saints (Boddhisatvas) have said. But for academic philosophy this is not true: it is a developing discipline, just as the sciences are.

Conceptual clarity.

Link

You said it is for everyone, implying that academic philosophy is useless. I was not comparing with ancient philosophy. But if you want: in ancient time nearly every science was called philosophy (with the exceptions of astronomy and mathematics maybe). What it is today you could have read here.

You obviously have no idea about modern philosophy. Even after my academic philosophy study (subsidiary subjects physics, astronomy and mathematics), there are still many philosophy articles that are way too technical for me to understand. Sure, everybody can reflect on his thoughts and those of others and try to clarify them, and doing so one might call 'philosphising', but there is a justification that there is also an academic discipline with that name, e.g. that the intellectual level matches other academic disciplines. I tend to think it is the other way round...

I did already. If you refuse to read texts, then philosophy is not for you. But it does not mean it is useless. Edit: PS And there is nothing that offers enlightenment. (That is my personal enlightenment...)

Another one who has no idea what modern philosophers do.... sigh. Start reading the links in my posting. Or start here.