PeterJ

Yes. Very true, A vitally important point. I might have mised it so stupid am I. Lucky i did not suggest otherwise. Perhaps we should spend an hour two on this vital issue rather than attempt to make progress. I have no idea what we are arguing about. I see nothing to argue about. I am amazed that that we can't just all agree. Of course it is about results. This is precisely my point. Few people here seem to give a damn about the results of metaphysics or have any idea what they are. So why do they assume they are useless? I don't get it. I really,don't get it, and am not just being disengenious. I could quote a dozen scientist at length on these issues, but I don't suppose they'd get any more respect here than the last one I quoted.

Thanks for that post, John. Sensible stuff. I've said it all already. And yet you come in with objections that have been met a dozen times already. This does not encourage me to take any time responding. I suggested that you do not know the results of metaphysics and you did not disagree, So on what basis do you claim that metaphysics is useless to science? How could you know this? Do you not see that you have no idea whether metaphysics is or could be useful in the sciences? Only someone who studies metaphysics and physics could know this, and clearly you are not a student of one of these. So why not ask questions rather than argue for a dogmatic position. Here's the thing. No doubt most people here are in the same position as Feynman, and find that the way they have to describe Nature is incomprehensible to them. So why would they argue that metaphysics cannot help solve this problem before investigating whether it is actually the case? It seems to be hubris and arrogance, and exactly the same sort of close-minded protectionism that plagues religion. It works against scientific progress, and I am all for such progress being a great fan of the scientific approach. The problem here, it seems to me, is that people who argue against metaphysics are not motivated to try and understand it. .

Okay. Now I really do give up. I think the world had gone mad. How does one respnd to a proposals stating that the philosophy that gave rise to science is part of science, such that science gave rise to science and philosophy had nothing to do with it. I have no idea. What an idiotic remark, Unbelievable. What is the word ;'even' doing in this sentence, How does it function? It is a poorly constructed sentence not informed by any careful thought. I am very sure that you do not even know what the results of metaphysics actually are, so you can have no view on the matter.

This is an ill-thought out objection, and objection for the sake of it. The example proves nothing at all. It would work if all the was required for science is to put our hand in a fire. In that case it would be good objection. A critical flaw indeed.

I forgot that one. One physicist on my bookshelf comments, 'with enough circles we can explain anything'. I think maybe it is all too easy to find oneself trapped in an entrenched position that one didn't quite mean to fall into. I'm going to assume we're all fed up with arguing about this issue. How about we take a more practical approach and pick a more difficult target. Can it be demonstrated, and not just argued about, that paying proper attention to the results of metaphysics would shed light on important problems in the natural sciences and help us understand Nature? This is asking whether metaphysics is not only necessary to the activity of science, but necessary to a proper understanding of Nature. To me the answer is trivially yes. I will demonstrate it if necessary. But how much light? I'm not a good enough physicist to follow up the details so find it hard to tell. It's not usually possible to discuss the issues with scientists.

I once came on this forum and asked how we knew that gravity was an attractive rather than repulsive force. I gained the impression there is no experiment that can decide this. If not, then to wonder which it is is a philosophical speculation. Swansont - you say 'There are posts earlier in the thread decrying the fact that science tends to ignore a certain philosophical position. Well, QED. If you can ignore that position and still do science, it's not necessary.' I agree. But is this the kind of science we should be doing? It would seem more like a recipe for irrationality to me. Yes, we could still do science, but who would want to do it on this basis, and what use would it be? Nobody has ever taken this approach to either disciplne as far as I know. We can cut science free from metaphysics, and we can cut metaphysics free from science, and then we'd have two useless disciplines. But I do see the point. We can drive while being blind. Ergo, sight is not necessary for driving. . Maybe an argument for metaphysics can sometimess seem like an argument against science, and this would raise some natural opposition. But I haven't seen anyone here arguing against science. Afaik, I have never seen a prominent scientist arguing that science should exclude metaphysics, or even suggesting that it would be possible. Maybe there are one or two, but I'd need a reference to be convinced. Nice point Proximity. I really cannot see how this topic can turn into an argument when the facts are so clear.

Drat. I leave the disussion and immediately it gets much better. I have not disagreed with a single point made by ydoaPs so far. I cannot see anything to disagree with. Good sense from start to finish. Of course philosophy is not necessary to do science - if by 'science' we mean operating a bunson burner. I can concede this to Swansont. But 'Science' here is supposed to mean all of science. It is possible to drive a car without eyesight, so one can argue that driving does not require the ability to see. Rather a silly argument though. Nor would it be necesssary to have an IQ above 25 to do science, and so intelligence is not necessary for science either. So yes, philosophy is not necessary to all the things that scientists do, especially if they do it badly, and nor is eyesight or intelligence. But this is irrelevant to the wider point. When people say something is necessary to science they usually mean necessary to science in its fullest sense, done properly and well, and not just some particular sub-set of routine activities done any old how. Without philosophy wouldn't we have to measure the trajectory of every falling apple in the world to be sure they all fall down? Induction saves a lot of bother. So does Ockham's razor. So does the idea that theories containing logical contradictions are implausible. Yet the absence of true contradictions from the world is a philosophical theory, as is the principle of least hypothesis. I would certainly hate to see science abandon Aristotle's laws of thought on the grounds that they're untestable.

Okay. Not everyone wants to know anything about philosophy. I don't see much point in me discussing it here when nobody is interested. As I have now given up on this forum I'll risk some spam and mention my page at philpapers.here.. http://philpapers.org/profile/profile.pl?_mmsg=<font%20color='green'>You%20are%20now%20logged%20in%20as%20Peter%20Jones</font> I shan't;be at all offended if you don't read any of this, but I'll be utterly amazed if you can find a valid objection to any of it, and if you do you'll be the first. I hope it might even change your mind. Of course it is possible to understand the world. It is ludicrously pessimistic to assume otherwise. Thanks for the chat.

Well, I'd say that the philosophy of physics is a very small and quite unimportant part of philosophy.(unless ones only interest is in physics). If you find it a useless muddle, well, so do I. I'm surprised that you don't consider it a responsibility of physics to find an interpretation of QM. Strictly speaking I suppose you're right, but I would have thought that curiosity would win out over definitional boundaries. Philosophical theories and hypotheses are testable in logic using the dialectic, so are not woolly hypotheses with no way to decide between them. Thus to test the idea that the earth is a cube and a globe at the same time we do not need to do any physics. If we believe the mystics then philosophical theories are also empirically testable, but we either know this is the case or we don't so no point in arguing that one. . For me the problem is that although I believe that metaphysics is of vital importance to physics and can shed light on many problems, most people associate metaphysics with the indescribable mess that western metaphysicians usually make of it rather than sorting it out for themselves. So I end up seeming to argue for a load of rubbish. . When I defend metaphysics I certainly do not mean what Wittgenstein, Russell, Carnap and their like mean. Just as in physics, there would be little point in spending much time on the work of people who have failed to make any progress. But these people and their like are so well known that people tend to think that nobody could make any progress, whereas in my opinion metaphysics a doddle once you get the hang of it. I once asked Spencer Brown, a colleague of Russell's, why Russell did not see the solution for metaphysics, even though he endorsed Brown's book in which it is explained. 'Oh', he said in a kindly way, 'Bertie was a fool'. This is also my opinion. I can completely understand someone thinking that philosophy is rubbish if they've only read Russell, Wittgenstein and other such authors. They can be distuinguished by their failure to get anywhere with it. I agree with you that for an experimentalist who is working on localised and self-contained problems metaphysics is usually unnecessary and maybe not even useful. But when I say 'physics' I mean the attempt to understand the entire physical world, not just, say, acceleration under gravity. At any rate, I find it impossible to define theoretical physics so as to exclude metaphysics, and would say that the attempt is pointless and self-defeating. Physics cannot have a fundamental theory of anything by definition, so on its own it is rather unambitious. I want to understand it all.

Well, I can imagine someone having a philosophy of cubes. But you're right, it was a poor example. I was trying to say that philosophers cannot work in a vaccuum. I'm sure you'd agree. A philosopher who doesn't; understand QM reasonably well wouldn't be able to get a job these days. A philosopher who did not understand evolutionary theory would be a joke. Science would be necessary as a contraint on philosophical theories just a philosophy would be necessary as a contraint on scientific theories. That is, logic and experience would be a contraint on all our theories. If we don't pay attention to these contraints then our theories will be unscientific, logically absurd, easily falsifiable, irrational, useless or some combination of these. For an example of how to put them all together I'd recommend Brian Redhead, Incompleteness, Nonlocality and Realism - A Prolegomenon to the Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. I really don't think it makes a iot makes sense to argue that science and philosophy are better or worse than one another.

Hang on Swansont. I don't think philosophers are free to claim that the Earth is a cube. Now I'm going to have to stop arguing for philosophy and start arguing for science.

An oxymoron is a self-contradiction. To say that a problem is simple but difficult is not a self-contradiction. Of course, where these words are used as opposites, as a sloppy speaker might do, then things are different, but I wasn't being sloppy. . Writing things in red doesn't make them any more true. Most metaphysical problems are simple but difficult. It is a characteristic of such problems. The problem that OP raises is simple and could be explained to a child, and children often ask it. Because it is difficult to solve few people go on to find a solution. Why are we discussing nonsense instead of trying to solve it? Do you have no curiosity?

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Do you have anything to say that is relevant to the discussion? Or do you just like to be foul to people for fun. All you do is make of fool of yourself with such posts. I hadn't realised I was dealing with a madman. Now I feel like a right prat for taking the time to talk to you. If ever any evidence is required that Prof Dawkins attracts only fanatics and fools to his cause then this thead will do nicely. I'll unsubscribe so you needn't waste any more time on me.

I think what Villain meant is that doing philosophy requires little or no study, assuming a reasonable education. What requires study is the history of ideas, the names of the players, the dates of their birth and death, the details of a thousand failed theories and all that unnecessary (even if useful) stuff. This is how it comes about that most people do metaphysics all the time without realising it. I struggle to agree that science works in a complete sense. Clearly it works to an extent, and very well, but only in a limited self-defined field. The natural sciences cannot address many questions that really it ought to be able to answer. It does not satisfy me when I want to know the origin of the laws of physics and am told I can't ask because it's not a scientific question. Or when David Chalmes argues that the problem of consciousness cannot be solved because it's not a scientific problem This is turning a pragmatic definition of a discipline into a unnecessary barrier to knowledge. It's shooting oneself in the foot. A discipline needs to be well-defined to be efficient, and so that students know which building to go to for the next lecture, but for an individual researcher to limit their thinking in this way is a recipe for failure. The world is not divided up into departments like a university.

Sorry. What was dishonest? I wasn't aware I was answering a questrion . I thought I was just making a comment. Okay. Thanks for asking in such a nice way. Fortunately most scientists support my view. "It is difficult to decide where science ends and mysticism begins. As soon as we begin to make even the most elementary theories we are open to the charge of indulging in metaphysics. Yet theories, however provisional, are the very lifeblood of scientific progress. We simply cannot escape metaphysics, though we can perhaps over-indulge, as well as have too little." Banesh Hoffman - The Strange Story of the Quantum (Penguin 1968) Banesh Hoffmann was born in Richmond, England, on 6 September 1906. He studied mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Oxford, where he earned his bachelor of arts and went on to earn his doctorate at Princeton University. While at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Hoffmann collaborated with Einstein and Leopold Infeld on the classic paper Gravitational Equations and the Problem of Motion. Einstein’s original work on general relativity was based on two ideas. The first was the equation of motion: a particle would follow the shortest path in four-dimensional space-time. The second was how matter affects the geometry of space-time. What Einstein, Infeld, and Hoffmann showed was that the equation of motion followed directly from the field equation that defined the geometry (see main article). In 1937 Hoffmann joined the mathematics department of Queens College, part of the City University of New York, where he remained till the late 1970s. He retired in the 1960s but continued to teach one course a semester — in the fall a course on classical and quantum mechanics and in the spring one on the special and general theories of relativity. Which question was that? The one about what metaphysics has done for us? What an astonishing question. It's like asking what thinking has done for us. I think Hoffman answers it well enough. I could add that one of the useful things it does is allow us to think about the nature of time and space, It allows us to see, for instance, that the idea that world as a whole had a beginning is daft. It is, as Francis Bradley says, 'an antidote to dogmatic superstition'. No doubt this why it is not a more popular.study. Without it there would be no disciplne responsible for answering fundamental questions, and science would be freed from the constraints of reason. I think being an antidote to dogmatic superstition makes it useful, It is also useful in that science can ringfence all its foundational problems in one place and leave them to specialists. Here is Bradley in Appearance and Reality. "I certainly do not suppose that it would be good for every one to study metaphysics, and I cannot express any opinion as to the number of persons who should do so. But I think it quite necessary, even on the view that this study can produce no positive results, that it should still be pursued. There is, so far as I can see, no other certain way of protecting ourselves against dogmatic superstition. Our orthodox theology on the one side, and our common-place materialism on the other side (it is natural to take these as prominent instances), vanish like ghosts before the daylight of free sceptical enquiry. I do not mean, of course, to condemn wholly either of these beliefs; but I am sure that either, when taken seriously, is the mutilation of our nature. Neither, as experience has amply shown, can now survive in the mind which has thought sincerely on first principles; and it seems desirable that there should be such a refuge for the man who burns to think consistently, and yet is too good to become a slave, either to stupid fanaticism or dishonest sophistry."

Oh. Sorry. I thought you were interested. The opposite of 'simple' is 'complex'. The opposite of 'difficult' is 'easy'.

Well, I would say it says something important about the value of science. Fortunately there are not too many scientists who take this approach. No need to do philosophy if we're checking for the decay of protons, but theoretical physics/cosmology demands a knowledge of logic and the ability to extrapolate from the data. I really cannot understand why anyone would want to make the collaboration between science and philosophy a competition. It;s like deciding to tie your shoelaces rather than putting your shoes on. To me they would be inextricably connected activities, both pretty useless on their own. I'm with Villain and Math on this, and I struggle to see any need for an argument. Maybe sometimes scientists do not realise how much philosophy they're doing. As Villain points out, there seems to be a worrying lack of philosophical understanding in people who have an interest in science. Generally I do not see the same lack of scientific understanding in people who have an interest in philosophy.

Actually Swansont I would disagree. Wouldn't you have to do some philosophy to decide what you mean by 'science' and 'works'?

His claim is made in his book title. This is what I mean by lack of rigour.

Do you actually read my posts? It appears not. Which claim was unsupported? Why do you say I have nothing? Anything can be stated without evidence, and anything can be dismissed without evidence. Do you not see that this is a mistake in both cases? I've asked for an example of a specific criticism that I have made that is unjustified, so we could discuss it, and there were no takers. Time to move on.

It's actually very simple, albeit difficult to understand. If we say that the universe begins with or is 'Something' or 'Nothing', then we have adopted an extreme metaphysical position. All such positions are known to fail in logic and can be reduced to absurdity in the dialectic. The solution, as for all such ancient dilemmas, would be to assume that this distinction is conceptual. After all, what do we really mean by 'Something' and 'Nothing'? In everyday life we know well enough, but at the level of absolutes and fundamental the definitions are not so easy. In brief, all extreme metaphysical theories are absurd, and the only solution would be to abandon them. I have a feeling that you;re close to this idea already. It's the only known workable solution for metaphysics.other than to assume that an extreme theory is true and that the world is paradoxical, (which is the approach taken by materialists and theists, to cite two obvious examples}, or to simply assume that the world is paradoxical, which is the approach taken by the Dialethists. I'm not aware of a fourth approach, or it has slipped my mind.

There is a view by which 'Something-Nothing' is not a fundamental distinction. For this view the term 'emptiness' would be used rather than 'Nothing', indicating a conceptual void, and not a physical void, which as you say would be an oxymoronic idea. This is a solution for the Something-Nothing problem. Whether it is the correct solution is not decidable in logic, but it works. .

Do you imagine that it';s possible to do physics without doing metaphysics? It would be an unorthodox view. It would be like building a sand-castle. . Actually, I hadn't realised that he had any real respect or support anymore. So rather naively I was taken by surprise. My fault. I doubt it. Intelligent Design is not an idea based on intelligent analysis. Maybe there's a sophisticated form of it that works, but usually it's presented as anything but sophisticated.and far from well-considered. Usually it's fans do no metaphysics, like all fans of illogical theories, for it is not supported by reason and logic. .

ho ho ha ha... It seems that the people who most object to these books are the people who have no interest in reading them, Nice to meet a fellow non-reader. I think you have put my objection to this author much better than I have done so far. 'All fur coat and no knickers' is what they would say around here. I shall try not to mention this author or his books again in this thread. But I'd be happy to discuss metaphysics if anyone is the least bit interested in it, even if it is off-topic.

Hysterically funny some of these posts. I suggest buying a dictionary. I see. I have made no specific criticisms of Dawkins and yet you are able to disagree with them. This is a pretty neat trick. Yes. He is concerned to debunk God, not seeing that this is a metaphysical issue. Rank stupidity. I hope one day he finds a fish to fry. Yes. Metaphyscians are held in very low regard by many scientists. This is why some scientists think they can address the issue of God without bothering with it. It is embarrasing to watch. . To be fair, most metaphysicians in western academia talk a load of nonsense. But only a person who looks into it would be able to see this, and as it is usually only the best of scientists who do look into it. Most assume that metaphysics is a waste of time. Gone are the days of great thinkers like Schrodinger and Eddison. Funnily enough I have an essay up at philpapers.com called 'Is Metaphysics a Waste of Time' that adresses this very issue. I suspect I'm the only participant in this debate that has actually published anything on it. No complaints yet from any philosophers or editors, but then they usually know their stuff. .