Is philosophy relevant to science?

[owl]

http://physicshead.blogspot.com/2008/03/feynman-philosophy-is-bullshit.html

 

Physicshead, 3/11/’08:

Feynman--”Philosophy is bullshit”....

 

You can take every one of Spinoza's propositions, and take the contrary propositions, and look at the world and you can't tell which is right.

 

How about the "block time" universe proposition? But that depends on contemporary philosophy of science. The classical philosophers are strawmen for Feynman and Hawking. (See below.)

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8520033/Stephen-Hawking-tells-Google-philosophy-is-dead.html

Hawking:

“Most of us don't worry about these questions most of the time. But almost all of us must sometimes wonder: Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead,” he said. “Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.”

 

Prof Hawking went on to claim that “Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

 

From Philosophy Now magazine, Sept/Oct , ‘11

Hawking contra Philosophy:

http://www.philosophynow.org/issue82/Hawking_contra_Philosophy

(Final quote from intro):

“

Then their (ed: philosophers') options would be either to shut up shop and cease the charade called ‘philosophy of science’ or else to carry on and invite further ridicule for their head-in-the-sand attitude.

 

So our physics heroes are down on philosophy.

Yet when they endorse (relativity endorses) a model of the universe based on “block time” or a “block universe” which, in turn, is based on a nice model of the entity/medium “the (four dimensional) fabric of spacetime”... no one thinks that the ontological questions (mere philosophy) “what is space?,” what is time?,” "what is spacetime’, or even “what is a dimension?”... are important.

 

They are no longer open philosophical/ontological questions. They are assumed as established and proven entities, interwoven into a malleable medium, with no concern at all as to what they *are*, actually, in the (excuse the ontological phrase) “real world.”

 

I was not done with the intro post, but must go now.

I’ll just post it and invite commentary.

Edited November 16, 2011 by owl

[Prolific]

Yeah... philosophy gave birth to science. If you think philosophically, you'll undoubtedly find a hypothesis. After you find a hypothesis, all you have to do is apply it to a scientific method and research it to come to a conclusion. It's just the lack of methodology in philosophy that makes it inferior to science. Philosophy is just thinking outside of the box, science is thinking outside of the box and carrying out experiments to validate said thought.

[owl]

I had intended to 'flesh out' the background for this topic in the opening post yesterday, but I was interrupted. Here it is in some detail.

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.

—Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995.

Epistemology is an integral part of science.

Wikipedia on Epistemology:

....The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.

 

*What is knowledge?

*How is knowledge acquired?

*How do we know what we know?

 

Epistemology is the study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge.

 

Epistemology encompasses not only empirical, a-posteriori knowledge, the 'backbone of science', but also reason as a tool of knowledge. The latter falls in the category of a-priori knowledge. By reason alone we know, for instance, that everything in the universe can not be and never was contained in a "point of zero volume" as one famous physicist once theorized.

 

I encourage readers to study the branches of epistemology. (Wikipedia is an adequate intro.)

Many physicists think that the empirical branch is the only one that matters. But idealism (not specifically 'subjective idealism') is the branch that depends on reason.

Wiki:

The main concept, however, central to all idealist epistemologies is the centrality of Reason: (i.e.: 'Reason' with a capital 'R'): a priori Reason: Knowledge can only be, ultimately, a product of the mind and is therefore, by definition, 'ideal'. Ie: What is 'known' is, by definition, 'ideal'.

 

Then there is rationalism.

(Wiki):

Rationalism makes equal reference to all three systems of thinking, (edited)... sense data (empirical),... the primacy of reason (theoretical... and the abstract.

An example of abstract thinking is Pythagoras' concept of 'pure' geometric forms: perfect triangles, squares, circles. Etc. Another example is imaginary numbers, in mathematics.

 

Then there is constructivism.

Constructivism is a view in philosophy according to which all knowledge is "constructed" in as much as it is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience.

 

Now back to "philosophy of science" as applied specifically to math and physics (still quoting Wiki with my bold for emphasis.)

Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics.

Recurrent themes include (edited):

* What are the sources of mathematical subject matter?

* What is the ontological status of mathematical entities?

* What does it mean to refer to a mathematical object?

* What is the character of a mathematical proposition?

* What is the relation between logic and mathematics?

* What is the role of hermeneutics in mathematics?

* What kinds of inquiry play a role in mathematics?

* What are the objectives of mathematical inquiry?

* What is the source and nature of mathematical truth?

*What is the relationship between the abstract world of mathematics and the material universe?

 

Though most if not all physicists in this forum seem to think that 'philosophy of physics' is an oxymoron, here is Wiki's take on it (with, again, my bold):

Philosophy of physics is the study of the fundamental, philosophical questions underlying modern physics, the study of matter and energy and how they interact. The main questions concern the nature of space and time, atoms and atomism. Also the predictions of cosmology, the results of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the foundations of statistical mechanics, causality, determinism, and the nature of physical laws. Classically, several of these questions were studied as part of metaphysics (for example, those about causality, determinism, and space and time).

 

So the above provides more to 'chew on' as background. Chew on.

Edited November 16, 2011 by owl

[tar]

Owl,

 

I can't imagine how one could even get to "scientific method", without asking how we know what we know.

 

So yes.

 

Absolutely relevant.

 

Regards, TAR2

[PeterJ]

I think the problem that physicists and others often have with philosophy is not the discipline per se, but a problem with the way we do it in the west. The way we do it in the west is obviously wrong since we cannot solve any of the 'problems of philosophy', the many dilemmas that arise in metaphysics. No wonder many physicists are sceptical that there's any point in doing it. Many philosophers are equally sceptical, sometimes even more so.

 

A philosophy that solves such problems might gain more respect, but that would seem to involve taking Lao-tsu seriously, and obviously we can't do that. So philosophy is written off as useless, and physics will be nonreductive forever. Schroedinger saw how to reconcile physics and philosophy but physicists do not take him seriously on this issue because, er, oh yes, that would mean taking Lao-tsu seriously. Davies also proposes the same reconciliation, but the same objection arises.

 

As long as we refuse to consider the failure of mainstream western academic philosophy as a sign that we are doing it the wrong way then we will have to conclude that it is useless. And so it will be.

[swansont]

Philosophy may influence how you approach a problem, but in the end you have to have a testable model in order for it to be science because it has to be falsifiable. That's what philosophy generally lacks.

[owl]

Philosophy may influence how you approach a problem, but in the end you have to have a testable model in order for it to be science because it has to be falsifiable. That's what philosophy generally lacks.

Do you think these above quoted questions/comment are relevant to relativity's assumptions about space, time, and spacetime as entities?

 

Re math:

* What is the ontological status of mathematical entities?

*What is the relationship between the abstract world of mathematics and the material universe?

Re physics:

The main questions concern the nature of space and time...

... Do you think it matters at all whether or not spacetime (and its component "parts") even exists as a malleable entity, a "fabric" guiding things in their curved gravitationally influenced paths?

 

edit: ...Or is the above an example of "...philosophical baggage... taken on board without examination," from the introductory Dennett quote?

Edited November 17, 2011 by owl

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

... Do you think it matters at all whether or not spacetime (and its component "parts") even exists as a malleable entity, a "fabric" guiding things in their curved gravitationally influenced paths?

Whether or not it "actually" exists as a malleable entity won't affect the mathematical predictions of the theory, so it has no observable consequences. So in science, it doesn't matter.

[owl]

Whether or not it "actually" exists as a malleable entity won't affect the mathematical predictions of the theory, so it has no observable consequences. So in science, it doesn't matter.

So the question:

"What is the relationship between the abstract world of mathematics and the material universe?"... has no relevance to science. It just doesn't matter?

Likewise with physics " questions concern the nature of space and time."?

I really liked your likening spacetime to a "tie died rabbit pelt" way back in another of my threads. It illustrates your "it doesn't matter" point above.

But, for instance, last night on NOVA's "Elegant Universe" program, they drug out the old rubber fabric of spacetime (metaphor) again with the Sun in the middle making it sag and Earth earth rolling around the depression with the perennial "explanation" that mass distorts the fabric of spacetime... "like this... see?"

It is just a metaphor, but it looks very much like a sagging rubber sheet distorted by the mass of the sun.

 

How far can science take a metaphor without considering what it "actually" is that is being "distorted?"

Why not just use a few question marks in the equations...????... to stand for the "Glorious Non-entity, Spacetime?" (Brown and Pooley) rather than continue to show "it" and explain "it" as an actual entity?

[JustinW]

Philosophy and science do go together. Like Prolific and Tar said, you can't have science without first having rational questioning. (which is philosophy)

But I would also say that once in a scientific method rational questioning has to be backed by fact.

[swansont]

Do you think these above quoted questions/comment are relevant to relativity's assumptions about space, time, and spacetime as entities?

 

Yes. I think I've posted to that effect in at least one of your threads.

 

... Do you think it matters at all whether or not spacetime (and its component "parts") even exists as a malleable entity, a "fabric" guiding things in their curved gravitationally influenced paths?

 

edit: ...Or is the above an example of "...philosophical baggage... taken on board without examination," from the introductory Dennett quote?

 

I know I've posted my opinion of your characterization of the topic. So you should be completely prepared for me to say that a straw man representation is not science and makes for bad philosophy.

 

How far can science take a metaphor without considering what it "actually" is that is being "distorted?"

 

Pretty far, apparently, given the level of experimental confirmation of general relativity effects.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

So the question:

"What is the relationship between the abstract world of mathematics and the material universe?"... has no relevance to science. It just doesn't matter?

Depends. If I hypothesize a specific relationship between mathematics and the material universe, is there an experiment I can do to test it?

 

But, for instance, last night on NOVA's "Elegant Universe" program, they drug out the old rubber fabric of spacetime (metaphor) again with the Sun in the middle making it sag and Earth earth rolling around the depression with the perennial "explanation" that mass distorts the fabric of spacetime... "like this... see?"

It is just a metaphor, but it looks very much like a sagging rubber sheet distorted by the mass of the sun.

Yes. And it's a fairly poor metaphor. It essentially says "mass deforms space, and objects like to slide downhill because of gravity, and therefore mass attracts things." It uses gravity to explain how gravity works. Not very helpful.

 

How far can science take a metaphor without considering what it "actually" is that is being "distorted?"

Why not just use a few question marks in the equations...????... to stand for the "Glorious Non-entity, Spacetime?" (Brown and Pooley) rather than continue to show "it" and explain "it" as an actual entity?

Science doesn't need "it" to be an actual entity; it needs "it" to be useful for predicting the results of experiments, whether or not "it" exists.

[tar]

Owl,

 

I am still sorting through Kant's ideas, reading Critique of Pure Reason. Have not completely understood everything he is talking about, but he was a rather smart fellow and did a whole lot of musing and logical figuring as to the information, representations that we receive through our senses, and about the "thing as it is", which I believe he does not believe we have the grounds to actually know. These are not arbitrary muses, and they are not, in their conclusions and explainations like the "eastern" philosophies that say contradictory things that are suppose to prove each other, or that you can't prove anything, or some sort of circular nonsense that has you listening to silence or forsaking everything you know, so that you can really know what there is not to forsake, or such circular stuff that "sounds" deep and doesn't "mean" anything.

 

But Kant's Ideas, although 230 years old, or whatever, have also been around for 230 years, and are intertwined in the fabric of "scientific method", and play a large role in the philosopher's thinking, of those after him, even if in disagreement or refinement of his thoughts. Such it is with all philosphers, even the eastern thinkers. They all are dealing with a common set of "human" equipment, located in and of a common world...trying to figure out why and how we are how we are, and what it "means" to be such.

 

Seems Kant attempted to structure a "science" of metaphysics. Putting things in their proper place, in terms of what we start with, and what we can reasonably (with sound logic) do with each "kind" of understanding we arrive at.

 

I most probably will continue to weave his thinking into my thinking, as I continue to read his thoughts. And pass some of "my" conclusions and takes on to others (to accept or decline) through various posts on these threads.

More than several "scientists" around here, check in on the philosophy and religion, and ethics threads. Not only to keep them honest, but I would guess to hone their own "understanding" of the somewhat "metaphysical" world us humans seem to have a certain stake in.

 

What that is, and what that "means", is a target I am guessing we most all aim at. The wheight, properties and behavior of a quark, is not the only entity we wish to understand.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited November 18, 2011 by tar

[owl]

Depends. If I hypothesize a specific relationship between mathematics and the material universe, is there an experiment I can do to test it?

If you (or Einstein or Minkowski) say that mass distorts spacetime is it not incumbent on you (them) to also 'theorize' what that distorted medium IS in the material universe?

 

Yes. And it's a fairly poor metaphor. It essentially says "mass deforms space, and objects like to slide downhill because of gravity, and therefore mass attracts things." It uses gravity to explain how gravity works. Not very helpful.

 

Agreed. Yet the "picture" is constantly used to "explain" how mass distorts this non-existent whatever.

Science doesn't need "it" to be an actual entity; it needs "it" to be useful for predicting the results of experiments, whether or not "it" exists.

 

You continue to assert that even though "it" is nothing, really, "it" is useful in the theory and the math. A non-existent non-entity is distorted by mass, and this is called science today!

 

It is my sincere hope that this nonsense is cleared up by the time (not far away) my grandchildren seriously study how mass and energy and all the forces interact.

Edited November 18, 2011 by owl

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

If you (or Einstein or Minkowski) say that mass distorts spacetime is it not incumbent on you (them) to also 'theorize' what that distorted medium IS in the material universe?

Depends. If I hypothesize what the distorted medium "is", can I test that hypothesis by experiment?

 

This is a crucial point, so please don't dodge it.

[owl]

Depends. If I hypothesize what the distorted medium "is", can I test that hypothesis by experiment?

 

This is a crucial point, so please don't dodge it.

This really makes no sense to me. If you (relativity theory) leave it as a non-entity, then you don't have to devise an experiment to test "it?"

You can just keep saying that mass distorts "it" without a hypothesis as to what "it" is? That looks like the ultimate "dodge" to me.

Like good ol' Cool Hand Luke said, "What we have here is a failure to communicate!"

 

Edit for clarification: The math describes the path (of masses mutually pulled by gravity.) And Einstein's math describing such paths was clearly an improvement over the Newtonian concept. But how is this mystery medium a required part of that improved theory and its math?

Edited November 18, 2011 by owl

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

My point is that the behavior of, say, spacetime is well-defined by the mathematics. A physicist could predict how it will behave in any situation by simply using the mathematics of general relativity. If I choose to specify what spacetime "is" -- what kind of entity -- I will not add any more information to our description of its behavior. Hence I won't be able to say "if it's ontologically this one kind of thing, it will behave differently, and I can test that in experiment."

 

For example, I could specify that spacetime consists of incredibly tiny gnomes that behave following rules that exactly replicate the rules of general relativity. The gnomes cooperate to alter the image of any microscope capable of seeing them, so they are essentially undetectable. Since they behave according to the rules of general relativity, their behavior is completely indistinguishable from, say, the behavior of an organized clan of subatomic Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners which also follows the rules of general relativity.

 

So unless the nature of the "entity" of spacetime actually changes its observable behavior, there's nothing for science to test.

 

This really makes no sense to me. If you (relativity theory) leave it as a non-entity, then you don't have to devise an experiment to test "it?"

You can just keep saying that mass distorts "it" without a hypothesis as to what "it" is? That looks like the ultimate "dodge" to me.

Like good ol' Cool Hand Luke said, "What we have here is a failure to communicate!"

I didn't say I don't have to devise an experiment. I asked whether there is such an experiment. There isn't.

[owl]

TAR2:

Thanks for your perspectives. I studied Kant in depth in college, but in this thread am trying to show that, as in the intro post, physicists like Feynman and Hawking are bashing classical philosophy (and philosophers) as totally irrelevant to science. Strawmen!, as Swansont never tires of saying.

 

I countered Feynman's tirade against Spinoza by saying that modern philosophers of science are raising contemporary questions about science's assumptions.

They challenge "dimensions" without referents in the observable world or the possibility of ever falsifying them, as in M-theory's seven extra "dimensions." Not science but metaphysics.

Likewise the four dimensional "spacetime manifold" with an assumption of "block time" or a "block universe" in which all that ever was or will be is somehow present now. Quite an assumption based on reification of space and time and their "weaving together" into the now famous and largely unchallenged "fabric of spacetime."

Edited November 18, 2011 by owl

[md65536]

How do you answer a question like "What is IT?"?

Say you're considering at the moment just two options A or B. To be able to answer that IT is one but not the other, there must be some difference between A and B, that you could ascertain. Then if you can show that IT is like A but not B, you can say that IT may be A but is not B.

 

Science is concerned with these questions.

 

Science is also concerned with the question "Is there even a detectable difference between A and B?"

 

Science is not concerned with a question like "If there's no way to tell if IT is A or B, then which is IT really???" Philosophy may be concerned with such questions, but some of those questions can be proven with science to be unanswerable.

 

I would say that philosophy is relevant to science because at the very least there's a lot of overlap between the two, but that the answers to unanswerable questions are not relevant to science.

 

That's why experimental evidence is so important. If there's no practical difference whether IT is A or B, how can you ever answer the question? How can you know the answer? What would the point of an answer be, if it really made no possible difference?

[owl]

Cap 'n R,

Excuse me but we are still not communicating.

I said,"If you (relativity theory) leave it as a non-entity, then you don't have to devise an experiment to test "it?"

 

You said, "I didn't say I don't have to devise an experiment. I asked whether there is such an experiment. There isn't."

 

Huh? No, there is no experiment to test whether spacetime is an entity in the material world, because it isn't! But relativity insists that "it" is distorted by mass anyway. Surely you see how this makes no sense.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Huh? No, there is no experiment to test whether spacetime is an entity in the material world, because it isn't!

How could I experimentally determine this?

 

The non-entity-ness of spacetime would not prevent me from making highly accurate predictions about the universe. Making predictions about the universe is all science claims to do.

 

---

Perhaps I should make a clearer statement of this.

 

Science is in the business of making models that predict the behavior of the universe. By "models," I mean mathematical and conceptual systems that can be used to describe reality. Science tests these models by comparing their predictions with actual experiments.

 

However, it is not necessarily true that the components of the models -- such as various mathematical concepts used to compute their predictions -- correspond to physical entities in reality. No experiment could prove this. We can only demonstrate that reality behaves as though it were made of the components the models describe. For example, there's no experiment I can do to prove that spacetime is made of one kind of substance or another. I can, however, prove that the universe behaves as though it were made of a four-dimensional spacetime with certain mathematical properties.

 

In short, then, science describes what the universe acts like. It does not describe what the universe "is", because that can't be determined empirically.

 

(After all, I could say "the universe really 'is' x", but you could retort "no, it's a bunch of gnomes which behave exactly like x", and I'd be stuck. If two different explanations produce exactly the same results, how can I distinguish between them through experiment?)

[PeterJ]

The idea that we can do theoretical physics without doing philosophy is so weird that it does not compute on my system. I simply cannot grasp how anyone could imagine that it's possible. I'm not being disengenious. I really don't get it. It would be like trying to do philosophy without doing physics.

 

The dangers of doing physics without philosophy are there for all to see. We do not have a fundamental theory of anything and never will have one on this view, since a fundamental theory would require doing a bit of metaphysics.

 

Tar - Good luck with Kant. He argues for the 'eastern' view that you find so implausible, although you might not notice this if you've already dismissed that view as not worth investigating because to you it 'doesn't mean anything'. I really do object to such comments. Do you suppose half the world is mad, and finds a meaning when there is none there? Or is it more likely that you haven't done it justice? Off-topic though so I won't bang on.

[Dekan]

If two different explanations produce exactly the same results, how can I distinguish between them through experiment?)

 

You can't - you'd have to resort to a principle such as Occam's Razor. That would lead you to prefer the simpler of the two explanations.

 

And Occam's Razor is a philosophic principle - a simple explanation, if it accounts for the facts, is better than a complicated one.

 

Though why that should be so, I'm not sure! Is there a reason?

[PeterJ]

Interesting. Would the the principle of least hypothesis be a philosophical or scientific idea? If it is philosophic then the argument is over.

[immortal]

The problem runs like this, To know the exact nature of the entities like space, time and matter one has to go beyond the senses to know them, thereof an experiment or a testable model to know their exact nature is not universal since everyone will not have the ability to see without using the sense organs. The mistakes where some people make is when they completely rubbish it as metaphysics, a hypothesis is regarded as metaphysics if it can neither be proved nor disproved. In this case we have a testable model but it is just not universal. Science takes mathematical models more seriously than any other models and it is not the only branch of philosophy or the only road we have, to know the reality. We have to shift our thoughts and consider other branches more seriously and this can be a new paradigm in human history.

 

I think a unified theory of everything will not come from scientists, it will come from real philosophers, who just don't think but actually experience and have a method to know the exact nature of all things as they are. I have to disagree with Kant, humans do have the epistemological knowledge to know the things as they are.