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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: How does quantum physics inform philosophy?
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
I found an interesting website that looks at the links between the history of scientific thinking and philosophical thinking.
quote:
The modern worldview developed out of a combination of a belief in an orderly, Newtonian universe and the certitude of Cartesian philosophy. Modernism perceives the world as possessing an objective reality which can be discovered with certainty through observation and reason.
<snip>
Whereas Descartes made the thinking self to be an objective observer of the universe, and Kant reinforced that idea, Nietzsche effectively dethrones the self from the center of objective reality. He undermined modernism and raised some of the most important seminal issues which others later developed into postmodernism.
<snip>
During the long reign of Newtonian cosmology, it was easy to believe in rationality and absolutes. But in the twentieth century, cosmology abandoned Newton for relativity theory and quantum theory, altering the way the world is now perceived. Even as early as 1925 Bertrand Russell expressed the view that once people became used to the idea of relativity, it would forever change their way of thinking. They would abandon a belief in absolutes and begin to regard all concepts as relative.
The above may be simplistic but I find the connection curious. I'm way out of my depth (I'm a theologian, not a quantum physicist ) but it raises questions for me.
So. How does quantum physics change metaphysical philosophy? How does it change our understanding of our everyday life?
I guess I'm thinking along lines like this.
quote:
we should reflect on how a scientific image of the world that relies on up to 10 dimensions of space and rests on ideas, such as fundamental particles, that have neither identity nor location, connects with our everyday experience. This should open up larger questions, such as the extent to which mathematical portraits capture the reality of our world – and what we mean by "reality". The dismissive "Just shut up and calculate!" to those who are dissatisfied with the incomprehensibility of the physicists' picture of the universe is simply inadequate. "It is time" physicist Neil Turok has said, "to connect our science to our humanity, and in doing so to raise the sights of both". This sounds like a job for a philosophy not yet dead.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Both are irrelevant to doing good.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
I can't speak for quantum physics, but philosophy is certainly not irrelevant to doing good.
Philosophy is the bedrock of the "why" questions.
"Doing good" depends on your belief on what "good" is.
Or you can ignore the why questions altogether and just "do good "or do whatever because other people tell you to do so.
But for some of us, that aint good enough. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Helen-Eva
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# 15025
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Posted
This is a very big and mega complicated question! The best I can manage is to suggest that there are broad trends in thought and culture that are informed by developments in all subjects; sometimes there is more commitment to absolute truths (e.g. perhaps unquestioning religion, mid 20th century modernism, Newtonian physics) and at other times less confidence (e.g. post-modernism, ninteenth-century agnosticism, quantum physics maybe). [Sorry if any of these examples are stupid - this is difficult!]
So, quantum physics (as opposed to Newtonian/Einsteinian physics) makes people think about the uncertainties and probabilites rather than definites. As such it contributes towards moving the trends of thought into the area of less certainty rather than more certainty. Given that quantum physics is very difficult to understand and therefore seldom understood properly (like, not by me) then I wouldn't want to go further because probably what is influencing philosophy/culture isn't actually quantum physics but what people imagine it is.
[Credentials - I have done a bit of University-level physics but not enough to be really on top of this.]
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I was thinking something similar - that there are broad shifts in different areas, which seem related. For example, at the beginning of the twentieth century, you find movements in art and literature which tend to distintegrate the stable narrator, and the stable protagonist of the work - a common example is Cubism, which 'splits' objects into multiple but simultaneous points of view. See Joyce's Ulysses, for a literary parallel.
Now you can also argue that philosophically, positivism came to a peak in the early 20th century, but began to unravel. As to physics, not too sure about that, but you could argue that quantum mechanics destabilized 'common sense' views about matter, time, and so on.
Of course, this could also be being wise after the event; or, if you like, hindsight is an exact science.
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Helen-Eva
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# 15025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
As to physics, not too sure about that, but you could argue that quantum mechanics destabilized 'common sense' views about matter, time, and so on.
I'd rather say people's perception of quantum mechanics may have destabilized "common sense" views because there are plenty of earlier examples of where common sense doesn't produce the same answer as science (special relativity c.1905? for one, but also things like how a bulleted fired and falling from the same height hit the ground at the same time) that perhaps haven't had the same impact. I think people imagine that science is the same as common sense but it often isn't.
PS Thanks for saying you were thinking similar things quetzalcoatl - I wasn't very sure of myself as it took me a while to work out where to start with Evensong's post but it was too interesting not to try to engage.
[ 28. August 2014, 11:58: Message edited by: Helen-Eva ]
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Dave Marshall
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# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
How does quantum physics change metaphysical philosophy? How does it change our understanding of our everyday life?
So far, it does seem limited to the broad opening up of less certain approaches to reality. But I think it has the potential to transform how we think about reality and the place and role of God within it.
The Church of England certainly, but also Christianity in general if Greenbelt Festival is anything to go by, seems almost dogmatically disinterested in reality-based metaphysics. As a result it ignores a significant means of relating to "ordinary reality" through "scientific fact"-based theology. It's left having to rely heavily on a socially-based gospel and belief in an imagined transcendent God, rather than the (to my mind) more robust recognition of God as a reality possibilities for making sense of everyday life.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Helen-Eva:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
As to physics, not too sure about that, but you could argue that quantum mechanics destabilized 'common sense' views about matter, time, and so on.
I'd rather say people's perception of quantum mechanics may have destabilized "common sense" views because there are plenty of earlier examples of where common sense doesn't produce the same answer as science (special relativity c.1905? for one, but also things like how a bulleted fired and falling from the same height hit the ground at the same time) that perhaps haven't had the same impact. I think people imagine that science is the same as common sense but it often isn't.
PS Thanks for saying you were thinking similar things quetzalcoatl - I wasn't very sure of myself as it took me a while to work out where to start with Evensong's post but it was too interesting not to try to engage.
That's a good point, and in fact, you can apply it to everything. I mean for example, that Cubism is known by certain popular ideas, e.g. it's all about women with tits behind their ears, and so on, and it's a veritable elite who actually can talk more knowledgeably about it.
I was going to say something about archetypes, but then I couldn't really formulate it. But maybe there is a deep unconscious process going on in society, which produces various images and ideas; and of course, some of these will be contradictory.
I suppose also the idea of plural narratives has become influential, that there isn't a single authoritative narrative, about anything really.
But then, interestingly, Cubism and so on, were part of modernism; and today we are all post-modernists. So we all already revised the revision, or as Freud used to say, renarrativized the narrative, (rough translation).
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moonlitdoor
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# 11707
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Posted
There's been an attempt by Roger Penrose and some others to argue that quantum mechanics is important in the explanation of human consciousness. You can read on wikipedia something about his ideas and the criticism of them by some other physicists.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Micro-tubules!
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no prophet's flag is set so...
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# 15560
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Posted
I might as productively ask "how does French cooking inform philosophy?", which I find does, to a degree if you use wine.
The point being that one can take metaphors and make comparison from any aspect of human activity for any other. Why isn't the question "how does philosophy inform quantum physics?", meaning why on earth would you have a science try to inform an area of inquiry about which it knows so little? or have our philosophers run out of their own ideas, like so many remade Hollywood movies? Perhaps a reread of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is in order?
[ 28. August 2014, 12:59: Message edited by: no prophet ]
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
Metaphysically, one of the implications of quantum physics is that our perception alters reality - "I'll see it when I believe it" is more than a statement about censoring and interpretation of information in the brain (though this also is relevant) - it goes further - it says that if you expect something it is more likely to happen in the particular world line that you inhabit/exist on/in. So belief is important not only conceptually, but in very practical ways that affect our physical world directly. That affect our senses, our view of the world, our physical health, and the people around us. Part of the same message is that objective reality is an illusion - and subjectivity is maybe more real than objectivity.
Biologically it is impossible to separate quantum effects from physiology. But this is being resisted so strongly by mainstream research partly because my first statement is unacceptable to a scientific paradigm based on objectivity, and partly because it poses too many problems - how do you research what happens in and around something that interacts with subatomic processes inside itself according to impossible-to-measure subtle changes in attitude, belief, conscious focus, etc.?
I used to believe that all spiritual effects on the material world could be explained by quantum mechanics one way or another. Now I'm not so sure - but certainly some intermediate level is far more explicable than it is using pre-quantum physics and chemistry. And the way that we have been led to expect reality to function based on standard models of pre-quantum science - severely restrict our expectation of what is or is not possible. And therefore restrict what we allow to be possible in our world line - i.e. our life here and now.
There are also implications for time - if time does't exist, then past=present-future are already all here. The best model so far says that the past is fixed - though some experiments with retrospective prayer suggest this is not true. I can think of my life and seriously wonder if some moments of grace 20 or 30 years ago were not a result of my prayer now. Then in the now there is a finite span of time in which time is fully reversible and events (probability function collapse) are at least partly determined by the observer. And it would seem that all possible futures are also somehow already out there.
Amit Goswami is an interesting read.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
It sounds like Berkeley as well. Esse est percipi - to be is to be perceived.
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Chamois
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# 16204
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Posted
originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Why isn't the question "how does philosophy inform quantum physics?", meaning why on earth would you have a science try to inform an area of inquiry about which it knows so little? or have our philosophers run out of their own ideas, like so many remade Hollywood movies?
Physics is also known as "natural philosophy", which is why if you have a PhD in science you are, quite genuinely, a doctor of philosophy. Many philosophers, going back at least to Pythagoras, were just as interested in the physical world as they were in the spiritual world. In fact I'm not sure many of them would have acknowledged the distinction. Descartes, for example, made much more important contributions to mathematics than he did to what you might call conventional philosophy. A "philosopher" is a "lover of wisdom" and "wisdom" can surely cover many areas of enquiry, so why do you see physics - which aims to understand the physical world - as knowing nothing about philosophy?
As a physicist, I think probably the greatest contribution of quantum mechanics to our current world view is that it explicitly and quantitatively predicts when the observer cannot be excluded from the event that is observed. Excluding the observer has always been an approximation - we make a lot of similar approximations in physics, "neglecting" this or that, and it's all right so long as you have some idea when the approximation will fail. Quantum theory showed that at the atomic level the approximation of the independent observer ALWAYS fails. It's an axiom of modern (post 1900) physics that the act of making a measurement has an effect on the result, and at the atomic level this effect is always significant. So bang goes any idea of observing something without altering the thing you are measuring. Curiously enough, physics has never been a positivist science, so physicists were intrigued by the new theory and perfectly ready to adopt it. The more positivist disciplines have much more difficulty with quantum concepts.
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Schroedinger's cat
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# 64
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Posted
Quantum physics changes the was we understand what is real. It challenges ideas of a deterministic universe, and accepts that - at some levels - it isn't. A non-deterministic universe is a very different place from a deterministic one.
It is also changing the understanding of our place - of the importance of observation, of how reality may be impacted by our presence, our observation of it.
That is all philosophical in nature.
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
it's very practical in nature
Descartes view of
- a separate mind and body
- thoughts being more important than physicality
- thoughts being totally self-generated
- thoughts being equivalent to identity
has been hugely misleading and damaging
[ 28. August 2014, 20:37: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
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Timothy the Obscure
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# 292
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Posted
However, it has also been argued ( here ) that quantum theory requires a kind of mind-body dualism, and free will on the part of the observer. I can't claim to have the expertise on the physics side to have an opinion, though the neuroscience seems sound enough.
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
However, it has also been argued ( here ) that quantum theory requires a kind of mind-body dualism, and free will on the part of the observer. I can't claim to have the expertise on the physics side to have an opinion, though the neuroscience seems sound enough.
I'll have to wait till my next trip to the British Library to read that one. $36 is a bit steep
The Abstract, however, implies that the brain is part of a wholistic system. Microtubules, the probably site of quantum effects related to consciousness, are found in greater density in in All neural issue (so the visceral plexi and small peripheral nerves are also relevant). But microtubules are also found in most types of tissue - they perform a dance around the DNA during mitosis (they are the green things :-) ) and (amongst other functions - that we know so far) act as a skeletal component for cells, thus being important for cell movement. Which is interesting wrt this, slightly scaled down.
However, just like all science before, there are a lot of structural and functional gaps between different levels of explanation that can be described by science. How it all connects up into a single human experience - we are a long way from identifying.
Consider the size of a neuron - you can pack between 10^3 and 250^3 in a cubic mm, which is the best volume resolution of functional brain scans. Then consider that the brain scans only measure blood flow - they do not necessarily measure all relevant synaptic activity, because the brain works much of the time by inhibiting noise. So to take a blatantly extreme stance, the blood flow scans could be showing which parts of the brain are NOT firing when a particular event or thought occurs.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Helen-Eva:
PS Thanks for saying you were thinking similar things quetzalcoatl - I wasn't very sure of myself as it took me a while to work out where to start with Evensong's post but it was too interesting not to try to engage.
I really appreciate your foray into the question to start the ball rolling. Thank you! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
And thanks for everyone else's contributions too. Will look up Amit Goswami.
quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
As a physicist, I think probably the greatest contribution of quantum mechanics to our current world view is that it explicitly and quantitatively predicts when the observer cannot be excluded from the event that is observed.
I'm not a trained philosopher but I am trained in Hermeneutics and the idea that the observer cannot be excluded from their depictions of reality is fairly standard form in hermeneutical circles like Gadamer and Heidegger and the whole "reader response" idea.
It seems to me to be a flavour of postmodern philosophy and the limitations of linguistics and observation.
So is there any merit to the idea that postmodern philosophy and quantum science are on similar wavelengths (no pun intended) to a degree....?
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
this might be useful, evensong
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Chamois
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# 16204
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Posted
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
I'm not a trained philosopher but I am trained in Hermeneutics and the idea that the observer cannot be excluded from their depictions of reality is fairly standard form in hermeneutical circles like Gadamer and Heidegger and the whole "reader response" idea.
It seems to me to be a flavour of postmodern philosophy and the limitations of linguistics and observation.
So is there any merit to the idea that postmodern philosophy and quantum science are on similar wavelengths (no pun intended) to a degree....?
I'm not sure. Quantum theory gives us a quantitative assessment of the validity of the approximation involved in neglecting the effect of the observer on the situation. In many situations this approximation is valid. For example, if I observe the light of a distant star, or even a distant motor car, the probability of my observation having any measurable effect is vanishingly small, so it is valid to consider me an independent observer of the light in those circumstances.
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
However, it has also been argued ( here ) that quantum theory requires a kind of mind-body dualism, and free will on the part of the observer. I can't claim to have the expertise on the physics side to have an opinion, though the neuroscience seems sound enough.
I'll have to wait till my next trip to the British Library to read that one. $36 is a bit steep.
Hmmm... for me it comes up with a link to a free PDF. Try this.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
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Posted
I think the biggest shock of modern physics (20+21stC) is the realisation that physics is not about "truth" in a conventional sense. It is about correct (mathematical) relationships between (physical) observables, where this correctness is tested statistically and validated by predictive application. One can learn how to do modern physics, but one cannot learn its meaning. Conceptual understanding has ceased to be the goal of the scientific enterprise, it is now merely one tool for arriving at the correct mathematical bookkeeping of nature.
This is exemplified by "wave-particle duality", which does not map any particular confusion in the underlying maths. Rather the maths is perfectly clear, but it cannot any longer be captured in such "intuitively understandable" concepts. Long term practitioners do have an intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics, but it is a procedural one. Basically, they often roughly know what the outcome of working the maths will be, before doing it, simply since they have worked it so often before. Modern physicists are quantum mechanics, they aren't quantum understanders.
I do not know what effect this has had, or will have, on culture. But the final demotion of human understanding and elevation of mathematical procedure is the real step change that happened in physics in the 20thC. All the other often quoted results are culturally effective only as misunderstandings of the actual science. Everything is relative? No, it isn't. In fact, Special and General Relativity arise precisely from setting new absolutes (light speed is ever the same, and gravity is equivalent to geometry). Everything is uncertain? No, it isn't. Schrödinger's equation, or Dirac's, or the Langrangian densities of modern quantum field theory, are as deterministic as ever. And while it may be surprising that there is randomness in the heart of nature, de facto that has surprisingly little impact. Basically, the sort of question we usually ask of quantum physics is like asking "If we throw a die six billion times, how often do we expect to see a six?" The answer is "one billion times", and it has its own kind of certainty. And talk about "the observer influences reality" is mostly overblown noise arising from an attempt to understand Heisenberg's uncertainty relation in terms of physical action, instead of accepting it as a basic natural law.
Modern physics has not arrived at the romantic debraining of postmodernism. Physicists do not deal with empty uncertainties of interpretation, they calculate atomic transition probabilities to construct lasers. Modern physics rather is now where Christian theology already was in late antiquity: it is now also considered to be beyond human understanding as such, without therefore saying that no further intellectual progress can be made. The WTFness of the "wave-particle duality" has been encountered before in a God that is both Three and One. The key point is anyhow that the human mind can walk on with crutches, be they mathematics or revelation, even where its legs are failing.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
IngoB
Isn't this part of the shift towards viewing science instrumentally? That is, not as part of a search for truth or meaning, but as a pragmatic investigative tool.
When I was a postgrad, we did various courses in scientific method, and I remember the idea that scientists make observations about appearances, and do not speculate as to what those appearances might 'mean' in terms of reality. I remember thinking how sensible that seemed.
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think the biggest shock of modern physics (20+21stC) is the realisation that physics is not about "truth" in a conventional sense. It is about correct (mathematical) relationships between (physical) observables, where this correctness is tested statistically and validated by predictive application. One can learn how to do modern physics, but one cannot learn its meaning. Conceptual understanding has ceased to be the goal of the scientific enterprise, it is now merely one tool for arriving at the correct mathematical bookkeeping of nature.
This is exemplified by "wave-particle duality", which does not map any particular confusion in the underlying maths. Rather the maths is perfectly clear, but it cannot any longer be captured in such "intuitively understandable" concepts. Long term practitioners do have an intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics, but it is a procedural one. Basically, they often roughly know what the outcome of working the maths will be, before doing it, simply since they have worked it so often before. Modern physicists are quantum mechanics, they aren't quantum understanders.
I do not know what effect this has had, or will have, on culture. But the final demotion of human understanding and elevation of mathematical procedure is the real step change that happened in physics in the 20thC. All the other often quoted results are culturally effective only as misunderstandings of the actual science. Everything is relative? No, it isn't. In fact, Special and General Relativity arise precisely from setting new absolutes (light speed is ever the same, and gravity is equivalent to geometry). Everything is uncertain? No, it isn't. Schrödinger's equation, or Dirac's, or the Langrangian densities of modern quantum field theory, are as deterministic as ever. And while it may be surprising that there is randomness in the heart of nature, de facto that has surprisingly little impact. Basically, the sort of question we usually ask of quantum physics is like asking "If we throw a die six billion times, how often do we expect to see a six?" The answer is "one billion times", and it has its own kind of certainty. And talk about "the observer influences reality" is mostly overblown noise arising from an attempt to understand Heisenberg's uncertainty relation in terms of physical action, instead of accepting it as a basic natural law.
Modern physics has not arrived at the romantic debraining of postmodernism. Physicists do not deal with empty uncertainties of interpretation, they calculate atomic transition probabilities to construct lasers. Modern physics rather is now where Christian theology already was in late antiquity: it is now also considered to be beyond human understanding as such, without therefore saying that no further intellectual progress can be made. The WTFness of the "wave-particle duality" has been encountered before in a God that is both Three and One. The key point is anyhow that the human mind can walk on with crutches, be they mathematics or revelation, even where its legs are failing.
I disagree with much of that - the speed of light is not so fixed (see banned TED talk by Rupert sheldrake ), there are ongoing experiments that demonstrate that supposedly random events are affected by human emotion and intention.
The difficulty is that the massive success of QM to predict phenomena and develop technology has allowed the mistaken belief to propagate that mechanism have to be known before phenomena can exist. This is disastrous for science and has created a religion of science that believes in determinism and biology as a complex automaton
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
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Posted
quote:
itsarumdo: there are ongoing experiments that demonstrate that supposedly random events are affected by human emotion and intention.
I so want Gamaliel to drop in on this thread right now, using one of his recurring expressions to say what he thinks about this EGG project.
(PS I agree with IngoB.)
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Philip Charles
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The current state of quantum mechanics represents the best explanation to date and so will always be subject to change.
A second factor is infinite regression. In due course physicists will start looking for the particles that make up the higgs boson - figans (say). Then later wanting to discover the composition of the figan ... ad infinitum.
So a metaphysic will need to recognise that the current state of knowledge cannot be challenged except by proper investigation. It will also need to take into account that the current state of knowledge will change over time.
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Dave W.
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# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think the biggest shock of modern physics (20+21stC) is the realisation that physics is not about "truth" in a conventional sense. It is about correct (mathematical) relationships between (physical) observables, where this correctness is tested statistically and validated by predictive application. One can learn how to do modern physics, but one cannot learn its meaning. Conceptual understanding has ceased to be the goal of the scientific enterprise, it is now merely one tool for arriving at the correct mathematical bookkeeping of nature.
Would you care to amplify a bit on this point? It's not clear to me how classical physics was really any more about conventional truth or conceptual understanding than modern physics. For example, can we say there's more truth, meaning, or conceptual understanding in a Newtonian description of planets orbiting a sun, than there is in a quantum description of the electron energy states of hydrogen? The former may be relatively easier to develop an intuition for, but this seems more a matter of degree than of kind; I've read that the basic concepts of Newtonian mechanics elude even many college students who score well in their physics classes (and are thus apparently able to apply the mathematical formulas when they recognize a problem they've seen before.)
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I do not know what effect this has had, or will have, on culture. But the final demotion of human understanding and elevation of mathematical procedure is the real step change that happened in physics in the 20thC. All the other often quoted results are culturally effective only as misunderstandings of the actual science.
I seem to recall that Feynman had a similar complaint; as the phenomena physics describes become less commonly accessible, we can probably expect garbled cultural misappropriations to continue.
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Schroedinger's cat
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# 64
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I think sci-fi provides interesting insights into the latest quantum discoveries. So often, this genre takes ideas from science, and explores what they might mean in reality. Of course, this is not always accurate, but it can help to explore what it might mean.
I think the other aspect that is critical is the importance of probabilities in reality. At the quantum level, everything is probabilities. Things like the Infinite Improbability drive in THHGTTG takes this concept to a whole new level.
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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That must mean it''s time for a cup of tea ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
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Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
When I was a postgrad, we did various courses in scientific method, and I remember the idea that scientists make observations about appearances, and do not speculate as to what those appearances might 'mean' in terms of reality. I remember thinking how sensible that seemed.
It is a very modern attitude to consider that as sensible, rather than as a betrayal of truth or at least as second-rate intellectual activity. This just is the modern move, to replace reality and meaning by empirics and outcomes. Of course this stuff mostly works, that's basically its definition. But it replaces a certain idealism with an almost mercantile attitude. The "bottom line" of predictive ability is what counts, never mind whether one understands any of it. Basically, this is the move from "natural philosophy" to "natural science" (though this encompasses a redefinition of the meaning of the word "science", which I use here in the modern sense).
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Originally posted by Dave W.:
Would you care to amplify a bit on this point? It's not clear to me how classical physics was really any more about conventional truth or conceptual understanding than modern physics. For example, can we say there's more truth, meaning, or conceptual understanding in a Newtonian description of planets orbiting a sun, than there is in a quantum description of the electron energy states of hydrogen? The former may be relatively easier to develop an intuition for, but this seems more a matter of degree than of kind; I've read that the basic concepts of Newtonian mechanics elude even many college students who score well in their physics classes (and are thus apparently able to apply the mathematical formulas when they recognize a problem they've seen before.)
I agree, but that's a case of hindsight being 20/20. What happened in the beginning of the 20thC was, if you like, a huge reality check for the physics community. Up to this point physicists could pretend that they were top notch "natural philosophers", and that all the maths and empirics were just elaborate means to the final end of acquiring wisdom about the natural world. With quantum mechanics and special / general relativity, that attitude slammed into a brick wall. If you have to say "I don't really know what the heck that means, but if I calculate it the result is 7.38 MeV," then you cannot pretend any longer to be a philosopher. You still could pretend with the older theories, simply because they made "sense". But yes, in hindsight already by the time of Newton maths was starting to replace meaning.
The next big intellectual move is on the horizon, however. We are entering the age of biology and neuroscience. The stage is set for the pendulum swinging the other way again... A pragmatic approach to the life sciences requires meaning.
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Dave W.
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# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Would you care to amplify a bit on this point? It's not clear to me how classical physics was really any more about conventional truth or conceptual understanding than modern physics. For example, can we say there's more truth, meaning, or conceptual understanding in a Newtonian description of planets orbiting a sun, than there is in a quantum description of the electron energy states of hydrogen? The former may be relatively easier to develop an intuition for, but this seems more a matter of degree than of kind; I've read that the basic concepts of Newtonian mechanics elude even many college students who score well in their physics classes (and are thus apparently able to apply the mathematical formulas when they recognize a problem they've seen before.)
I agree, but that's a case of hindsight being 20/20. What happened in the beginning of the 20thC was, if you like, a huge reality check for the physics community. Up to this point physicists could pretend that they were top notch "natural philosophers", and that all the maths and empirics were just elaborate means to the final end of acquiring wisdom about the natural world. With quantum mechanics and special / general relativity, that attitude slammed into a brick wall. If you have to say "I don't really know what the heck that means, but if I calculate it the result is 7.38 MeV," then you cannot pretend any longer to be a philosopher. You still could pretend with the older theories, simply because they made "sense". But yes, in hindsight already by the time of Newton maths was starting to replace meaning.
Well, can you look still further back and give an example of what you would consider "meaningful" science from before a time when math had started to replace meaning? I mean, if you don't care for modern physics ("a second-rate intellectual activity") and even look askance at Newton, I'm wondering what that science would be like.
To the extent that "finding meaning" or "understanding" physical concepts just conveys an intuitive sense of comfort with them, the problem with modern physics could simply lie more with the limits of our physical intuition (formed from familiarity with human-scale phenomena at characterized lengths and times many orders of magnitude different from those of quantum or relativistic processes) than with a real lack of meaning in the theories themselves.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Originally posted by Dave W.:
Well, can you look still further back and give an example of what you would consider "meaningful" science from before a time when math had started to replace meaning? I mean, if you don't care for modern physics ("a second-rate intellectual activity") and even look askance at Newton, I'm wondering what that science would be like.
I said it is modern to stress pragmatic applicability over conceptual meaningfulness in natural science, and that pre-moderns would have looked down on that. I didn't say that I consider modern physics as second-rate intellectual activity now. I guess like most moderns I appreciate the "flat hierarchy" of intellectual diversification and specialisation that has developed. Modern physics has its own specific intellectual domain, and one can excel within it to the limits of one's genius...
And I didn't look askance at Newton either. I merely wished to point out that with his and Leibniz' invention of calculus the mathematification of physics took a great leap forward. In order to allow maths to replace conceptual thinking, it had to become powerful enough, and this was the time when that seriously began to be the case.
Finally, I repeat that in my opinion until the 20thC, one could still "conceptualise" all of (classical) physics. A closer analysis would probably reveal a gradual change there through history. For example, I think the idea of a "field" is already at the edge of intuitive understanding. But one could still call classical physics an elaborate exercise in natural philosophy. Modern physics is different. Once this difference became undeniable in the 20thC, one could look back in history and see that it didn't come out of nowhere, but rather was the end result of a steady development. In the time between Newton and Heisenberg, physics was a kind of natural philosophy in the same sense as the UK has been (and still is, sort of) a "monarchy". One can validly claim that this is the case, though the substance of that claim sort of thins out with the passing of time.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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LeRoc
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# 3216
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Philip Charles: A second factor is infinite regression. In due course physicists will start looking for the particles that make up the higgs boson - figans (say). Then later wanting to discover the composition of the figan ... ad infinitum.
I'm not sure about this. It's quite possible that this ends somewhere, and that some of the elementary particles really are elementary.
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Dave W.
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# 8765
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Posted
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Originally posted by IngoB:
I said it is modern to stress pragmatic applicability over conceptual meaningfulness in natural science, and that pre-moderns would have looked down on that. I didn't say that I consider modern physics as second-rate intellectual activity now.
Thanks for the clarification; that's not at all the impression I got from your first post, in which it seemed physicists had abandoned the search for meaning, wisdom, and understanding in favor of mere bookkeeping.
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Finally, I repeat that in my opinion until the 20thC, one could still "conceptualise" all of (classical) physics.
I was hoping you might be a little more specific about what you mean by that. (I have my own notion about what learning to "understand" classical physics entails; it mostly involves trying to recruit some pre-existing intuitions, and bending or breaking others to conform to canonical Newtonian observations rather than naïve "F=mv"-type thinking.)
If you can "conceptualize" Newtonian mechanics in a way that quantum mechanics doesn't allow, why is that - what's the root of the difference? (I presume you would consider the predominance of math to be a symptom, not the cause.) Do you think there might conceivably be a non-mathematical way of understanding quantum phenomena which would be more meaningful than the current mathematical framework?
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Philip Charles
Ship's cutler
# 618
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Posted
quote:
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Philip Charles: A second factor is infinite regression. In due course physicists will start looking for the particles that make up the higgs boson - figans (say). Then later wanting to discover the composition of the figan ... ad infinitum.
I'm not sure about this. It's quite possible that this ends somewhere, and that some of the elementary particles really are elementary.
It is all about how the human mind works rather than how the cosmos is constructed. There is no stage in the regression where the question "what is it made of?" become invalid.
When there is a pause in finding the answer to this question physicists are busy constructing their mathematical models of possible answers which may or may not prove to be correct. Are these models metaphysical? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Posts: 89 | From: Dunedin, NZ | Registered: Jun 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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Originally posted by Dave W.:
Thanks for the clarification; that's not at all the impression I got from your first post, in which it seemed physicists had abandoned the search for meaning, wisdom, and understanding in favor of mere bookkeeping.
No, that impression is correct. Except that the way you express it ignores the very discussion from which you have drawn that impression. What "understanding" has to mean when describing nature has changed, and that mathematical bookkeeping allowing predictive application now is not considered "mere" but rather has become the centrepiece of the enterprise. A modern physicist can of course still seek meaning and wisdom, but that is a separate endeavour from her profession. That implies a distinction and perhaps is the occasion for a value judgement, but the distinction is not in itself the value judgement. It's like a physicist pointing out that engineering is no physics. First and foremost, that's simply a truth. Of course, the physicist may consider the intellectual activity in physics to be superior to that in engineering. But that does not follow from the distinction as such, it follows from values held prior to making the distinction. Likewise, pointing out that physics has stopped being natural philosophy is simply a truth. Whether that means physics has moved down, or indeed up as many would say, in some kind of intellectual ranking is a separate issue depending on prior values.
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Originally posted by Dave W.:
If you can "conceptualize" Newtonian mechanics in a way that quantum mechanics doesn't allow, why is that - what's the root of the difference? (I presume you would consider the predominance of math to be a symptom, not the cause.) Do you think there might conceivably be a non-mathematical way of understanding quantum phenomena which would be more meaningful than the current mathematical framework?
No, I don't think that there is a "better" conceptualisation of quantum mechanics. For example, Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics is mathematically equivalent and hence by modern standards indistinguishable from the regular interpretation. But it is just as nuts, requiring non-local interactions of the entire universe. There is something inherently wrong with quantum phenomena being pressed into the intuitions we have developed from living in a macroscopic world. The microscopic world simply is significantly different from it, and this will pop out as strangeness somewhere. We can conceptually shuffle the strangeness around into different places, but we cannot eliminate it.
Well, in fact I'm not sure that it is even that esoteric. It could just be that our psychological intuition is particle-based (experience of objects manipulated in space and time by our hands), whereas physics is in reality wave-based. The wave-particle duality is not even, waves really sort of win the game... For example, you can pretty much derive Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship by thinking about wave packets and using good old Fourier transforms to analyse their spreading.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
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Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Thanks for the clarification; that's not at all the impression I got from your first post, in which it seemed physicists had abandoned the search for meaning, wisdom, and understanding in favor of mere bookkeeping.
No, that impression is correct. Except that the way you express it ignores the very discussion from which you have drawn that impression.
I don't think I'm ignoring a discussion, though I may still misunderstand your position. I don't think what I've written is a terrible distortion of various statements like "Conceptual understanding has ceased to be the goal of the scientific enterprise, it is now merely one tool for arriving at the correct mathematical bookkeeping of nature." Though maybe my "abandoned" is too active a characterization, and thus too derogatory - perhaps the distance between the phenomena physicists study and everyday experiences makes it inevitable.
I'd still be interested in an example of the fruits of natural philosophy's search for understanding and meaning from before the time when physics stopped being natural philosophy (in your view.)
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
If you can "conceptualize" Newtonian mechanics in a way that quantum mechanics doesn't allow, why is that - what's the root of the difference? (I presume you would consider the predominance of math to be a symptom, not the cause.) Do you think there might conceivably be a non-mathematical way of understanding quantum phenomena which would be more meaningful than the current mathematical framework?
No, I don't think that there is a "better" conceptualisation of quantum mechanics. For example, Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics is mathematically equivalent and hence by modern standards indistinguishable from the regular interpretation. But it is just as nuts, requiring non-local interactions of the entire universe. There is something inherently wrong with quantum phenomena being pressed into the intuitions we have developed from living in a macroscopic world. The microscopic world simply is significantly different from it, and this will pop out as strangeness somewhere. We can conceptually shuffle the strangeness around into different places, but we cannot eliminate it.
Well, in fact I'm not sure that it is even that esoteric. It could just be that our psychological intuition is particle-based (experience of objects manipulated in space and time by our hands), whereas physics is in reality wave-based. The wave-particle duality is not even, waves really sort of win the game... For example, you can pretty much derive Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship by thinking about wave packets and using good old Fourier transforms to analyse their spreading.
I think the trouble lies elsewhere than an intuitive conceptual preference for particles over waves. There are plenty of waves in classical physics, and lots of accessible demonstrations of easily observable wave effects. (I found it a source of some satisfaction to learn that position and moment distributions were Fourier transforms of each other, but that was exactly because I had developed some familiarity with waves.) Wavefunctions seem strange in a way that classical electromagnetic waves don't, so I don't think it's because they're waves.
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
If you can't win the game, change the rules.
The conservative brand of "post modern" theology aims to salvage ancient beliefs by casting doubt on the discoveries that refute them. Far from showing modernism's failure, it testifies to its overwhelming success: the evidence has deserted tradition. Tradition's only choice is to desert the evidence.
Ironically, the con po-mo crowd are the opposite of the creed they profess. They're certain they have access to revealed truth. They only want you to doubt the competition.
Still, I can play on their terms, and win all the same. By their fruits. See how quickly a thoroughgoing post modernist runs to the Penicillin when they catch pneumonia, dines on the fruits of the Green Revolution, or takes a plane instead of a month-long voyage. All these depend on the understanding that we really know things. If they don't buy their own product, why should anyone else?
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
I think quantum physics is interesting and cool, and I certainly think that (like many other things) it provides good parallels and analogies for things in basic philosophy and theology. I think the latest things that come out definitely are part of the whole awe-inspiring "fearfully and wonderfully made" thing.
I would be very cautious about trying to take any one development in science (hypothetical or otherwise) and use it to "prove" or "disprove" something genuinely metaphysical, though.
We can use, for instance, the fact that a cube has six planes and yet remains one solid as an analogy of God being three Persons and yet one Being, but if somehow our notions of geometry changed, that would not invalidate the doctrine of the Trinity.
So, I believe, with quantum physics.
And now, a very cool music video about quantum physics that I love to pieces.
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
We can use, for instance, the fact that a cube has six planes and yet remains one solid as an analogy of God being three Persons and yet one Being, but if somehow our notions of geometry changed, that would not invalidate the doctrine of the Trinity.
If you want to preach the heresy of modalism, of course....
Actually, the paradoxical nature of the quantum world can be very helpful for talking about the paradoxes in faith. Just as light can be both totally a particle and totally a wave, so God is totally the Father, totally the son and totally the spirit, all at the same time.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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IngoB: The wave-particle duality is not even, waves really sort of win the game...
I'm leaning more and more towards the conviction that there aren't any particles at all, just waves.
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
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Originally posted by LeRoc:
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IngoB: The wave-particle duality is not even, waves really sort of win the game...
I'm leaning more and more towards the conviction that there aren't any particles at all, just waves.
The thing is, I suspect neither is strictly true, there is something else - movements of strings, maybe. But we define wave functions to help us understand certain properties, and particle functions to define other properties.
I suppose that is one of the oddities of the quantum world, that maybe nothing is what it seems like. Strangely, I find that encouraging.
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Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
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Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
We can use, for instance, the fact that a cube has six planes and yet remains one solid as an analogy of God being three Persons and yet one Being, but if somehow our notions of geometry changed, that would not invalidate the doctrine of the Trinity.
If you want to preach the heresy of modalism, of course....
Just in case you meant that seriously, fear not, I'm talking about it being an analogy--I cringe every time in church someone tries to shoehorn "creator, redeemer and sanctifier" in in place of the Trinity.
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Actually, the paradoxical nature of the quantum world can be very helpful for talking about the paradoxes in faith. Just as light can be both totally a particle and totally a wave, so God is totally the Father, totally the son and totally the spirit, all at the same time.
Absolutely!
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
Another example - Christ being at once both wholly divine and wholly human. That avoids any modalism possibilities (none of which I saw, BTW}.
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