Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy(preposterousuniverse.com)
preposterousuniverse.com
Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/23/physicists-should-stop-saying-silly-things-about-philosophy/
23 コメント
>"Oh yes, mathematics, astronomy, physics, physiology, psychology – these all started out as philosophy, and once we philosophers got them whipped into shape we set them off on their own to be sciences. We figured out how to ask the right the questions, and and then we turned them over to other specialists to answer."
To this I might add a rhetorical question: how would science have gone about discovering the scientific method? Indeed, in which discipline would that question fall even today?
To this I might add a rhetorical question: how would science have gone about discovering the scientific method? Indeed, in which discipline would that question fall even today?
An the answer to a rhetorical question in case anyone is interested: Philosophy of Science. Specifically read Hume (Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding) who demonstrated that inductive reasoning to universal laws (empiricism) was fundamentally based on circular reasoning. Then Karl Popper developed the idea of falsification to show that while Hume is correct--you cannot prove natural laws as true, you can prove them false. He essentially codified the idea that scientific laws have to be testable, and falsifiable. So scientific laws are contingent. They are they closest we have to the truth, until someone devises a test that proves them wrong.
Philosophy of Science is definitely the right field to explore. It's worth noting that aspects of Popper's views are pretty controversial. Popper literally argued that evidence cannot increase the probability a hypothesis is true–for example, collecting a sample of 1,000,000 crows and observing that all of them are black cannot increase your confidence in the belief "at least 99% of crows are black." It can only decrease your confidence in opposing theories such as "at least 99% of crows are white." Very few people would agree with that view today.
The general problem of whether we can increase the probability that a theory is true by observing favorable evidence is the problem of induction, and there are no clear cut answers. A lot of philosophy focuses on situations like this: where all the proposed answers have flaws, but some have fewer flaws than others.
For example, one approach that's been gaining popularity is Bayesianism. Bayesianism is the idea that we have some prior belief in the probability of a hypothesis, and that we can update our confidence in that hypothesis by observing evidence and comparing the relative probabilities that evidence would hold in worlds where the hypothesis was true vs. worlds where the hypothesis was false. The key weakness of Bayesianism is the question of where priors come from, and how to formulate good priors. This is a glaring weakness, but all proposed solutions have glaring weaknesses–that's what makes Philosophy of Science hard.
The general problem of whether we can increase the probability that a theory is true by observing favorable evidence is the problem of induction, and there are no clear cut answers. A lot of philosophy focuses on situations like this: where all the proposed answers have flaws, but some have fewer flaws than others.
For example, one approach that's been gaining popularity is Bayesianism. Bayesianism is the idea that we have some prior belief in the probability of a hypothesis, and that we can update our confidence in that hypothesis by observing evidence and comparing the relative probabilities that evidence would hold in worlds where the hypothesis was true vs. worlds where the hypothesis was false. The key weakness of Bayesianism is the question of where priors come from, and how to formulate good priors. This is a glaring weakness, but all proposed solutions have glaring weaknesses–that's what makes Philosophy of Science hard.
Somewhat related: I'm currently enjoying Scott Aaronson's "Quantum computing since Democritus". A snippet:
Not every branch of science was scouted out ahead of time by philosophy, but some were. And in recent history, I think quantum computing is really the poster child here. It's fine to tell people to "Shut up and calculate," but the question is, what should they calculate? At least in quantum computing, which is my field, the sorts of things that we like to calculate — capacities of quantum channels, error probabilities of quantum algorithms — are things people would never have thought to calculate if not for philosophy.
For more: http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/ — it's been posted here a bunch of times, although without any comments.
Not every branch of science was scouted out ahead of time by philosophy, but some were. And in recent history, I think quantum computing is really the poster child here. It's fine to tell people to "Shut up and calculate," but the question is, what should they calculate? At least in quantum computing, which is my field, the sorts of things that we like to calculate — capacities of quantum channels, error probabilities of quantum algorithms — are things people would never have thought to calculate if not for philosophy.
For more: http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/ — it's been posted here a bunch of times, although without any comments.
Most people have a very mistaken view of modern philosophy, and unfortunately this article does little to clarify. Today, analytic philosophy (as opposed to the continental philosophers) is fairly rigorous and usually narrow focused. It can be about modeling systems (for example Bayesian epistemology, various forms of modal logic). It can be about decision analysis (game theory) It can be about number theory (Frege, Gödel, etc.) and it can be about scientific theory (Popper, Kuhn, Quine, Ulian). Some of these things have been profoundly influential, and important to the modern world.
I agree. I minored in philosophy, and the one overarching issue isn't the comments made about philosophy by scientists, it's the misunderstanding of what modern philosophy consists of.
The article states three example criticisms. I find the derision of the first two completely fair -- neither are very useful criticisms. The derision of the third is misguided. The criticism is completely fair -- which is why philosophy itself is the biggest voice of that criticism! Analytic philosophy is philosophy's answer to that entire criticism of (what is now called) continental philosophy.
The biggest problem with scientists is not their criticism, it's that their criticism is dated. Philosophy had this debate decades ago and has since changed as a result.
The article states three example criticisms. I find the derision of the first two completely fair -- neither are very useful criticisms. The derision of the third is misguided. The criticism is completely fair -- which is why philosophy itself is the biggest voice of that criticism! Analytic philosophy is philosophy's answer to that entire criticism of (what is now called) continental philosophy.
The biggest problem with scientists is not their criticism, it's that their criticism is dated. Philosophy had this debate decades ago and has since changed as a result.
What divides these rigorous branches of philosophy form mathematics then? If it is because it is applied in some sense then they could fall under applied mathematics.
There are similarities, but in analytic philosophy you find a much greater focus on foundational issues. So Frege tries (and fails) to derive all mathematics from logic. Later Bertrand Russell tries to derive mathematics from set theory. (Leading to the most unintentionally funny line in all philosophy. Somewhere around page 300, he gets to the line: "From this proposition it will follow...that 1+1=2")
If I could restructure our naming system is there a good reason for me to label those who focus on foundational issues in mathematics as philosophers rather then mathematicians? Right now I would be inclined to label them the latter.
The reason is largely historical [1]. Before about 100 or so years ago, almost every serious scientist or mathematician was effectively a philosopher as well (hence the Ph in PhD). Aristotle was (and still is, albeit augmented with more modern interpretations) foundational to almost every scholastic curriculum. "Philosophy" literally means "the study of knowledge", and for much of human history, it has been where big ideas came from.
Philosophy gave us many of the things we consider science: the scientific method is the direct result of many of the enlightenment philosophers' quest to determine "what is real" versus "what is not real". Once you have an agreed upon, repeatable definition of a process to get to "real", you can move on from there.
Once the total knowledge of our species began to expand toward the middle of the 19th century, it was no longer sufficient for a scholar to be a "philosopher". You had to specialize in something. So philosophy became dominated by the left-over "soft" topics like ethics and personal philosophy, leaving many people working in "hard" disciplines to shun the label of "philosopher".
Interestingly enough, the classification problem is still one of the most hotly debated problems in philosophy. How much of our classification comes from a truly singular concept versus linguistic commonality? I don't have the answer, but we've been asking the question for a long time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy#History
Philosophy gave us many of the things we consider science: the scientific method is the direct result of many of the enlightenment philosophers' quest to determine "what is real" versus "what is not real". Once you have an agreed upon, repeatable definition of a process to get to "real", you can move on from there.
Once the total knowledge of our species began to expand toward the middle of the 19th century, it was no longer sufficient for a scholar to be a "philosopher". You had to specialize in something. So philosophy became dominated by the left-over "soft" topics like ethics and personal philosophy, leaving many people working in "hard" disciplines to shun the label of "philosopher".
Interestingly enough, the classification problem is still one of the most hotly debated problems in philosophy. How much of our classification comes from a truly singular concept versus linguistic commonality? I don't have the answer, but we've been asking the question for a long time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy#History
Maybe, I'm not that well versed on the mathematics side (and only moderately well read on the philosophy side) It is also my understanding that most of the work on logic occurs on the philosophy side. See Frege, Kripke, Hintikka, and others. My particular interest (never finished the degree) was Bayesian Epistemology--basically looking at knowledge as uncertain, and trying to model degrees of certainty using Bayesian methods.
Very little; to be honest. But the convergence has happened from both sides over the last 150 years or so. Much of theoretical mathematics could probably land in the philosophy camp, but there's no clear delineation even from university to university. In some schools, symbolic logic is considered philosophy, in others it's mathematics, and in others it's computer science.
The trouble, I feel, with the overlap between science and philosophy is that most modern practitioners of what we know as "science" only have exposure to one epistomological world view: positivism. Granted, this world view has created a great abundance of valuable and life improving knowledge for humanity - as Bacon would have described it, it is good for more than disputation (no offense, to Ol' Aristotle) - but it does not encompass the entire sphere of knowledge. There is authentic knowledge to be gained from disciplines which are entirely a priori - such as mathematics, or as some argue, economics.
I really don't think so. Positivism is more a feature of how philosophers of science tried for a while to describe science than it is of actual science. And it seemed to fall out of favor decades ago. Actual science is marked by commonsense, naive realism. It has more in common with how a plumber looks for a leak than with most of the formalisms dreamed up by philosophers.
EDIT: And this is the big one that the article leaves out: the main complaint by scientists against philosophy is that it's so often wrong, especially about science. Many scientists who get curious about philosophy dip into some "philosophy of science" for obvious reasons, and don't recognize there any of the descriptions of the science that they're familiar with. And when philosophers try to apply their general principles to instruct is about how the universe works, they're even more wrong. Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy is a good introduction to this wrongness. He devotes a good deal of it to showing how Kant derived so many wrong conclusions about physics that he thought must be true because of general principles.
EDIT: And this is the big one that the article leaves out: the main complaint by scientists against philosophy is that it's so often wrong, especially about science. Many scientists who get curious about philosophy dip into some "philosophy of science" for obvious reasons, and don't recognize there any of the descriptions of the science that they're familiar with. And when philosophers try to apply their general principles to instruct is about how the universe works, they're even more wrong. Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy is a good introduction to this wrongness. He devotes a good deal of it to showing how Kant derived so many wrong conclusions about physics that he thought must be true because of general principles.
I agree. In my experience scientific researchers were not interested in philosophy of science and meta- questions that interested me in philosophy. They would engage in conversation but I doubt they concerned themselves with the big philosophy of science, epistemology or metaphysics questions.
They were naive realists and that's ok- it seemed helpful for getting data, interpreting results, keeping the wheels of science moving forward.
They were naive realists and that's ok- it seemed helpful for getting data, interpreting results, keeping the wheels of science moving forward.
I am a biologist with a love for philosophy of science and found that both Kuhn and Lakatos discussed science in ways that were at least intelligible. Lakatos in particular described a philosophy of science that seemed to match what I have observed in practice.
I agree pretty much, especially about Kuhn, who had the advantage that he was a superb historian of science. His Structure of Scientific Revolutions is most famous, but I think his really great work was The Copernican Revolution.
Limiting themselves to the philosophy of science may be the problem. Far better to start with a history of philosophy in general. Not only does this provide a better introduction to philosophy qua philosophy, it also provides the necessary historical framework, which is essential in understanding how sciences can, and did, emerge from from the philosophic tradition.
Aside from being interesting in its own right, this keeps you from making the mistake that philosophy is simply a precursor to science, and that it can be reliably judged based on how much ended up in the realm of empiricism.
Aside from being interesting in its own right, this keeps you from making the mistake that philosophy is simply a precursor to science, and that it can be reliably judged based on how much ended up in the realm of empiricism.
If you want a word view where science is deeply rooted, it's pragmatism, not positivism. And creating value is what pragmatism does.
Mathematics is not a-priori. No form of knowledge is.
A priori knowledge is supposedly independent of experience. I agree with you that we have no evidence of knowledge outside human experience.
But from a scientific perspective, both knowledge and experience arise from the physical properties of the universe; properties that predate humans and biological systems entirely. From that perspective, one could say that all knowledge is a priori.
But whether we say it's all priori or posteriori doesn't really matter. The point is that making the distinction privileges the human perspective in a way that we have no scientific evidence to support. The entire exercise begs the question by assuming that human experience is determinative, or distinct in any way from the rest of the universe.
But from a scientific perspective, both knowledge and experience arise from the physical properties of the universe; properties that predate humans and biological systems entirely. From that perspective, one could say that all knowledge is a priori.
But whether we say it's all priori or posteriori doesn't really matter. The point is that making the distinction privileges the human perspective in a way that we have no scientific evidence to support. The entire exercise begs the question by assuming that human experience is determinative, or distinct in any way from the rest of the universe.
I don't understand. If I say
Define L to be a thing of type J.
Where j is a J, define T j L to be j
Define T L j to be the same as j.
Where j is a J define W j to be a J.
And where a and b are both J, define T a W b to be the same as T W a b
Define a K to be a J and either be L or W L or where k can be determined to be a K, W k.
I think these definitions are sufficient to show that if a and b are both a K then T a b can be shown to be the same as T b a.
( though this does not neccisarily make addition over the natural numbers because I did not include the requirement that if a and b are both a K and are not the same then W a must not be the same as W b)
And while I'm not totally sure about the definition of K ( specifically the whether something can be shown part), I think this would be based just on definitions, without really any axioms?
Although I suppose it is possible that I included an axiom and just wrote "Define" before it.
(tangent: I suppose one could say "define a system with the following axioms" and then make a proof about that system, and claim that it was a proof by definition?)
Maybe I don't really understand what a priori really means (this seems fairly likely) but I don't think definitions are considered a priori?
And while I'm not totally sure about the definition of K ( specifically the whether something can be shown part), I think this would be based just on definitions, without really any axioms?
Although I suppose it is possible that I included an axiom and just wrote "Define" before it.
(tangent: I suppose one could say "define a system with the following axioms" and then make a proof about that system, and claim that it was a proof by definition?)
Maybe I don't really understand what a priori really means (this seems fairly likely) but I don't think definitions are considered a priori?
Definitions can absolutely be a priori. Think of the definition of a triangle, some thing like "a closed geometrical shape with three sides." There is nothing about observation of the world that will tell you that this is or isn't true. It is true by definition. Then all closed three sided shapes are triangles, by definition. Then you can start building all sorts of proofs from that, and a few other definitions. You get to the Pythagorean theorem, trigonometry, and off you go, without ever needing anything other than the ideas and definitions.
Care to elaborate? A-priori is generally used to mean that it does not rely on experience or observation. So while the words and symbols we use to explain 2+2=4 (i.e. Two, plus, four, equals) are leaned concepts, the truth and the ability to understand that truth is independent of that experience.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that math isn't invented, it is discovered. I am not sure this is true. I think they are models that are not true or untrue, just consistent and more or less useful than other particular models. It is trivially true that if I have two things in my left hand and two things in my right hand and I put them together, there are four things because this can be mapped onto identity of things. But really quickly it doesn't scale and you need non-real concepts to solve more complex problems. Roman numerals mapped to things (I,II,III) but Arabic were more symbolic and enabled more complex calculations (but still were base-10, which is a choice, not reality, some bases are better for certain calculations than others.) But again they still represented things in some sense. Zero was invented, it had to be invented because it's not representing a thing that can be counted, it's the lack of a thing so it's, I think, fundamentally a concept and not "real." It's still fairly intuitive (despite the fact that it took millions of years to invent) but then there are concepts like infinity. But then it turned out that that just described an infinite number of "things", there was also uncountably infinite. Then there are imaginary numbers. They can solve real problems, but I don't even know what they are. They seem to be an artifact of math that let you solve quadratic equations even though they map into something that can't even be said to be a "lack" of something, like zero is. It is a mapping into a completely virtual space. It was invented to solve problems, but it's not real in any material sense. I'm not a math person, so there are a lot more that I don't know anything about. Maybe I missed the point of your statement, but I wanted to explain what I think. That math isn't reality, it is a human invention that describes reality. You can have things in math that aren't reality but are useful models.
The a-priori/a-posteriori distinction is essentially: is its truth subject to observation of the world. Most mathematicians will argue that even complex ideas like imaginary numbers are the result of the system of mathematics, and can be arrived at and proved without observing the world. Physics is a-posteriori because the math involved is used to describe the world, and the correct formulas and the truth of the formulas cannot be arrive at without observation. Even if someones work is just performing certain calculations on others work, somewhere, working backwards, observation is necessary. If you start with imaginary numbers, and work backwards to simpler and simpler math, it is purely self referential. You don't need anything other than the base concepts to prove the truth, and the base concepts are true by definition, not by observation. You don't have to see a triangle to know it has three sides. It has three sides because that is the definition of a triangle.
He's getting that argument from good ole Kant and his Critique of Pure Reason from 1781 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason). The basic argument, so far as I understand it, is that there must exist certain "structures in the brain" that make all our understanding possible. Since these are brain structures they must be a priori (everyone is born with them). On the side of aesthetic senses he boils these down to space and time. From our sense of space it is possible for us to reason about geometry and therefore much more abstract forms of mathematics without having to have recourse to the "outside" world. So we can envision and prove new geometrical proofs and our internal brain structures for understanding space ground these proofs in a sort of sense certainty. To go to your example of 2 + 2 we can say that nowhere in these symbols is contained the meaning 4 - so no amount of analysis (dividing these symbols up, reducing them to more primitive symbols, etc) will get us to the equality - we have to perform some operation internally and that operation has to be grounded on something a priori - these would be our sense of space where we can envision two things and two more things and perform the count and arrive at 4 - all done outside of experience.
Now there are plenty of philosophers who came later who have tried instead - following in the shoes of Hume - to perform a materialist grounding of these faculties not in the brain but derived from sense experience itself - sense experience somehow constitutes the structures of the brain and changing external sense experiences can reshape or reconstitute these brain structures. For example, Gilles Deleuze seems to me to do something like this.
Now there are plenty of philosophers who came later who have tried instead - following in the shoes of Hume - to perform a materialist grounding of these faculties not in the brain but derived from sense experience itself - sense experience somehow constitutes the structures of the brain and changing external sense experiences can reshape or reconstitute these brain structures. For example, Gilles Deleuze seems to me to do something like this.
Ok, the only Deleuze I've read were his cinema books. Kant definitely sees mathematics as synthetic a priori.
[deleted]
The author seems to be saying that the main reason physicists should pay attention to philosophers is that philosophy can be useful in the study of physics.
I think he could have made his point better by noting that pretty much any thinking about why we study physics leads directly to philosophy. What is the point of doing science? What is knowledge, and why should we be interested in it? These are just the sort of questions philosophy as a discipline is intended to answer.
Any physicist who is interested in any 'meta' questions about his/her work is necessarily interested in philosophy. One can disagree with the particular methodologies of modern academic philosophy, but it is hard to see how any intellectually curious person can dismiss the field entirely.
It seems to me that this is a stronger argument for the relevance of philosophy to science.
I think he could have made his point better by noting that pretty much any thinking about why we study physics leads directly to philosophy. What is the point of doing science? What is knowledge, and why should we be interested in it? These are just the sort of questions philosophy as a discipline is intended to answer.
Any physicist who is interested in any 'meta' questions about his/her work is necessarily interested in philosophy. One can disagree with the particular methodologies of modern academic philosophy, but it is hard to see how any intellectually curious person can dismiss the field entirely.
It seems to me that this is a stronger argument for the relevance of philosophy to science.
As I read Dr. Carroll's blog post, I was reminded encouragingly of how a famous philosopher and Parisian professor[1] – the student of a great medieval experimentalist[2] – in 1265 began his opus magnum with a critique aimed at those who argued that philosophy was the pinnacle of human intellectual pursuit, encompassing all else. See Article One, Question One of the First Part[3] in the Summa Theologica[4]:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_the_Great
[3] http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1001.htm
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Theologica
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_the_Great
[3] http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1001.htm
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Theologica
I found the article vague and unconvincing. If philosophy is useful for physics research, where is the evidence? What new thing did philosophy contribute to physics in the last 100 years?
I am a physicist who cares deeply about the foundational issues mentioned in the article. And yet I honestly don't see any meaningful input about these issues coming from philosophers.
I am a physicist who cares deeply about the foundational issues mentioned in the article. And yet I honestly don't see any meaningful input about these issues coming from philosophers.
If it weren't for philosophy, you wouldn't have the scientific method in the first place. I'd consider that to be astoundingly useful for physics research. A simple example: ever make a hypothesis? Congratulations, you've just done some philosophy. Tested for or against that hypothesis? Now you're using methods developed by philosophy.
The whole idea of what is robust investigation and what is weak is philosophy. It doesn't come naturally - quite the opposite. Doing science 'right' is hard and counter-intuitive, but it was philosophy that figured out how to do it in a robust fashion.
If you don't see how philosophy is entwined with physics (or other sciences), then the fault is your misunderstanding of philosophy, not philosophy itself (philosophy is not another name for religion or the supernatural). And any time someone says "Before we test for X, we have to first define what we mean by X" is doing the fundamental function of philosophy. Given that physics has done a lot of defining and solidifying of terms over the last century, philosophy has definitely had a hand.
The whole idea of what is robust investigation and what is weak is philosophy. It doesn't come naturally - quite the opposite. Doing science 'right' is hard and counter-intuitive, but it was philosophy that figured out how to do it in a robust fashion.
If you don't see how philosophy is entwined with physics (or other sciences), then the fault is your misunderstanding of philosophy, not philosophy itself (philosophy is not another name for religion or the supernatural). And any time someone says "Before we test for X, we have to first define what we mean by X" is doing the fundamental function of philosophy. Given that physics has done a lot of defining and solidifying of terms over the last century, philosophy has definitely had a hand.
It used to be that philosophers/scientists/mathematicians etc. had a lot of overlap. That is why I constrained my question to the last 100 years. I agree with you that philosophy had useful input for scientific research in the distant past. Can you offer more recent examples? It seems to me philosophy has not been relevant for a long time.
One example is falsifiability. As of today, statements which are unfalsifiable are seen as pseudoscience and not science. This distinction was largely promoted by Karl Popper, a philosopher. And widespread adoption of falsifiability happened mostly in the 60s and 70s IIRC.
Prior to that point, theories were often accepted as true if they had a lot of explanatory power, in other words, if they seemed to explain a large set of observations. This made it very difficult to rigorously argue that, e.g., Astrology should not be considered scientific, because it seemed to have a lot of confirming evidence.
This is one of those things that seems really obvious in hindsight, but was a surprisingly big advance in how science was conducted in several fields. A more concrete example is how it affected social sciences like Psychology. Prior to Popper there were a lot of widely held theories that made no falsifiable predictions, today theories that seem to explain everything are generally seen as substantially less rigorous and scientific than ones that are falsifiable.
Prior to that point, theories were often accepted as true if they had a lot of explanatory power, in other words, if they seemed to explain a large set of observations. This made it very difficult to rigorously argue that, e.g., Astrology should not be considered scientific, because it seemed to have a lot of confirming evidence.
This is one of those things that seems really obvious in hindsight, but was a surprisingly big advance in how science was conducted in several fields. A more concrete example is how it affected social sciences like Psychology. Prior to Popper there were a lot of widely held theories that made no falsifiable predictions, today theories that seem to explain everything are generally seen as substantially less rigorous and scientific than ones that are falsifiable.
Interesting. Let me stick to physics because that is the field I am most familiar with. If the idea of falsifiability was not well understood before the 60s, then how did physics manage to progress after Newton? I mean well before the 60s physicists had discovered mechanics, electrodynamics, special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, etc. There were many other proposed theories, but these were the theories that survived empirical tests. Theories that made no testable predictions did not survive. So, based on the history of physics, it seems to me that physicists understood this idea well before Popper came along. Do you agree?
If you agree, then perhaps Popper was responsible for spreading this idea to the social sciences, but he was not the one who introduced it to science.
Now, falsifiability is in fact an outdated notion, and this too was appreciated well before the 60s. As a first example, consider quantum mechanics which was formulated in the beginning of the 20th century. It postulates that the state of a system is described by a wave function, but only certain aspects of the wave function can be observed. The theory makes many testable predictions, but not all aspects of it can be tested (and therefore falsified). Popper argued against this theory (along with Einstein), but it turns out he was wrong. So it seems to me that, not only did physicists understand falsifiability before Popper, but they actually understood more than Popper did (or at least some of them did, like Schrodinger).
A second point about falsifiability is that it is in fact quite a naive and unproductive idea, even without the complexities of quantum mechanics. It is true that theories cannot be proven, but it is also true that they generally cannot be falsified, except in very simple cases. If I have a theory that the sun rises every day, this theory can be falsified. But most theories rely heavily on statistical measurements, which are inherently uncertain. Therefore we can only assign a probability to whether the theory agrees with measurements or not. If we start thinking that we actually 'falsified' some theories, this can actually damage the progression of science. If you like Bayesian statistics, for each theory we can assign a probability of it being correct, based on our measurements, but the probability is rarely 0 or 1. This, again, is well understood by physicists, and I don't think this idea was introduced to physics by philosophers.
If you agree, then perhaps Popper was responsible for spreading this idea to the social sciences, but he was not the one who introduced it to science.
Now, falsifiability is in fact an outdated notion, and this too was appreciated well before the 60s. As a first example, consider quantum mechanics which was formulated in the beginning of the 20th century. It postulates that the state of a system is described by a wave function, but only certain aspects of the wave function can be observed. The theory makes many testable predictions, but not all aspects of it can be tested (and therefore falsified). Popper argued against this theory (along with Einstein), but it turns out he was wrong. So it seems to me that, not only did physicists understand falsifiability before Popper, but they actually understood more than Popper did (or at least some of them did, like Schrodinger).
A second point about falsifiability is that it is in fact quite a naive and unproductive idea, even without the complexities of quantum mechanics. It is true that theories cannot be proven, but it is also true that they generally cannot be falsified, except in very simple cases. If I have a theory that the sun rises every day, this theory can be falsified. But most theories rely heavily on statistical measurements, which are inherently uncertain. Therefore we can only assign a probability to whether the theory agrees with measurements or not. If we start thinking that we actually 'falsified' some theories, this can actually damage the progression of science. If you like Bayesian statistics, for each theory we can assign a probability of it being correct, based on our measurements, but the probability is rarely 0 or 1. This, again, is well understood by physicists, and I don't think this idea was introduced to physics by philosophers.
People worked during the day and not at night for ages before astronomers came along and described how the sun and the earth relate to each other. So, based on the history of human work, humans understood the solar system well before astronomers came along, otherwise no work would have been achieved. Do you agree?
The entire arena of String Theory was a clearly philosophical detour in physics. It captured the hearts and minds of the physics world for years... yet it was pretty much entirely conjectural.
> clearly philosophical detour
No. I am a string theorist. String theory was created by physicists to solve concrete theoretical challenges -- first the description the strong force (this did not work as intended), and later quantum gravity. These were longstanding open questions in physics. I am familiar with the history of string theory, and as far as I know no philosophers had any influence on it.
Perhaps my question wasn't clear, so let me rephrase. What contribution did philosophers make to science in the last 100 years?
No. I am a string theorist. String theory was created by physicists to solve concrete theoretical challenges -- first the description the strong force (this did not work as intended), and later quantum gravity. These were longstanding open questions in physics. I am familiar with the history of string theory, and as far as I know no philosophers had any influence on it.
Perhaps my question wasn't clear, so let me rephrase. What contribution did philosophers make to science in the last 100 years?
There's a significant fault in your reasoning, that 'philosophy' is only performed by people who are socially recognised as being 'philosophers'. It's like saying that the only people who cook food are chefs - professionals recognised as food cookers. People who are professionally recognised as 'philosphers' are a miniscule fraction of the people who use and engage in philosophy, just like chefs are a miniscule fraction of the people who cook.
What you describe about string theory is philosophy. It's just not your personal definition of philosophy, which is based on a faulty stereotype. The funny thing is that it's only because you assign philosophy a stigma that you want to distance yourself from it.
What you describe about string theory is philosophy. It's just not your personal definition of philosophy, which is based on a faulty stereotype. The funny thing is that it's only because you assign philosophy a stigma that you want to distance yourself from it.
I'm not sure if it's faulty reason, but maybe I'm reading it wrong.
It seems to me he's asking the equivalent of "what value do chefs have nowadays in the area of food preparation," which is a fair question independent of whether many people cook, and independent of whether cooks have in the past been immensely useful.
One answer I can think of is that keeping the 'profession' of philosophy alive encourages non-philosophers to ask important questions too, and even if it's nothing more than that, that might be good enough.
That said, while I think the profession of philosophy is much more than just that, I would also like to hear some answers to his (or otherwise just my) question.
It seems to me he's asking the equivalent of "what value do chefs have nowadays in the area of food preparation," which is a fair question independent of whether many people cook, and independent of whether cooks have in the past been immensely useful.
One answer I can think of is that keeping the 'profession' of philosophy alive encourages non-philosophers to ask important questions too, and even if it's nothing more than that, that might be good enough.
That said, while I think the profession of philosophy is much more than just that, I would also like to hear some answers to his (or otherwise just my) question.
Well, the chef analogy breaks down a little because much of what a chef does has a time limit measured in hours.
Modern-day philosophers don't have a lot to offer modern-day physicists I guess... because most of the relevant philosophical problems have largely been solved, especially in the area of experimental design.
I'm not a philosopher, and I don't bill myself as one. I was trained in science, have done a partial PhD on the visual system, and worked as a medical scientist. I have had zero formal classroom training in philosophy. I have one article published in a second-tier peer-reviewed journal. I see myself as a scientist and spent a quarter of my career working as one. I started out with the same ridiculous prejudices against philosophy as the naysayers here in this thread.
Then I started looking in a bit more detail about how and why we do experiments the way we do. The stuff we take for granted - things like minimising independent variables, or the null hypothesis, or peer review, or ethics in research, or the importance of being very specific in your starting definitions, or knowing how to ask a robust, testable question - all these kinds of things were reasoned about and a path(s) was found to the best way to do things to get robust results. And these things aren't inherent to the physical world - they're issues around reasoning. Not physics or biology or chemistry. It was eye-opening just how much ridiculous stigma and bad stereotypes are promoted by a certain kind of scientist.
Thing is, the two fields are not in conflict. For the most part, they are looking for truth in different areas - hence why doing physics and doing philosophy aren't mutually exclusive. They're not in competition, for the most part, and one field isn't 'better' than the other field. It's a silly, childish thing to suggest that these fields are competing; that there has to be a 'winner'. Does psychology 'win' over chemistry? Who 'wins' in the competition between music and mathematics? These fields aren't seen as being in competition (and there's some synergy between maths and music, just like I'm saying there is between physics and philosophy).
Asking "so, what have philosophers given physicists lately"(the occupations) is really a meaningless question, and implies that philosophy (the field) is only valid if it's constantly giving new insights to physics (the field). One could just as easily say "what have physicists given philosophers lately? Are philosophers of consciousness better able to discuss their topic because of the work of physicists?". Put that way, it's clear how silly it is to make these fields compete. Yes, there may be some conflict on the fringes ('what is the nature of existence' type stuff), but for the most part, they're harmonious entities, not enemies.
In short, the two fields are not dichotomous. You are in fact a significantly better scientist if you understand the reasons underlying why you conduct experiments the way you do. It allows you to modify your experimental procedures in a robust way. It's amusing to see people so stigmatising philosophy that they demand that their own philosophical utterances are due to a different field - as if it somehow hurts to say "this part of what I do is philosophy, that part is physics, and the other part is chef work". Elsewhere in this thread you'll see a lovely example, where someone uses Occam's Razor against philosophy... :)
Modern-day philosophers don't have a lot to offer modern-day physicists I guess... because most of the relevant philosophical problems have largely been solved, especially in the area of experimental design.
I'm not a philosopher, and I don't bill myself as one. I was trained in science, have done a partial PhD on the visual system, and worked as a medical scientist. I have had zero formal classroom training in philosophy. I have one article published in a second-tier peer-reviewed journal. I see myself as a scientist and spent a quarter of my career working as one. I started out with the same ridiculous prejudices against philosophy as the naysayers here in this thread.
Then I started looking in a bit more detail about how and why we do experiments the way we do. The stuff we take for granted - things like minimising independent variables, or the null hypothesis, or peer review, or ethics in research, or the importance of being very specific in your starting definitions, or knowing how to ask a robust, testable question - all these kinds of things were reasoned about and a path(s) was found to the best way to do things to get robust results. And these things aren't inherent to the physical world - they're issues around reasoning. Not physics or biology or chemistry. It was eye-opening just how much ridiculous stigma and bad stereotypes are promoted by a certain kind of scientist.
Thing is, the two fields are not in conflict. For the most part, they are looking for truth in different areas - hence why doing physics and doing philosophy aren't mutually exclusive. They're not in competition, for the most part, and one field isn't 'better' than the other field. It's a silly, childish thing to suggest that these fields are competing; that there has to be a 'winner'. Does psychology 'win' over chemistry? Who 'wins' in the competition between music and mathematics? These fields aren't seen as being in competition (and there's some synergy between maths and music, just like I'm saying there is between physics and philosophy).
Asking "so, what have philosophers given physicists lately"(the occupations) is really a meaningless question, and implies that philosophy (the field) is only valid if it's constantly giving new insights to physics (the field). One could just as easily say "what have physicists given philosophers lately? Are philosophers of consciousness better able to discuss their topic because of the work of physicists?". Put that way, it's clear how silly it is to make these fields compete. Yes, there may be some conflict on the fringes ('what is the nature of existence' type stuff), but for the most part, they're harmonious entities, not enemies.
In short, the two fields are not dichotomous. You are in fact a significantly better scientist if you understand the reasons underlying why you conduct experiments the way you do. It allows you to modify your experimental procedures in a robust way. It's amusing to see people so stigmatising philosophy that they demand that their own philosophical utterances are due to a different field - as if it somehow hurts to say "this part of what I do is philosophy, that part is physics, and the other part is chef work". Elsewhere in this thread you'll see a lovely example, where someone uses Occam's Razor against philosophy... :)
Great, I think I now understand your biases, and I think you understand mine, and currently I do not spot any disagreement between us. So please allow me to refocus the discussion to the context of the original article. The article said:
> To redress the balance a bit, philosopher of physics Wayne Myrvold has asked some physicists to explain why talking to philosophers has actually been useful to them. I was one of the respondents, and you can read my entry at the Rotman Institute blog. I was going to cross-post my response here, but instead let me try to say the same thing in different words.
So in the context of the original article, 'philosophers' are clearly those individuals who hold philosophy degrees, have offices in the philosophy department, etc. You know, those individuals that people usually think about as philosophers. This is the context I was answering in.
You argue that a good scientist should think about philosophical questions that have to do with the nature of his research, and not just about concrete scientific problems. I completely agree. I also agree that when a scientist engages in this activity he is doing philosophy and not science. Therefore, I agree that doing philosophy is important (and in fact necessary) for doing good science.
I do not think that science and philosophy are competing in any way, and I apologize if I gave this impression. My question of "what have philosophers given physicists" is entirely in the context of the original article, which tried to claim that it is a good idea for physicists to talk to philosophers (the official ones, yes?). I am simply asking for evidence that it is indeed a good idea for these two groups of people to communicate.
I hope these comments put us on common ground. We both agree that good things happen when scientists engage in philosophy, today. My question is what good comes of philosophers engaging in philosophy, today. If you like, we can broaden this question well beyond science, and ask -- what concrete positive things have philosophers (the official ones!) contributed to humanity in the last 100 years?
> To redress the balance a bit, philosopher of physics Wayne Myrvold has asked some physicists to explain why talking to philosophers has actually been useful to them. I was one of the respondents, and you can read my entry at the Rotman Institute blog. I was going to cross-post my response here, but instead let me try to say the same thing in different words.
So in the context of the original article, 'philosophers' are clearly those individuals who hold philosophy degrees, have offices in the philosophy department, etc. You know, those individuals that people usually think about as philosophers. This is the context I was answering in.
You argue that a good scientist should think about philosophical questions that have to do with the nature of his research, and not just about concrete scientific problems. I completely agree. I also agree that when a scientist engages in this activity he is doing philosophy and not science. Therefore, I agree that doing philosophy is important (and in fact necessary) for doing good science.
I do not think that science and philosophy are competing in any way, and I apologize if I gave this impression. My question of "what have philosophers given physicists" is entirely in the context of the original article, which tried to claim that it is a good idea for physicists to talk to philosophers (the official ones, yes?). I am simply asking for evidence that it is indeed a good idea for these two groups of people to communicate.
I hope these comments put us on common ground. We both agree that good things happen when scientists engage in philosophy, today. My question is what good comes of philosophers engaging in philosophy, today. If you like, we can broaden this question well beyond science, and ask -- what concrete positive things have philosophers (the official ones!) contributed to humanity in the last 100 years?
To be fair, the 'competing' angle was mostly from my interaction with snowwrestler below, but there's elements of it wherever philosophy is given a stigma. I've seen similar positions from other scientists. The odd thing is that if there's a scientist who's of the opinion that their science is the only one that's important or true, it's usually a physicist. I haven't seen a biologist or chemist or the like take this position. Strangely, I have seen it from a psychologist.
I found the context of the article to be more talking about philosophy the field with occasional mentions of philosopher the occupation. In any case, I haven't read a lot of stuff from 20th C occupational philosophers - but it was talking to a philosopher that opened my eyes to the seeds of questioning my own stigma of the field. That lead me to more investigation of the methods and histories and reasoning of why we do science the way we do, and realising that understanding the process means you know why you're doing it that way, and where you can appropriately modify your methods
For example, I've butted heads here on HN before with people who think that the only way to 'do science' is with a null hypothesis and a double-blind trial. For some cases in medicine, this isn't possible (usually due to both low n and ethics), so case studies are used. Case studies are recognised as not being as robust and subject to a number of caveats, but they still give us knowledge that can be used to make predictions and repeatable actions. Keep in mind the caveats, and you're drawing from a valuable pool of knowledge. The difference here is understanding what you're trying to get (robust, repeatable data, preferably published), rather than having a golden method that is the One True Thing and any departure from it is straying from the right path.
But back to the question of what occupational philosophers have given to society recently, I don't know. But philosophy has given us astounding amounts, including most of the egalitarian and civil rights advances we've seen. I get the impression that occupational philosophers 'keep the flame alive', and that their work infiltrates other fields via philosophy fans in those fields. Certainly for physics and science in general, most of the philosophical problems have been solved, though there are still some hanging about, like how do we define consciousness? In order to study it, we need good definitions, and this one eludes us with great agility - philosophical discussions on this at least help nail down what it isn't.
I found the context of the article to be more talking about philosophy the field with occasional mentions of philosopher the occupation. In any case, I haven't read a lot of stuff from 20th C occupational philosophers - but it was talking to a philosopher that opened my eyes to the seeds of questioning my own stigma of the field. That lead me to more investigation of the methods and histories and reasoning of why we do science the way we do, and realising that understanding the process means you know why you're doing it that way, and where you can appropriately modify your methods
For example, I've butted heads here on HN before with people who think that the only way to 'do science' is with a null hypothesis and a double-blind trial. For some cases in medicine, this isn't possible (usually due to both low n and ethics), so case studies are used. Case studies are recognised as not being as robust and subject to a number of caveats, but they still give us knowledge that can be used to make predictions and repeatable actions. Keep in mind the caveats, and you're drawing from a valuable pool of knowledge. The difference here is understanding what you're trying to get (robust, repeatable data, preferably published), rather than having a golden method that is the One True Thing and any departure from it is straying from the right path.
But back to the question of what occupational philosophers have given to society recently, I don't know. But philosophy has given us astounding amounts, including most of the egalitarian and civil rights advances we've seen. I get the impression that occupational philosophers 'keep the flame alive', and that their work infiltrates other fields via philosophy fans in those fields. Certainly for physics and science in general, most of the philosophical problems have been solved, though there are still some hanging about, like how do we define consciousness? In order to study it, we need good definitions, and this one eludes us with great agility - philosophical discussions on this at least help nail down what it isn't.
[deleted]
I find this argument to be condescending and wholly unconvincing. Scientists know what the scientific method is; they don't need philosophers to tell them. And certainly no living philosopher can claim to have defined or invented the scientific method.
If you want to play epistemological parent trap, then before philosophy there were other attempts to understand things. Should we argue that all philosophy is actually just a subset of whatever that was? Does philosophy get priority just because we happen to have a word for it today?
If you want to play epistemological parent trap, then before philosophy there were other attempts to understand things. Should we argue that all philosophy is actually just a subset of whatever that was? Does philosophy get priority just because we happen to have a word for it today?
Scientists know what the scientific method is; they don't need philosophers to tell them.
Whoah. And you say my statement is condescending. The scientific method is not natural or intuitive. It is hard and counter-intuitive. People don't 'just know it'. They have to be trained in it, in logic, in fallacies, in null hypothesis and so forth.
The mistake you're making is that scientists and philosophers are separate and distinct creatures. They're not.
Should we argue that all philosophy is actually just a subset of whatever that was?
I'd like to hear you articulate what it is you're talking about here, rather than just appeal to a mysterious authority.
Does philosophy get priority just because we happen to have a word for it today?
By 'today', do you mean 'pretty much all of recorded history'?
These word games you're playing to denigrate philosophy in favour of science... are philosophy. If you think philosophy is so useless, then why engage in arguments around semantics?
Whoah. And you say my statement is condescending. The scientific method is not natural or intuitive. It is hard and counter-intuitive. People don't 'just know it'. They have to be trained in it, in logic, in fallacies, in null hypothesis and so forth.
The mistake you're making is that scientists and philosophers are separate and distinct creatures. They're not.
Should we argue that all philosophy is actually just a subset of whatever that was?
I'd like to hear you articulate what it is you're talking about here, rather than just appeal to a mysterious authority.
Does philosophy get priority just because we happen to have a word for it today?
By 'today', do you mean 'pretty much all of recorded history'?
These word games you're playing to denigrate philosophy in favour of science... are philosophy. If you think philosophy is so useless, then why engage in arguments around semantics?
They are, today, separate and distinct. Little proto-scientists are trained in the scientific method in science classes. You can go to any school in the U.S. and science is taught by scientists in science classes in the science department. They are not in the philosophy department. At my college, philosophy was housed in the humanities department.
Philosophers love love love to relive the history of philosophy, but it's history, not present fact. Newton called himself a "natural philosopher"--true. But today most folks call him a scientist.
The question is not "where did science come from," the question is what does philosophy do for scientists today. The structure of that question assumes the very division that you are trying to erase.
I happen to think that there are actual answers to that question; but "all of science is actually philosophy" is not one of them.
Philosophers love love love to relive the history of philosophy, but it's history, not present fact. Newton called himself a "natural philosopher"--true. But today most folks call him a scientist.
The question is not "where did science come from," the question is what does philosophy do for scientists today. The structure of that question assumes the very division that you are trying to erase.
I happen to think that there are actual answers to that question; but "all of science is actually philosophy" is not one of them.
Philosophers love love love to relive the history of philosophy, but it's history, not present fact.
Please read back over our discussion - you were the one who brought in ancient history. The things I have mentioned are all aspects of philosophy that are relevant in the current day.
Newton called himself a "natural philosopher"--true. But today most folks call him a scientist.
There is no dichotomy. Being a scientist and doing philosophy are not only not mutually exclusive, but you can't do good science without engaging in philosophy to some degree. This is not the same as 'all of science is actually philosophy', but a comment that the methods of good science require philosophy.
the question is what does philosophy do for scientists today
Why does philosophy need to find factoids or bring something fresh every year in order to be valid?
"And philosophy is not the only discipline that engages in studying the workings of science. So do history and sociology of science, and yet I never heard you dismiss those fields on the grounds that they haven't discovered the Higgs boson." - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/massimo-pigliucci/neil-degrass...
That quote comes from an interesting article, well worth reading. The author is countering Tyson's public misrepresentation of philosophy - with the postscript that Tyson apparently accepts these criticisms.
The philosophy of science is similar to mathematics in what it offers science - you find a new technique that gives good results, so you use it in future. "What does philosophy do for scientists today?" is like saying "What does calculus do for scientists today?".
Please read back over our discussion - you were the one who brought in ancient history. The things I have mentioned are all aspects of philosophy that are relevant in the current day.
Newton called himself a "natural philosopher"--true. But today most folks call him a scientist.
There is no dichotomy. Being a scientist and doing philosophy are not only not mutually exclusive, but you can't do good science without engaging in philosophy to some degree. This is not the same as 'all of science is actually philosophy', but a comment that the methods of good science require philosophy.
the question is what does philosophy do for scientists today
Why does philosophy need to find factoids or bring something fresh every year in order to be valid?
"And philosophy is not the only discipline that engages in studying the workings of science. So do history and sociology of science, and yet I never heard you dismiss those fields on the grounds that they haven't discovered the Higgs boson." - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/massimo-pigliucci/neil-degrass...
That quote comes from an interesting article, well worth reading. The author is countering Tyson's public misrepresentation of philosophy - with the postscript that Tyson apparently accepts these criticisms.
The philosophy of science is similar to mathematics in what it offers science - you find a new technique that gives good results, so you use it in future. "What does philosophy do for scientists today?" is like saying "What does calculus do for scientists today?".
> guygurari: What new thing did philosophy contribute to physics in the last 100 years?
> vacri: If it weren't for philosophy, you wouldn't have the scientific method in the first place.
That's arguing from history.
> There is no dichotomy.
Not in your mind there isn't, but obviously there is in the minds of a lot of scientists, including for example the author of the linked article, every scientist he mentions by name, and guygurari, the person to whom you responded. You can keep asserting it over and over but that doesn't mean it's true from all perspectives.
> vacri: If it weren't for philosophy, you wouldn't have the scientific method in the first place.
That's arguing from history.
> There is no dichotomy.
Not in your mind there isn't, but obviously there is in the minds of a lot of scientists, including for example the author of the linked article, every scientist he mentions by name, and guygurari, the person to whom you responded. You can keep asserting it over and over but that doesn't mean it's true from all perspectives.
That's arguing from history.
If you think that the way science is performed hasn't been significantly changed and refined in the past 100 years, the original timeframe suggested... I don't know what to say. Much of what we call the scientific method has been defined, refined, and expanded in this last 100 years.
dichotomy stuff
The things you're referring to are occupations. 'Philosophers' and 'physicists'. Not 'philosophy' and 'physics'.
The article author quite clearly states that physicists (the occupation) can make good use of philosophy(the realm of knowledge). The realms of physics and philosophy are not mutually exclusive - they are not two wholly separate things; not a dichotomy. And the scientists the article author is mentioning by name are people he's saying have this problem with the faulty perception of philosophy - it's the point of the article.
In any case, like I said at the end of my last comment - philosophy gives us robust techniques for doing science, just like maths does. How do these become 'stale', 'not valid', or 'not useful', just because there hasn't been a recent breakthrough? We don't demand the same of techniques from the realm of mathematics.
If you think that the way science is performed hasn't been significantly changed and refined in the past 100 years, the original timeframe suggested... I don't know what to say. Much of what we call the scientific method has been defined, refined, and expanded in this last 100 years.
dichotomy stuff
The things you're referring to are occupations. 'Philosophers' and 'physicists'. Not 'philosophy' and 'physics'.
The article author quite clearly states that physicists (the occupation) can make good use of philosophy(the realm of knowledge). The realms of physics and philosophy are not mutually exclusive - they are not two wholly separate things; not a dichotomy. And the scientists the article author is mentioning by name are people he's saying have this problem with the faulty perception of philosophy - it's the point of the article.
In any case, like I said at the end of my last comment - philosophy gives us robust techniques for doing science, just like maths does. How do these become 'stale', 'not valid', or 'not useful', just because there hasn't been a recent breakthrough? We don't demand the same of techniques from the realm of mathematics.
> If you think that the way science is performed hasn't been significantly changed and refined in the past 100 years, the original timeframe suggested... I don't know what to say. Much of what we call the scientific method has been defined, refined, and expanded in this last 100 years.
Yes, by scientists.
Yes, by scientists.
I was wondering if you were merely trolling several comments back, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. More fool me, I guess.
I'm not trolling; I would encourage you to come back to this exchange later and consider it from a different angle. You're committed to the primacy of philosophy, but that is not the only way to view the situation on the ground today.
I'm not trolling
Trolling or not, you're talking in short, low-context sentences, while avoiding responding to many of the points I raise. It's not really worth talking to someone doing that.
You're committed to the primacy of philosophy
Eh? Where did I say that philosophy is better than anything else? The whole idea that these things are in competition - or that one is 'better' than the other - is entirely within your head, not mine. Read my reply to mercer above.
Trolling or not, you're talking in short, low-context sentences, while avoiding responding to many of the points I raise. It's not really worth talking to someone doing that.
You're committed to the primacy of philosophy
Eh? Where did I say that philosophy is better than anything else? The whole idea that these things are in competition - or that one is 'better' than the other - is entirely within your head, not mine. Read my reply to mercer above.
I had a lecturer in AI who use to do exactly this: he would rail at the uselessness of Philosophy and then present his own theory of AI which was just so much bad philosophy.
From a blog comment- is it convicing?
"One central question in the philosophy of physics is how we should understand quantum mechanics (QM). We may want to know what we should take QM to be about. It’s worth noting that, in some (but not all) cases, this is no longer an empirical question: for instance, the traditional Copenhagen interpretation of QM is empirically equivalent to the Everett "many worlds" interpretation of QM. So, if we can’t do an experiment to settle the issue, we need to resort to some other method, which is where philosophers of physics come in."
"One central question in the philosophy of physics is how we should understand quantum mechanics (QM). We may want to know what we should take QM to be about. It’s worth noting that, in some (but not all) cases, this is no longer an empirical question: for instance, the traditional Copenhagen interpretation of QM is empirically equivalent to the Everett "many worlds" interpretation of QM. So, if we can’t do an experiment to settle the issue, we need to resort to some other method, which is where philosophers of physics come in."
If we can't do an experiment to settle the issue, then maybe the two are equivalent, and Occam's Razor says don't get all theoretical about many universes without good reason?
On the other hand, sooner or later, someone may figure out how to do an experiment that can tell the difference (unless it's provable that the two interpretations always give the same physical results).
On the other hand, sooner or later, someone may figure out how to do an experiment that can tell the difference (unless it's provable that the two interpretations always give the same physical results).
I'm currently reading Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Rev...). A common point he makes is that most scientists operate under an informal paradigm. A paradigm, to Kuhn, are the set of shared understandings and interpretations that are not themselves formal theories.
The importance of such paradigms is that they seem to determine what scientists investigate, and what they're primed to even see. An example Kuhn gives are X-rays. Their discovery caused some consternation, even though their existence did not need a full theoretical overhaul. The consternation was that they were completely unexpected, but they also must have been present in many prior experiments, yet never directly reported.
To directly address your point, scientists are human, and will probably lean one way or another on understanding quantum mechanics. How they lean will influence what sort of questions they investigate, how they investigate it, and what sort of outcomes they will look for.
The importance of such paradigms is that they seem to determine what scientists investigate, and what they're primed to even see. An example Kuhn gives are X-rays. Their discovery caused some consternation, even though their existence did not need a full theoretical overhaul. The consternation was that they were completely unexpected, but they also must have been present in many prior experiments, yet never directly reported.
To directly address your point, scientists are human, and will probably lean one way or another on understanding quantum mechanics. How they lean will influence what sort of questions they investigate, how they investigate it, and what sort of outcomes they will look for.
Occam's Razor is a philosophical tool. It's strange to see the argument "This philosophy says don't use philosophy". It's a bit like a sign that says "don't read this sign".
The scientific method is philosophy, falsificationism is philosophy. This is the irony: scientists failing to see that they're using the tools of philosophy to claim philosophy is useless. I wonder what the experiment was that observed Occam's Razor?
Priceless!
Priceless!
Best quote:
"Nevertheless, there are some physics questions where philosophical input actually is useful. Foundational questions, such as the quantum measurement problem, the arrow of time, the nature of probability, and so on. Again, a huge majority of working physicists don’t ever worry about these problems. But some of us do! And frankly, if more physicists who wrote in these areas would make the effort to talk to philosophers, they would save themselves from making a lot of simple mistakes."
Philosophers interests overlap at times with mathematicians, linguists, psychologists, physicists. Sometimes they have valuable things to say to each other. E.g. Experimental philosophy is a trend in philosophy, and people who have never done scientific experiments before could learn how to do them better from scientists who have that experience and knowledge. I support people that find common ground and work together to help each other tackle the puzzles they're working on.
"Nevertheless, there are some physics questions where philosophical input actually is useful. Foundational questions, such as the quantum measurement problem, the arrow of time, the nature of probability, and so on. Again, a huge majority of working physicists don’t ever worry about these problems. But some of us do! And frankly, if more physicists who wrote in these areas would make the effort to talk to philosophers, they would save themselves from making a lot of simple mistakes."
Philosophers interests overlap at times with mathematicians, linguists, psychologists, physicists. Sometimes they have valuable things to say to each other. E.g. Experimental philosophy is a trend in philosophy, and people who have never done scientific experiments before could learn how to do them better from scientists who have that experience and knowledge. I support people that find common ground and work together to help each other tackle the puzzles they're working on.
> (Aside: of course there are bad philosophers, who do all sorts of stupid things, just as there are bad practitioners of every field. Let’s concentrate on the good ones, of whom there are plenty.)
The impression that most physicists I know is that the percentage of bad philosophers or bad philosophy papers is much high then in chemistry, physics, biology and several others.
I could not take the arguments here and convince those friends/peers otherwise.
> Philosophers are, by their nature, more interested in foundational questions where the latest wrinkle in the data is of less importance than it would be to a model-building phenomenologist.
The problem is that philosophers have so little data to work with. The problems they are pointed at often need tremendous amounts of data or very hard to collect data. Instead of making an incremental improvement on collecting that data or analyzing existing data it seems to often be the case that philosophers decided to work with guess work instead.
>The idea is apparently that developing a new technique for calculating a certain wave function is an honorable enterprise worthy of support, while trying to understand what wave functions actually are and how they capture reality is a boring waste of time.
A theoretical paper that examines the various quantum calculation techniques through the lens of information theory and attempts to make rigorous claims on which methods or fundamentally more simple(form an information theory definition) sounds like solid science and an interesting read. "trying to understand what wave functions actually are and how they capture reality" - does not sound like something I would want to fund or read.
>And part of that task is understanding the foundational aspects of our physical picture of the world, digging deeply into issues that go well beyond merely being able to calculate things.
I would want an example of an issue where calculation plays no role. Being able to communicate the ideas to fellow humans might be thought to involve not calculation, I would argue that starting with the simplest mathematical models then isomorphically(or at least minimize information lose) tweaking for human understanding would be the non-practical ideal method and use considerable calculation.
The impression that most physicists I know is that the percentage of bad philosophers or bad philosophy papers is much high then in chemistry, physics, biology and several others.
I could not take the arguments here and convince those friends/peers otherwise.
> Philosophers are, by their nature, more interested in foundational questions where the latest wrinkle in the data is of less importance than it would be to a model-building phenomenologist.
The problem is that philosophers have so little data to work with. The problems they are pointed at often need tremendous amounts of data or very hard to collect data. Instead of making an incremental improvement on collecting that data or analyzing existing data it seems to often be the case that philosophers decided to work with guess work instead.
>The idea is apparently that developing a new technique for calculating a certain wave function is an honorable enterprise worthy of support, while trying to understand what wave functions actually are and how they capture reality is a boring waste of time.
A theoretical paper that examines the various quantum calculation techniques through the lens of information theory and attempts to make rigorous claims on which methods or fundamentally more simple(form an information theory definition) sounds like solid science and an interesting read. "trying to understand what wave functions actually are and how they capture reality" - does not sound like something I would want to fund or read.
>And part of that task is understanding the foundational aspects of our physical picture of the world, digging deeply into issues that go well beyond merely being able to calculate things.
I would want an example of an issue where calculation plays no role. Being able to communicate the ideas to fellow humans might be thought to involve not calculation, I would argue that starting with the simplest mathematical models then isomorphically(or at least minimize information lose) tweaking for human understanding would be the non-practical ideal method and use considerable calculation.
While a physicist should be commended for defending philosophy, I'm still not convinced that "asking deep questions about what it all means" isn't a complete waste of time.
Regardless of whether anything "means" anything, I really don't get why it should.
Uncovering actionable (and often very surprising) laws of nature sound much more exciting to me than pondering about "meaning", especially when done by people who don't have a deep understanding of physics.
The only people who should be philosophizing are the physicists, but they'd rather do physics instead, and I think that's a good thing.
Regardless of whether anything "means" anything, I really don't get why it should.
Uncovering actionable (and often very surprising) laws of nature sound much more exciting to me than pondering about "meaning", especially when done by people who don't have a deep understanding of physics.
The only people who should be philosophizing are the physicists, but they'd rather do physics instead, and I think that's a good thing.
There is a whole other sector of philosophy that is almost completely divorced from science that is often called "Continental Philosophy". It deals with all of the classic problems -- meaning, love, truth, etc. The U.S. tends to not hear a lot about it, but it's huge in the non-english speaking world. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy
It's also frequently pretty silly.
For the science-trained reader it can be painful to read. For example a popular rhetorical technique in this area is to take a well-defined scientific idea and use it as if it was a metaphor, then use the metaphor to imply some claim, then claim that the scientific idea entailed the claim.
Also, explaining things in an elliptical and opaque way is often considered OK, since it provides a certain kind of experience for the reader. In the Anglo-American tradition, clarity is an objective, rather than giving off a vibe where you kind of get the idea.
These guys point out some howling examples where technical terms are abused to the point of meaninglessness:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861971249/o/qid=97...
For the science-trained reader it can be painful to read. For example a popular rhetorical technique in this area is to take a well-defined scientific idea and use it as if it was a metaphor, then use the metaphor to imply some claim, then claim that the scientific idea entailed the claim.
Also, explaining things in an elliptical and opaque way is often considered OK, since it provides a certain kind of experience for the reader. In the Anglo-American tradition, clarity is an objective, rather than giving off a vibe where you kind of get the idea.
These guys point out some howling examples where technical terms are abused to the point of meaninglessness:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861971249/o/qid=97...
Yup. Modern philosophy is usually divided into Analytic and Continental. Analytic is by far the most common in England (its birthplace) and the US. Continental (as the name implies) is most common in France and Germany. It can be much more abstract. Phenomenology and Existentialism are two strains of Continental philosophy (Husserl for the first, and Heidegger, Sartre, and Kierkegaard for the other.)
The criticism certainly goes both ways, with the understanding of many (most?) in philosophy and the humanities in general of what science actually is and has done is deeply depressing (see Soakl and Bricmont's "Intellectual Impostures"). My personal observation is that there is a lot of resentment, envy, and repressed inferiority complexes that humanist academics hold towards scientists.
Philosophy is more concerned with consciousness being a black-box and thus physical measurements not being able to be fully trusted. Science assumes a physical world that does not lie above untrusted surface. However, philosophy takes nothing for granted. It's possible that you are the only real conscious person, and everyone else is just merely 'reactive.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
There is not a divide between Philosophy and Physics. Their axioms are merely different. Physics has axioms. Philosophy is about life, and therefore examines it with NO precepts. In order to discover the truth about the universe, one must make no assumptions. One must simply understand the level of truth each thought holds. This is the 'golden key.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
There is not a divide between Philosophy and Physics. Their axioms are merely different. Physics has axioms. Philosophy is about life, and therefore examines it with NO precepts. In order to discover the truth about the universe, one must make no assumptions. One must simply understand the level of truth each thought holds. This is the 'golden key.'
I might misunderstand philosophy, but I think about it like this: scientists gather data, run experiments, etc. while philosophers draw conclusions. Sure most/maybe all scientists draw their own conclusions (it is pretty much the only way to get published) but sometimes the conclusions are not so obvious.
Does the Heisenberg uncertainty principle mean we have free will? Can free will exist? What sort of (theoretical) evidence would we need to disprove free will?
Is that line of questioning philosophy or science? I'm really not sure. I think you take a headlong leap into science when you start running tests, but I'm not sure at what point talk turns from philosophy to science.
In the end, everyone is just trying to make a more accurate map, right?
Does the Heisenberg uncertainty principle mean we have free will? Can free will exist? What sort of (theoretical) evidence would we need to disprove free will?
Is that line of questioning philosophy or science? I'm really not sure. I think you take a headlong leap into science when you start running tests, but I'm not sure at what point talk turns from philosophy to science.
In the end, everyone is just trying to make a more accurate map, right?
You don't need to go all the way to physics for free will - you need look no farther than psychology to determine whether free will exists or not. Actually, you don't need to look any farther than a serious philosophical treatment of what you mean by "free will" to see that the question itself is a confused one based on untenable (or even more confused) assumptions.
Nevertheless the belief in free will is very important for human happiness; or at least, happy and/or successful people tend to believe in free will, or just that their will is free and they're the master of their fates and the captain of their souls.
That is often the motive behind free will arguments, which generally have a very powerful smell of rationalization about them, but a thing is not necessarily true because human happiness (or even life) requires believing it is true or leads to the feeling it must be true.
Nevertheless the belief in free will is very important for human happiness; or at least, happy and/or successful people tend to believe in free will, or just that their will is free and they're the master of their fates and the captain of their souls.
That is often the motive behind free will arguments, which generally have a very powerful smell of rationalization about them, but a thing is not necessarily true because human happiness (or even life) requires believing it is true or leads to the feeling it must be true.
In the end, everyone is just trying to make a more accurate map, right?
Pretty much... which is why philosophy and science are not mutually exclusive. If they were, there wouldn't be an area of philosophy called the 'philosophy of science', which concerns itself with the best ways to acquire knowledge. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
Pretty much... which is why philosophy and science are not mutually exclusive. If they were, there wouldn't be an area of philosophy called the 'philosophy of science', which concerns itself with the best ways to acquire knowledge. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
[deleted]
[deleted]
Some of the problem, as Locke1689 said, lies in how non-philosophers perceive philosophy. I'm betting most of the laity were exposed to philosophy through low-level survey courses where notions such as substrata and monads were thrown about. While interesting and entertaining, to the typical physics major, it seems akin to teaching chemistry using alchemy and cosmology using geocentrism.
Young physicists also seem unusually biased towards mathematical forms of expression, as opposed to "mere" human language.
Young physicists also seem unusually biased towards mathematical forms of expression, as opposed to "mere" human language.
"I'm betting most of the laity were exposed to philosophy through low-level survey courses where notions such as substrata and monads were thrown about."
But at least it was a good grounding for becoming a functional programmer!
But at least it was a good grounding for becoming a functional programmer!
Reminds me of an anecdote: for a long time, when faced with the non-intuitiveness that is quantum theory, physicists had one simple rule shut up and do the math.
I think a big part of why many physicists reject philosophy as a useful endeavor is that a lot of popularly-known philosophy places inductive reasoning below deductive reasoning.
HN naturally attracts people with expertise in STEM. Is it really meaningful or interesting that they think their own field is more valuable and important than others?
We need someone to tell us not just how things work, but why they work.
Something I think Philosophers should also stop saying silly things about Physics.
"In a review of Steven Pinker's book, How the Mind Works, in New York Review of Books, the British geneticist Steve Jones had the following comment to make: "To most wearers of white coats, philosophy is to science as pornography is to sex. It is cheaper, easier and some people seem, bafflingly, to prefer it." Now that view is all too common, and I understand it from the depths of my soul. I appreciate why people think this, but I think it is also important to combat this stereotype in a friendly and constructive spirit, and no place better than in a center for research in cognitive science. What philosophers can be good at – there aren't many things we can be good at – is helping people figure out what the right questions are. When people ask me whether there's been any progress in philosophy I say, "Oh yes, mathematics, astronomy, physics, physiology, psychology – these all started out as philosophy, and once we philosophers got them whipped into shape we set them off on their own to be sciences. We figured out how to ask the right the questions, and and then we turned them over to other specialists to answer."