Physics Needs Philosophy. Philosophy Needs Physics
philsci-archive.pitt.edu
philsci-archive.pitt.edu
Bertrand Russell
I think some of the umbrage between the STEMy folks and the philosophers comes from the educational differences. Namely, math. STEMy folks, especially physicists, take a LOT of math. In my limited experiences, most philosophers do not have the calculus, let alone the matrix algebra, diff. eqs., Lagrangians, or the stats background (anecdata, so please rebuke!). Not that those things are required to do philosophy, but the lack of them limits the philosopher a lot. This is especially true in today's world filled with matrix algebra and stats, err... Machine Learning and AI. We constantly hear about the ethics of a self driving car near a school-bus, but it's all so much jawing discussion and shows an infantile understanding of the machines that are doing the driving. The lack of rigorous high level logic (Godel, Escher, Bach comes to mind) hinders many modern philosophers and puts their discipline off at the separate table for kids at Thanksgiving. If they want to be relevant in the modern world, they need to speak one of the important languages: math.
While this is certainly true for many philosophers, it is false for philosophers of physics. The best among them (say, Tim Maudlin, Laura Ruetsche, David Wallace and others) have a very sophisticated understanding of their target science and many hold advanced degrees in it.
It's not limited to analytic philosophy, either - continental thinkers like Badiou have sustained engagement with set theory - it's very traditional, actually.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-paraconsistent/ is interesting, recent work - but another approach would be to start with Russel, then go on from there.
Take scientific realism for example. Roughly, whether our theories have a 1-1 mapping to reality. Are the entities described by, say physics, really exist? Say an electron? Or is it just a concept or a tool we use to understand the world?
A common objection to scientific realism is Pessimistic Meta Induction. Roughly, we've been always wrong about physics and physical entities, even when we made progress, therefore we're likely wrong now (maybe less wrong but still wrong).
I personally find Structural Realism to be a compelling argument -- it's sort of a "third way". Roughly, look, we've been wrong and theories change and evolve but the basic structure of our theories remains intact. Therefore the structure must map on to reality. Full discussion here https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/
That's merely one example of meta questions about physics that physics itself cannot fully answer and only philosophy can help us understand. I think part of the reason we don't have consesus on the interpretation of quantum mechanics is because of this dismissal of philosophy by physicists.
Science does have its answers about, say, what it means to know something about the world. Those answers work for science and scientists; scientists don't feel the need to idly debate about what it means to know something.
Whether or not the entity in a theory really exists or is just a theoretical construct is something that can be probed. The "atom" of ancient Greece was just a theoretical construct based on the hand-waving hypothesis that division of matter into finer and finer pieces surely must bottom out when we reach some pieces which are indivisible. It's not the same thing as a modern atom.
A theoretical construct becomes real when several layers of lower level constructs are empirically validated. I.e. since we can predict and observe the effects of sub-sub-atomic particles, doubting that an atom or molecule is a real entity is just short of lunacy.
> physics itself cannot fully answer and only philosophy can help us understand
Philosophy can't make us understand anything. Philosophy just wants to entice you into endless debating whereby what you understand is a growing body of philosophical hypotheses.
Those answers are probably different for every scientist you talk to. Or at least there are several major camps, which is where philosophy would be useful. Often their ideas are close enough it can be glossed over, but when they aren't it results in endless arguing because they aren't willing to admit they subscribe to different philosophies.
I do agree, however, that we should avoid philosophy as much as possible. But that means at least stating what you take for granted and what you think science is.
I studied science before philosophy and the cartoon-view of philosophy, even as it applied to science, that I was given in the sciences was 50-100 years out of date, backasswards and upside-down, and extremely brief to boot. Scientists for the most part don't understand philosophy of science, they are mostly confused about what makes science, science - and they have scant knowledge about the history of their own science, much less science in general.
Historically, philosophy was the pile of compost from which every science has grown. And many transplants of useful ideas since.
Sturgeon's law applies to both science and philosophy; both see the other's faults but not their own. Both are useful.
A full list of advancements in physics made thanks to advancements in philosophy during the 20th century: Ø.
> How else are supposed to understand and make meaning of their findings?
You don't. Your everyday intuitions no longer apply to phenomena on scales often well described by physics. Shut up and calculate.
> Take scientific realism for example. Roughly, whether our theories have a 1-1 mapping to reality.
Science/physics doesn't provide a "1-1 mapping to reality", it provides predictive models which don't necessarily apply to all phenomena. Newtonian physics is still being used today in everything on the ground.
> Are the entities described by, say physics, really exist? Say an electron? Or is it just a concept or a tool that we use to understand the world?
I could (in principle) harm you with an electron beam. Does that qualify for "really exist"?
> A common objection to scientific realism is Pessimistic Meta Induction. Roughly, we've been always wrong about physics and physical entities, even when we made progress, therefore we're likely wrong now (maybe less wrong but still wrong).
See above for "scientific realism".
> I think part of the reason we don't have consesus on the interpretation of quantum mechanics is because of this dismissal of philosophy by physicists.
Nobody stops philosophers from picking up a book on quantum mechanics and writing their own interpretation. The problem is, in vast majority of cases the interpretations are either wrong or complete crap.
Einstein’s theory of relativity was inspired directly by the work for Ernst Mach and his use of thought experiments lies at least as much in the realm of philosophy as it does in physics.
As well, the physicist’s pursuit of Naturalness in scientific theories is also primarily philosophical in nature.
Can you name half a dozen such interpretations that one could read? Just curious.
- The physicists just can't measure precise enough, so they think in probabilities. Also known as "hidden variables". This is wrong. Bell test demonstrates the opposite.
- "Observing" a particle can change it state, therefore observer can change everything, therefore our minds are all-mighty.
- We don't understand "quantum" and we don't understand minds. A mind "can't just work on classical computation alone" and quantum computation is more powerful. Therefore minds are "quantum". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXTX0IUaOg
It's actually kind of hard to know where you're coming from as far as critiquing the state of philosophy when you list something like #2, which is anonymous, cartoonishly stupid, and perhaps not representative of anything, alongside Roger Penrose, whose work is at least interesting.
[1] https://phys.org/news/2014-01-quantum-mechanics-efficiency-p...
This is an extremely good point and one that people very often overlook.
It applies to all sorts of different areas of life.
For example in health/safety, we have always believed many things to be safe (or at least not deadly) and found out later that they were not safe or caused more harm than anyone thought (radiation, smoking, asbestos and more). So there are likely many deadly things today that we don't take seriously and in 300 years our children will gasp when they look back.
In programming, when you are fixing "buffer overflow number 15,452" you have to understand if this bug was going to be the last one it wouldn't be number 15,452. So just like the 14,451 that came before it, there will be more to come. So you should stop for a moment to think at a higher level or consider taking steps to completely eliminate the problem at its source instead of focusing on that specific instance because otherwise that number is not going to stop growing.
In general it's very good to be able to recognise the patterns that have been consistent over a long time and appreciate that the present time is probably not that different from what came before it. Time is going to pass, your present is going to be simply added to the next person's past, and it's unlikely to magically be void of those patterns that have been persistent for thousands of years.
A good point to clarify to people who think science is like religion, that it states assertions about the world and those assertions are somehow binding to reality. But that's a complete misunderstanding of what science is.
The ultimate result of all of science is a bunch of heavily abstracted "we've observed that if you do this this, then that happens" statements. Newton's mechanics are a bunch of observations generalized into clean mathematical form, that turned out to be useful at predicting results of further observations. Not all observations fit it, so we added a bit more of maths and came up with Relativity. Etc. There's nothing more to that, and physics isn't first "wrong" and then "right"; it's always striving towards more accurate, more predictive models.
The whole endeavor of making science "map to reality" seems wholly misguided to me. Really, it's a set of predictions and outcomes. That's why the phrase "nature of reality" when applied to science irks me. Science isn't searching for the "nature of reality" and it couldn't find it even if it were. Science is about predicting the future ever more accurately.
Please, do not mix science and pseudo-scientific journalism.
Fat or sugar? Pseudo-scientific journalism will only accept a "yes" or a "no" for an answer. Science is instead made of "yes", "no", and "we don't know yet".
I couldn't care any less what philosophy has to say about the phenomena I studied when I was in academia. Except insofar as there is overlap with the observations (empirical) and elucidation of the models (rational/mathematical), what concerns philosophy is completely separate from what concerns physics.
I suppose if I am forced to make some statement assuming there is a definitive, important relationship between philosophy and physics, I'd say this: physicists implicitly assume a sort of rational empiricism. We can't prove (philosophically speaking) that our approach maps to some "True Reality" but that isn't the goal. Effectively we've asserted (implicitly) there is a "1-1 mapping to reality (whatever that is)". Philosophy has no response to that that isn't also an assertion. And that's why philosophy simply isn't relevant to physics.
Feynman nailed it imo.
While "Shutup and calculate" is useful for invention and technology it's detrimental to our understanding of the world which, arguably, is why science was so useful to start with.
For an interesting discussion on the power of explanations check out David Duetsch's work in the book the Beginning of Infinity. He claims that explanations are fundamental to progress.
As for debating QM, it's quite possible that will eventually lead to a new understanding. That's why shut and calculate is insufficient to advance the field. You need the theoretical side spinning out ideas for the shut and calculate types to carry out experiments and plug the data into equations. Some of these ideas range into the metaphysical side of things until they can be empirically tested.
Einstein was fully capable of discovering exotic probability theory, having contributed greatly to the development of bosonic statistics. Unfortunately, he did not, and we've been floundering about with string theory and the like ever since his famous quote.
"In fact it is necessary for the very existence that minds exist which do not allow that nature must satisfy some preconceived conditions, like those of our philosopher."
There is a species of birds in Europe that time their eggs' hatchings to a particular point in spring, which coincides with the hatching time of a particular type of greenworm that the birds and their young eat. Because of global warming, the timing of these birds' egg hatching has not lined up as well with the greenworms, and their population as a consequence is in decline. If the birds examined their own methods of timing the egg laying and hatching, they could realign it with the greenworms, thus allowing them to improve the survival rates of their young. Thus, orthinology can be useful to birds, and as per Feynman's argument by analogy, philosophy can be useful to scientists. :)
Philosophy of Science concerns itself with the process of doing scientific work, how to do it well, what determines scientific and unscientific work, what kinds of traits make a given scientific theory better than another. At a time where scientific fields are becoming more concerned with reproducibility, papers are published just to inflate citation numbers, junk journals abound, pressure exists to simply publish quantity... Does it not seem like examining the method and process of scientific work is becoming more necessary?
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/esfrv/im_an_ornitholo...
The comment wasn't exactly as I remembered it, but it says more or less the same thing.
My question is what's the purpose of physics outside of aiding technology if not an attempt at explaining reality, or at least our observation of whatever reality is?
It's "explaining reality". The assumption is that we do so by observing, and the explanation is by models (usually mathematical). That's the extent of any relationship to philosophy. Questions regarding whether "observed 'reality'" is really real reality or the like simply aren't pertinent.
Source: I’m a theoretical physicist by profession. I work in the field of condensed matter physics, specialising in geometry optimisation & DFT.
The problem is, all of these statements are completely unjustified, beyond being fun to talk about. They might not even be philosophy, on the grounds that philosophers do actually still expect statements to be supported.
What does this even mean? Why is it the job of physicists to derive whatever you consider to be “meaning” beyond the physical implications of results? You’re free to play in the gaps left by physics all you like, but don’t drag physics into it. The nice thing about empirical results is the freedom from needing meaning or interpretation. What an attempt to impose philosophy on physics gets you is a genius like Einstein getting stuck on QM.
Philosophy is an obstacle to good physics, because it’s a subjective exercise about human expectations. Physics is about testing how nature works, even when it defies all expectations and our ability to interpret it. Philosophy was an amazing field, but over the last few centuries it’s been gutted by science, and it’s a shell now.
Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy. -Bertrand Russell
This is the crux of the problem. In your eyes (and those of anyone who rejects philosophy) a scientist literally just collects data and issues a yes or no analysis of whether it fits a model. But they have no agency to progress their field beyond confirming the theories that have already been established.
What if every time we fired a single photon through a pair of slits an undetectable leprechaun appeared and deflected the photon giving rise to the beloved interference pattern we observe? You'll say that's preposterous and, since the leprechaun is undetectable, resort to Occam's Razor to explain why my theory is not to be taken seriously. But you just did philosophy.
Go read Thomas Kuhn. Science does not replace philosophy. They work together in a cyclic tension to progress our understanding of the universe we inhabit. Philosophy asks the questions that science attempts to answer. Science usually does a pretty good job but always gets stuck until someone turns around and says, "wait, we were thinking about this part wrong", and asks a new set of questions.
What does it mean to understand? Ultimately, to have a model that lets you predict further behaviour of / interaction with some phenomenon. That's what physics gives you. Do the models map 1:1 to some "True Reality"? Who cares? That's not even a meaningful question. We have no other way of understanding "True Reality", but through models that give verifiable predictions.
This is an experience that many people have had, and yet, because of its nature, it cannot be tested with the same tools used in the physical sciences.
And yet, because it cannot be poked, prodded or easily tested as with matter and physics, the reductionist materialists claim it cannot exist, denying the experiences of thousands of people, most arrogantly at that.
And yet, many NDE experiencers have produced veridical proof that they were indeed consciousness, detached from their body.
They don't claim the person did not have a subjective experience. They simply claim that the subjective experience was not accompanied by someone's consciousness actually viewing the physical room at a vantage point that is outside of their physical body.
In other words, the brain is incredibly powerful, and can produce overwhelmingly vivid internal experiences -- an NDE could easily be an intensified internal experience. There are so many examples of how the brain does this in less mundane situations than biological death, it would be unreasonable to rule that out as a very strong possibility.
You might ask why are NDEs so similar? The same reason that alien abduction stories are so similar. The particular details are have over time become embedded in the social subconscious, and thus are strongly suggestive to the individual experience and also to the retelling of it. Whenever we tell a story, we bend details a bit towards common templates or archetypical elements. Even more so if the experience itself was vague and hard to remember or express.
And of course, it's very possible a decent percentage of people are unwittingly fabricating the NDE. We aren't the most reliable recorders of our own experiences.
> NDE experiencers have produced veridical proof that they were indeed consciousness, detached from their body
This is an incredible claim. What hard evidence is there to support it?
The incident that jumps to memory involves the science "popularizer" Lawrence Krauss, who berated (although he has issued a non-apology) a philosopher of physics, David Albert, for critically reviewing Krauss's book:
In response to a critical review by philosopher of physics David Albert, Krauss called Albert a “moronic philosopher” and told the Atlantic’s Ross Andersen that philosophers are threatened by science because “science progresses and philosophy doesn’t”.
Peter Woit, Senior Lecturer in the Mathematics department at Columbia, discusses (although, it is roughly six years old now) that here[1], with references. Here[2] is a comment from that same blog post sharing "examples of contributions from philosophy to progress in physics".
Don't mean to single out Krauss on that; of course there are other well-known scientists too.
[1] https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4623&cpage=...
[2] https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4623&cpage=...
So why physicists claim that physics is not philosophy while the evidence shows that physics studies old philosophical topics? The reason is simple. To hate philosophy is a tradition of the profession. Why? Because physics became a profession when people who used to call themselves "natural philosophers" became "physicists". People like Faraday objected to this change because he thought this reduced physics to a profession like "pharmacists." Like most natural philosophers at the time Faraday considered himself a philosopher.
And there is also the textbook story that physics was born as a "scientific revolution" against those scoundrels and enemies of science called peripatetic Aristotelian philosophers. Since most physicists' knowledge of history of science comes from sidebars in physics textbook they studied at school, they still fight this old fight: physics is the opposite of philosophy because philosophy is nothing but writing yet another commentary on Aristotle. Therefore physics cannot be philosophy.
And the truth is: philosophy does not give to satisfying answers. But what it does give you is a sharper mind, a mind that can formulate the right questions, which can give you so much more insight.
If you come from a technological side and have not wandered into philosophy yet, why not start with something analytical? Start with type theory by Bertrand Russell [2]. Then move onto his thoughts on religion and science [3].
In my eyes, philosophy is beauty and I would never want to miss it. It's very often a challenge, to challenge your own convictions, your thoughts, your way of living. If you let yourself "fall into" it, then there is a whole universe.
Currently I am reading Ludwig Wittgensteins "Philosophical Investigations" [4]. It's almost a complete opposite of what he wrote decades earlier about language, that it is much more than a logical system. What is language? Why does it work? How does it work? It's a fascinating journey into the mind of another brilliant person (who also happens to be a pupil of Russell).
So please, go ahead and enjoy philosophy :) I am all for it.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/technology/
[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/type-theory/
[3] https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.52360
[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#PhilInve
I'm certainly open to being wrong about this; if I were to judge the field of computing solely by what is taught in undergraduate courses, I'd have a lower opinion of it. However I still got the impression that the most well grounded fields of philosophy are no more related to reality than the more ivory-tower fields of computer science.
High energy physics and cosmology have run into the limits of what can be tested experimentally. Theorizing in advance of the data has become mainstream. Hence string theory. This is a jobs program, not science.
The experimental action seems to be down at the low end, around absolute zero. Many new interesting results down there, some of which are turning into useful technologies.
Mathematical models are simply not equal to real world, even if we use models in an attempt to approximate, so that we can do useful things. Mathematics can never truly model reality. The best it can do is a caricature, and not the real thing.
Without solid philosophy to guide the scientists who drive the scientific institutions, the sciences fall stagnant, because it is philosophy that is the very bedrock and lifeblood of the scientific endeavour, in all fields. Without philosophy, that endless hunt and search for meaning and understanding, we lose our way.
That’s a strong and sweeping claim about a varied field, much of which is only concerned with experiments. Do you have anything like support for your claim? Remember that most of physics isn’t the highly popularized version of theoretical physics you may be familiar with.
Mathematical models are simply not equal to real world, even if we use models in an attempt to approximate, so that we can do useful things. Mathematics can never truly model reality.
No... shit? That’s why physics is dependent on observation and experiments, and why there is a division between physics and mathematics. We’re talking over the internet because of the concrete, useful things brought to us by physics.
The best it can do is a caricature, and not the real thing. Without solid philosophy to guide the scientists who drive the scientific institutions, the sciences fall stagnant, because it is philosophy that is the very bedrock and lifeblood of the scientific endeavour, in all fields. Without philosophy, that endless hunt and search for meaning and understanding, we lose our way.
How is philosophy in any way a cure for this imagined loss of rigor? The problem with physics according to you is a divorce from reality, and your solution is something even more abstract, less amenable to rigor, and famously fluid?
Huh?!
This point seems to be lost on a bunch of physicists these days who wallow in their derivations and forget that the fundamental revolution in modern science was the empirical method. The silly philosophers who got overthrown never knew it.
Here's a philosophy-free formulation of science: (i.e. one where scientists don't have to know any philosophy)
- People set up symbol games with rules, that produce symbols.
- They also set up physical machines that produce symbols.
- When they match, they're happy.
I think that does a good job of capturing why physics was able to progress so well without concurrent progress in philosophy. At the end of a day, a physicist will have a number on their scratch paper and a number on the meter and the goal is to get them to match. Mainly the role of philosophy is to guard them from any distractions that would confuse them away from doing that, and perhaps to bend their brains into coming up with good symbol games.
Philosophy informs these questions. For instance, a scientific process modelled on Solomonoff induction would give you more insight on what kind of games you should set up and why, which games are better than others for the same symbol outputs and why, to what extend modifying a game is a valid approach, etc.
If you have multiple matching symbol games, maybe just either prove them mathematically equivalent (a la matrix mechanics and Schrodinger's equation), or if they aren't equivalent, write them both down and keep an eye on them until you develop an experiment that can distinguish between them. As far as I can see, that remains within the paradigm of "go forth and match the symbols."
But your rules provide no guidance to do so, which would require philosophy.
> As far as I can see, that remains within the paradigm of "go forth and match the symbols."
Absolutely, I'm not suggesting changing the spirit of the basic empirical game you outline, merely that a different set or a few additional rules would permit you to generate better games more efficiently. Blind trial and error would eventually work too, but we ideally want to converge on accuracy and precision as fast as possible. What this means in practice is a philosophical question worth answering.
It seems suspicious that this is classified as philosophy - it has an empirical foundation! You can even design experiments to test these "theories of metascience:" just check to see how fast the scientists that work according to them produce successful theories. So it sounds like what you're advocating for is a human science (i.e. very difficult to design experiments, but fundamentally based on empiricism), as opposed to a branch of philosophy.
Roughly speaking, the division I am making here goes: experiments plus arguments makes science, arguments without experiments makes philosophy. In this context, I can say, "scientists are only (professionally) interested in experiments and therefore uninterested in philosophy." However if something involves empiricism but is also labeled philosophy, that's just language and I gladly concede that scientists might be professionally interested in it.
I'm very skeptical that such a foundation would work faster or achieve more optimal results than an analytical approach. You can keep going meta, but so can I, and the analytical approach will always outpace the empirical one.
> Roughly speaking, the division I am making here goes: experiments plus arguments makes science, arguments without experiments makes philosophy.
I suppose it depends what you classify as "arguments". Science traditionally produces theories that provide predictive power, but also explanatory power. This latter aspect is often overlooked, but it's essential since it provides insights into further possible experiments. If your "arguments" includes an ontology for scientific theories, then I could agree with your breakdown, but notice that an ontology overlaps with philosophical inquiry.
Also, there's a new and growing branch called "experimental philosophy" which includes experiments that test intuitions on philosophical questions, so it's still not quite clear cut!
It sounds like you're describing and empirical meta-approach: that we should pick the approach that goes the fastest. I'm not proposing that analysis be thrown away, just that it is and should be controlled by empiricism (at every meta-level). Essentially, I'm arguing that science applies to itself recursively: if you take empiricism as axiomatic, then science can "choose" its own philosophy, just like it chooses its theories: empirically.
>Also, there's a new and growing branch called "experimental philosophy" which includes experiments that test intuitions on philosophical questions.
In that vein, you could claim that all philosophy is empirical: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals was plain evidence that Hume's brain had produced certain beliefs about morals. So, is philosophy of science an exploration of its namesake, or an exploration of the brains of philosophers of science? I say, whenever it has empirical grounding (in the success of science), it works like science and tells us things about how to do science, and when it's inwardly-focused it is just information about how philosophers' brains work.
>but also explanatory power
As far as I can tell, explanations are stories that make our brains feel comfortable with the procedures that we use to predict things. Why? Because perfect stories will be discarded without a second thought if another completely unpalatable theory comes along with better predictive power. Story-sentences about this stuff (for example, "the virtual particles pop in and out of existence in the vacuum") carry as much information about our brains as they do about the universe that they're supposedly describing.
It's not at all clear what "take empiricism as axiomatic" even means. This itself consists of a few a long-running philosophical debates:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/constructive-empiricism/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-empiricism
> Because perfect stories will be discarded without a second thought if another completely unpalatable theory comes along with better predictive power.
I disagree. Newton's theories are still widely taught despite their inaccuracy, because their predictive power suffices and their explanatory power is superior to more accurate but sophisticated theories.
Furthermore, there's a good reason why the foundations of quantum mechanics are still hotly debated in some circles, despite the fact that such debates will have little practical impact on most practicing physicists. And such debates over explanatory power have yielded valuable insights into QM, like Bell's theorem which resulted from Bell's interest in the de Broglie-Bohm theory, and numerous other no-go theorems.
Certainly a theory with superior predictive power will be employed for predictions, but it will immediately launch an effort to provide a coherent explanatory framework.
The philosophy of science I am arguing for is empirically testable: so, as far as I can see that makes it science as opposed to philosophy.
Animals understand "the empirical method". Experimentation, pattern inference, cause and effect... Aristotle may have described it, but like most of the rest of the interaction of philosophy and science it's a post-hoc formalisation, mostly good for convincing philosophers that scientists are doing something reasonable.
That's why they should learn some philosophy of science.
While I don't disagree with your overall point, this claim is pure conjecture. Ironically, it depends on your philosophy of mathematics. If most physicists were mathematical Platonists, then your argument based on this claim falls apart.
There are exactly zero real physical systems that can be modelled with perfect accuracy to any indefinite point in the future.
Physics is made of limited toy models of complex systems. It makes accurate predictions over limited timescales under limited conditions.
That's it. That's all you get.
The limited accuracy doesn't keep the predictions from being useful over human-friendly timescales.
But it takes an unrealistic act of hubris to believe physics does more than this, and that after a few hundred years of effort its predictions and frameworks are already perfectly accurate and perfectly correct.
You're talking about simulation not modelling, which is what I and the GP are talking about. Totally different basket of fish. A model can 100% accurately represent the underlying system, and yet be practically incomputable. Intractability or incomputability are not hallmarks of modelling failure.
Furthermore, you can't dismiss an a priori argument that reality is mathematical by an appeal to empiricism. In such a world, empiricism is itself a mathematical process.
Simulations are one form of model. So to call simulations a different basket of fish is a mistake. Every model attempts to predict the outcome of something.
Nor can you say that reality is mathematical as an a priori argument or knowledge. It is simply a claim that is open to dispute. You are now dipping into philosophy. What would be much more accurate is that mathematics is a very useful tool in developing models of the universe around us. Certainly, there are various mathematical streams that give interesting insights in the physical world around us. But just because they are useful doesn't mean that they are correct.
Not true. Solomonoff induction is an algorithmic process that can reproduce any underlying computable function merely from sampling its outputs. This is a formalization of the scientific process, which means on a long enough timeline, science will converge on a 100% accurate model.
> Simulations are one form of model.
That's not the distinction I was making. The OP said there are "zero physical systems that can be modelled with prefect accuracy to any indefinite point in the future".
Let's unpack this in a mathematical context where there can be no ambiguity:
1. The universal Turing machine (UTM) is a model of computation.
2. I can never actually build a UTM because there is no such thing as an infinite tape.
3. The UTM is a 100% accurate model of computation, in that, any other form of computation can be translated to a UTM with some overhead.
4. I cannot simulate a UTM with perfect accuracy to any indefinite point in the future because I don't have an infinite tape.
So here we have a 100% accurate model that cannot be simulated as the OP said, so these two properties simply aren't entangled as the OP implied. Hopefully that clarifies the distinction I'm trying to make, namely that the accuracy of the model has nothing to do with our ability to simulate it to arbitrary precision. Modelling is simply different than simulating, even though we can simulate models.
> Nor can you say that reality is mathematical as an a priori argument or knowledge. It is simply a claim that is open to dispute. You are now dipping into philosophy.
Yes, it's a claim, but it's not one I was making. The OP said that "mathematics can never model reality" is not a conjecture, but "empirical fact".
And yet, existence is consistent with the hypothesis that reality is mathematical. Given this, empiricism would itself be a mathematical process, which directly contradicts the OP's point. So the OP's point is simply not objectively true, which is how he presented it.
You then go into comparing a non-physical entity as an example of a physical system. Universal Turing Machines are an idealised entity. It cannot match, in any way, any physical system in a 100% accurate way. So saying that you cannot simulate an idealised model of computation as the means of saying that that we have a 100% accurate model that cannot be simulated is logically circular.
It does not make the distinction you are trying to make. Simulations are models and all models are idealised. So simulations cannot never be 100% accurate as no model can be 100% accurate of physical systems.
As far as "reality is mathematical" and empiricism, you are the one claiming that empiricism is mathematical in nature when it is a philosophical viewpoint and you are claiming that the OP is claiming empiricism.
The problem you are forgetting is that every theory and every model are idealised representations of the universe about us. Whether or not we are able to successfully use mathematics to describe all that we find is another matter entirely.
When scientists, both experimental or theoretical, say that their theories or models on any the subject are correct, they are misleading themselves and everyone else. Every model and theory is inaccurate. All make assumptions that ignore the reality that they are investigating.
I have said this before, just because a theory or model gives some predictive ability to what one may see, it doesn't mean that that the theory or model is correct. Too many people, including the scientists that promote a theory or model, get so caught up in being right that they forget that the theory and model is only something that we can use to try and understand what is going on about us in the universe.
I used to have no problems with biological evolutionary theory and models. However, after reviewing the results of experiments in the field, it became obvious that something was really wrong with the model (models) being used. The results did not support what was being promoted.
I used to have no problems with various things like the "big bang" or "black holes" or "neutron stars" or even general relativity, until I started to look at what was being seen in actual experiments and the problems with the underlying assumptions to the theories being used. Anomalous results that were being found and ignored. The ad hominem attacks of those who did not ascribe to the "consensus" theories and models really lead me to investigate the basic assumptions being used.
All that I see is a growing problem in science where it is no longer about developing an understanding of our universe but "follow the party line" or be anathema and be excommunicated. To those who know their history, the Inquisition is alive and well today.
Science is a tool we can use to gain some understanding. Philosophy is a tool we can use to gain understanding. We should be capable of putting these tools in our toolbox and using them accordingly. But to those who only have a hammer, then everything is a nail.
Any process which would converge on a 100% accurate model would suffice. A universally agreed upon definition is not necessary. Some such processes will simply converge more quickly than others.
> So saying that you cannot simulate an idealised model of computation as the means of saying that that we have a 100% accurate model that cannot be simulated is logically circular.
I don't think youve understood the example if this is your summary of my argument. My argument proves that even given 100% accurate model, simulability is a completely separate property. Accuracy is necessary but not sufficient. Accuracy is also achievable, as was mathematically proven in Solomonoff Induction.
> So simulations cannot never be 100% accurate as no model can be 100% accurate of physical systems.
This is either incorrect or wildly speculative. Either way, these two claims are not entangled, ie. simulations can be inaccurate for reasons other than the accuracy of the model.
> As far as "reality is mathematical" and empiricism, you are the one claiming that empiricism is mathematical in nature when it is a philosophical viewpoint and you are claiming that the OP is claiming empiricism
No I'm not. I suggest you reread it again, and keep in mind that since we don't know the fundamental structure of reality, the OP's claim that the conjecture is empirically false is a universal claim that must be true regardless of the structure. His claim is false in a mathematical universe as I explained, ergo his claim is simply false. See, avoiding silly arguments like this is why people need philosophy.
> I have said this before, just because a theory or model gives some predictive ability to what one may see, it doesn't mean that that the theory or model is correct
No one has made that claim.
Simulation is a model and as such is not a "completely separate property". You raise the "mathematically proven" Solomonoff induction process. Yet you do not state the limitations to such a process and the simple fact that it is about computability and for all intents and purposes completely impractical for any study of reality.
There are many simulations that are not computable.
You have a belief that a model is possible to be 100% accurate. You will need to demonstrate that belief. Every model and theory makes some assumption and simplifications about the subject matter for which it is applicable.
You make an assumption that mathematics is capable of describing the universe accurately. Yet mathematics is an idealised system with its own assumptions as to what is true.
This is no way means that the universe itself is mathematical, nor does it mean that mathematics can describe the universe. I have no problem with models and theories being useful but all fail in some area of applicability.
The fundamental error you are making is the assumption that humans can understand. We can gain some understanding but we do not understand. There is a big difference here.
I'll say it again, science (even mathematics) is not about finding the "truth" but is about creating workable models and theories that we can use. If you want "truth" then study philosophy and religion.
Every experiment performed in the search for a more workable model and theory always gives rise to more questions. Many times, those questions can be "swept under the carpet" because those questions lead to question the firmly held belief in the model and theory being investigated.
You cannot declare that the OP's claim is simply false since he talking about the universe and not a "mathematical universe". Your claim that the universe is a mathematical universe is supposition on your part.
When you claim that a model or theory is capable of being 100% accurate then you are making the claim that the model or theory is correct.
It is interesting that you recognise that we don't know the fundamental structure of reality, yet you make the claim that it is mathematical. Please take a step back and also recognise that mathematics is a useful tool to help develop useful models and theories. Don't give authority to mathematics and the theories and models that come out of it. Keep in mind that they are useful "tools" only.
The discussion is about physics and philosophy and the interaction between the two. Those who have claimed that physics doesn't need philosophy have forgotten or have never looked at the specific philosophical underpinnings involved in the current crop of models and theories in use across every field of scientific study and investigation. Those philosophical viewpoints have dictated where the various models and theories have gone.
Have a look at your own fundamental belief system and ask yourself "How would I look at the universe around me if my basic belief was different?" Understand that your philosophical and religious viewpoint colours how you interpret the results of experiments, colours what experiments you will perceive and how you will develop your theories and models. If you are an Atheist, you will see things in a variety of ways. If you are a Buddhist, you will see things differently. This will happen whether you are a Hindu, a Daoist, a Moslem, a Christian, a Wiccan, or any of the various religious or philosophical systems.
Honestly, I'm having trouble understanding how I can explain this more clearly, because I literally provided you with a reference to a mathematical proof that this is possible. Convergence on truth is already a well known of applying Bayesian probability, and Solomonoff Induction places this process on a rigourous formal footing from first principles. This fact you keep saying is a conjecture that I need to demonstrate has already been demonstrated.
> Simulation is a model and as such is not a "completely separate property".
Yes, it is. That's literally what "necessary but not sufficient means". Indecidability in a formal system is a property of having enough power to represent addition and multiplication, it simply does not follow from either addition or multiplication alone.
> This is no way means that the universe itself is mathematical, nor does it mean that mathematics can describe the universe.
And that's pure conjecture. You have no way to prove this, and if you were at all familiar with the philosophy of mathematics, you'd know why Platonic and other forms of mathematical monism are actually preferred at the moment.
> You cannot declare that the OP's claim is simply false since he talking about the universe and not a "mathematical universe". Your claim that the universe is a mathematical universe is supposition on your part. [...] It is interesting that you recognise that we don't know the fundamental structure of reality, yet you make the claim that it is mathematical
No, you've once again failed to understand the argument being made, and frankly, I don't see any point in repeating myself further. I've laid out all of the facts that have been debated many times in philosophy, and now it's up to you to put aside whatever bias is driving you to continuously misinterpret my words.