The hollow universe of modern physics
edwardfeser.blogspot.com
edwardfeser.blogspot.com
Materialism, a metaphysical position and not a scientific one, is discredited in a number of ways, but in this case, any materialism that defines matter as whatever physics says it is undermines itself by leading to idealism because the content of physical theories and models are mathematical idealizations, ones which need not strictly correspond to reality. If you’re not a materialist, and especially of a scientistic variety, then your views are not the subject of this post, but the view of physics you confidently declare is not shared by everyone.
Reminds me of Feynman's story about the beauty of a flower. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=VSG9q_YKZLI
As a lover of science and a scientific researcher (according to my payslips), I have a certain aversion towards this current "defense of science" furor. In my view, science needs no such defenders, and they do more harm than good.
Science is empiricism. That is it. It is the idea that a theory about how the world works must be put to the test through experimentation. And it is also the idea that all theories are forever subject to falsification. There is no space for arguments form authority, personal preferences about how nature should work nor dogma. But this is exactly how many contemporary "defenders of science" are treating science: as an authoritative source that must be trusted. This is why so many people make fun of flat earthers without actually knowing how to verify by themselves that the earth is round.
The deeper aspect of this pathology is the attempt to replace all philosophy with just science. This does a disservice not only to philosophy but also to science itself (which is both a product and an important object of study of philosophy).
For example: flat earthers, or people who promote homeopathy, or any other brand of bullshit, are certainly engaged in peseudo-science, but so are people who pretend that neural correlates provide us with any insight whatsoever into the hard problem of consciousness.
Philosophy does not contribute to the economy. It is not particularly useful in creating new gadgets. There are no philosophy startups, nor philosophy tech giants. But discarding philosophy is short-sighted, and it leads to the hell that we can all quite see coming from the corner of our eyes.
The article points at the fact that many "defenders of science" make the ontological commitment of materialism, assuming that this is implied by science, when it most definitely is not. But again, this realization requires education (or self-education) in topics that are currently discarded because they do not help you pay the mortgage.
Sounds great to me, can't think of a better way to go about learning things well enough that we can say we know them to an extent.
> But this is exactly how many contemporary "defenders of science" are treating science: as an authoritative source that must be trusted.
If not results from scientific methods, then what's the alternative that should be trusted? The part that's forgotten is that the body of scientific knowledge is constantly updated. They're merely the best answers we have at the moment, not final ones.
> If not results from scientific methods, then what's the alternative that should be trusted?
I am not saying that there is a better way to obtain scientific knowledge than through science, what I am saying is that there are other modes of knowledge. For example:
(1) Philosophy. This very discussion is of a philosophical nature. What is knowledge? What modes of knowledge are there? What is science? Why is science useful? What is usefulness? What are the limits of scientific knowledge, if they exist? None of these questions can be answered by application of the scientific method. In fact, the very idea of science is not a scientific theory.
(2) First person experience. Science is about things that can be verified in the third person (measurements), but there are things that can only be experienced in the first person (qualia). Science has nothing to say about e.g. my direct experience of the color red. And is my experience of red the same of yours? Another question that cannot be answered by science (and that maybe cannot be answered at all).
(3) Math. Mathematical proof is a way of obtaining knowledge that is not based on empiricism.
> The part that's forgotten is that the body of scientific knowledge is constantly updated. They're merely the best answers we have at the moment, not final ones.
Not forgotten at all, please re-read what I wrote originally.
Science is the domain of the known, tested, or hypothesized. Beyond that we have the 'negative spaces' that are these other domains. The boundaries between them shift and move with understanding. There will always be negative space as we can't have all the answers to all questions in any system. These are complementary and shouldn't be at odds with each other.
Where is this conflicting overlap that needs defense? Seems like semantics to me saying that some 'knowledge' isn't science, ok.
It used to be that. Now we have theories such as big bang theory, theory of tectonic plates, climate change modelling being seen as a part of science, even though they were never empirically tested (because it's impossible). Science has really changed since its origins back in Newton times, nowadays we accept much more indirect evidence (vs the consistent results of repeated experiments within the parameter space of the theory we used to rely on earlier) as good enough to accept the theory.
There's a difference between saying that for example "quarks exist", and "we don't know what the hell is going on inside a proton, but these quark things we made up seem to match the observations".
The people overly concerned with insisting things are just a model are generally about to make a bunch of claims they do not intend to research or support with further evidence.
What aspects aren't?
Arguably god is not an "aspect of nature", but in this case, how do you define an aspect of nature? Something susceptible of an exact mathematical treatment? That's circular reasoning.
If you are an atheist, god may not be in your nature, but it is impossible not to believe in some unfalsifiable idea. I mean, I assume that I am not a Boltzmann brain and that you exist and that you are a human just like me, not just a NPC in a simulation. This is not mathematically quantifiable, but it is essential to make sense of the world.
And there is Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
I guess, to count it as counter-example it would be necessary to have evidence that it is an aspect of reality and to have evidence that it can not be modelled. If I did not miss something, we do not have a solid definition for consciousness. I agree, that there could be definitions of consciousness which evade mathematical modelling, but then we have to still show that this specific definition is realised in nature, correct?
What is the actual argument? I think this author simply felt like writing something, and when they didn't have anything to say, they went ahead and wrote the article anyway.
Except they are not, as objects of experience. They are redefined in physics. This is related to the problem of qualia.
Materialists often attempt to consign qualia to the mind, but this merely passes the buck since the mind is just another bit of matter that cannot, according to the materialist’s own metaphysical commitments, “host” such things as qualia. Some materialists are so obstinately committed to materialism that, having realized this glaring flaw, will go so far as to embrace eliminativism which involves the denial of qualia on the grounds that materialism cannot account for them.
Author bio says: "My primary academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind, moral and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. I also write ... on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective."
There are lots of good philosophers of physics who are not (to my knowledge) lunatics: David Albert, David Malament, Marc Lange are three. Sean Carroll is a physicist with philosophical interests. There are better sources than this one.
It says on his bio he writes from a conservative viewpoint and he is a Roman Catholic. I had a quick google and although I could find articles by him on the subject representing those viewpoints and being critical or opposed, I couldn't immediately find "lunatic" arguments. Perhaps you could point us to them?