10 ms·

> Physics has been stuck on this problem for almost a century now. Philosophy won't help. It sure seems to be an epistemology problem which puts it squarely in

• xyzzyz 10y ago
  Maybe, but sadly philosophy doesn't have a good track record when it comes to actually solving problems.
  • ohyes 10y ago
    Bullshit. How do you think your computer functions? You don't get high level programming languages without philosophy. Where do you think natural sciences came from?
    • Numberwang 10y ago
      I think of philosophers as basically being 1000 Shakespearean monkeys. The world would be better served by 1000 scientists.
      • sgt101 10y ago
        Peeling back a level, science is a belief system based on observations. What is a valid observation - if I say I saw it once that is not valid, if I say look in this place or way and you can see it too, well, that is. But what if I say "look in this place and way and you will see this kind of thing once out of a billion trials, and all the other things that are seen are not real"? Science admits that view, and I would not disagree but I am aware that this is a choice - a philosophical view that I have adopted as part of the assumptions that I make to use the belief system that we currently call science. This system is different from the versions of science that were in use 100 years ago, and is changing now with the rejection of intervalism (p=0.05). So bring in 1000 scientists and let them do some philosophy, because to do anything that's what they have to do.
        • gnaritas 10y ago
          Science is not a belief system, it's a method of verifying beliefs and turning them into knowledge.
          • sgt101 10y ago
            Is the practice of science fixed? Do scientists use, unwaveringly, the methods of their predecessors? Why do the methods and practices of science vary over time?
            • Numberwang 10y ago
              Methods vary in philosophy, in science they improve.
              • sgt101 10y ago
                I can hear the pattering of tiny feet on the heads of pins....
            • gnaritas 10y ago
              I fail to see the relevance of any of your questions to the topic at hand, so rather than playing the Socratic method, how about you just lay out your argument.
      • calibraxis 10y ago
        What are we talking about with "philosophy"? And what is "physics"? Are physicists featureless spheres unable to be "philosophers"? https://www.edge.org/conversation/a-philosophy-of-physics https://www.edge.org/conversation/a-philosophy-of-physics What "philosophers" are we talking about here? Lakatos? Chomsky? Newton? Logicians? Or do we have some composite postmodern blowhard in mind? (Like any industry's products, philosophy's product quality varies with factors like producer. So specifics are important.) There's a bias in physics culture against philosophy. (It's no doubt elsewhere too, but very apparent in physics.) But fortunately, there's many exceptions who like to take a step back and think about what they're doing.
      • pessimizer 10y ago
        Not if the scientists are working on string theory. I'd rather have philosophers 100:1 in that case.
      • tamana 10y ago
        Thank you for explaining your philosophy of science.
        • Numberwang 10y ago
          Shorter version with nothing lost: "Thank you for explaining your science."
      • JackFr 10y ago
        > The world would be better served by 1000 scientists. Why? "The world would be better served" carries a lot of cultural baggage.
    • krapp 10y ago
      >Where do you think natural sciences came from? Alchemy. But that's no reason to still respect alchemists.
      • guard-of-terra 10y ago
        Alchemy is a good example. Alchemists dabbled in chemisty but they also took for granted that chemistry has deep symbolic and semantic meaning. Figure it out and chemistry will crack. It turned out to not be the case, time after time. There's no inherent meaning in how substances interact. There are laws, they're consistent but devoid of any meaning, on human level. That's why I'm deeply scetical towards any New Age-style ideas.
      • pessimizer 10y ago
        The body of results from alchemy resulted in the narrow, useful part of it becoming formalized as chemistry. The body of results from string theory (or many worlds interpretations) is non-existent.
        • criddell 10y ago
          How long was alchemy a serious field of study? Thousands of years, right? String theory is 75 years old.
      • unusximmortalis 10y ago
        If you understand alchemy you have all the reasons to respect them
      • dogma1138 10y ago
        I still respect Isaac Newton, even tho he was an Alchemist and searched for Atlantis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studie...
  • jlg23 10y ago
    Except for being the origin of physics, astronomy, medicine and other fields? "Philosophy" is a wide spectrum of which only a very small part is concerned with problems so abstract that we cannot expect a solution to them.
    • colechristensen 10y ago
      Philosophy is the epitome of scientific navel-gazing. Don't get me wrong, gazing at one's navel is an important thing to do – sometimes – but this continual attempt to backwards-justify all sciences as flowing out of philosophy are overblown. Astronomy and medicine are two very obvious examples. Primitive cultures didn't need philosophical underpinnings to notice and record the patterns in the sky or to figure out which plants helped with fevers or how to set broken bones. Philosophy might have helped science in places with structural issues, but it's reaching too far to say that nothing would be around without philosophy.
      • bpchaps 10y ago
        And calling philosophy navel-gazing is navel-gazing. The philosophy of information is a great example of where it's incredibly important [1]. I seriously, seriously doubt that information theory would have come about without many of the philosophical underpinnings that came before it. It's not just about structure. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information/ edit: interestingly enough, some of the posts in your blog would be considered "philosophy". ;)
        • Retric 10y ago
          I would suggest you study more non western history. People did a lot of what we think of as science and math with very different underpinnings. Without a basis for comparison you can't separate what is actually important from an accident of history. PS: The two most widely used and useful parts of math where completely unknown to the anchent Greeks. Aribic numerals are the first example of useful information theory after writing.
  • dmfdmf 10y ago
    This reminds me of the old adage about the drunk looking for his keys under the lamp post because "that's where the light is". If the solution in physics requires a revolution in philosophy then that is where we must look.
  • vacri 10y ago
    "How we go about robust scientific methodology" is a problem solved by philosophy.
  • smegel 10y ago
    But it might help identify what the problems to solve actually are. What are we seeking, what are we trying to explain?
  • beefield 10y ago
    It may be that my memory does not serve me well, but I think I got an impression from the history of the philosophy that once there is a field of philosophy that actually starts solving problems, it very fast changes its name to something else than philosophy. For example[1], Newton's 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
    • colechristensen 10y ago
      It seems more like the usage of the word 'philosophy' has gradually shifted to mean something very narrow, when at times it could have been used as a synonym for 'science'.
      • JBiserkov 10y ago
        Indeed, see PhD
      • milcron 10y ago
        My favorite definition: Philosophy is the practice of looking into questions without clear-cut answers.
        • woodandsteel 10y ago
          Philosophers disagree a lot in their specific definitions, but most definitions assume it is the study of the broadest and most general questions, like what is truth, what is reality, what is the good, and so on. Also, any particular field you study has philosophical assumptions, like about the reliability of sense data. The reason modern science is so fabulously successful is the philosophers who established it got rid of the supernaturalist assumptions of previous science, and added the assumption that reality is mathematically describable. What Smolin and Unger are saying is that the particular philosophical assumptions behind string theory and a lot of related physics are mistaken. This would seem to be at least possible.
        • naasking 10y ago
  • fattire 10y ago
    Maybe because much of what started as the goals and methods of "philosophy" were later appropriated and redefined as "science"? They are both human endeavors to better get at and understand the truth about ourselves, the universe, reality, etc. Philosophy often extends further into realms such as art, morality & ethics, dignity, aesthetics, the role of society, and human nature. Philosophy even takes a meta-view of science, asking how we are justified to even claim to know something to be true at all (epistemology). And for the most part, these questions are answered in terms of and in concert with our scientific understanding. Moreover, evidence-based science itself is to some degree an outgrowth of Descartes' "method of doubt" and rationalism, then the empiricist philosophical movement, and on and on. It's no wonder that throughout history often the leading scientists/mathematicians and the leading philosophers were the same people. Concepts such as natural rights, liberty, free will, social justice, etc. all originated in philosophical works, and have indeed "solved problems" by influencing people who are say, in the process of forming secular governments after a political revolution. You can draw a fairly straight line from Plato to Descartes to Hobbes to Locke to the Constitution. When we talk about a "bill of rights" -- where is this concept of a natural human "right" even from? Philosophical theories such as utilitarianism, the meaning of good vs. evil, are used every day in our legal system, economics, politics, and foreign policy. Moreover, often a breakthrough in science or development in society may have very practical consequences which FORCE people to face unavoidable philosophical questions. Should scientists be legally permitted to clone humans? Should a Tesla kill its own driver to avoid plowing through kids crossing the street? Should there be a minimum wage? Should pharmaceutical companies make life-saving drugs free? When should abortion or infanticide be permitted? These questions must be answered reasonably-- I'd much rather have them discussed through the lens of rational philosophical discussion rather than religious or purely emotional "go with the gut". So philosophy has served as an on-ramp to science. But among its benefits, it also helps us move from the descriptive study of the universe to the prescriptive-- to paraphrase the great philosopher Dr. Ian Malcolm-- there's a benefit to moving from the scientific question of if we could to consider the philosophical one of if we should. Just like there's a "God of the gap"-- a notion that a need for God pushed back as our scientific knowledge expands, so it seems there is a "philosophy of the gap"-- some people seem to redefine "philosophy" to mean useless mental spaghetti that goes nowhere. Do you judge science by the same criteria? Does every "failed" experiment constitute a failure of science? Given its usefulness, especially as an alternative to religious methods where "science" doesn't offer a clear answer about how people and societies "should" behave, I think damning philosophy too hard is kind of unfair.
• jeffwass 10y ago
  Yeah, many of the 'popular' discussions of Quantum Mechanics that show up here on HN do often diverge well into philosophical directions and away from hard science. It's true that science and philosophy did come from a common discipline (my undergrad uni originally had a Natural Philosophy dept that only became a physics department somewhere between 100-150 yrs ago). Though I thought one of the physics professors when I was in grad school said it best : "Physics is philosophy with integrals".
  • marblar 10y ago
    I love that quote.
  • 00098345 10y ago
    World-over, the degree conferred for significant contribution through original work in Science (and Engineering) has principally been Doctor of Philosophy. I doubt if it will ever change.
  • dmfdmf 10y ago
    I agree but I think there are important philosophic[1] questions raised by quantum mechanics and, to a lesser extent, special relativity. One hundred years ago the founders of the new physics had the same questions but could not resolve them to everyone's satisfaction. One of the founders of modern physics (I forget who) said (I am paraphrasing) that all the different views on the "meaning" of the new physics amounted to where you want to hide the contradictions. The Copenhagen "interpretation" was not a definitive win but a truce. These brilliant men argued for a decade and could not resolve it so they decided to bury the questions. It was not unreasonable in that context to accept that they did not know the answers but the theories work so let's use it and see where it leads. I am sure the hope was that the answers to the philosophic questions would become clear as our understanding of the new physics grew. There was a lot of work to do aside from the philosophic questions. Fast forward 100 years and here we are, the philosophic questions are still unanswered, and the Copenhagen interpretation has hardened into dogma banning any discussion of fundamental questions in physics. I have respect for Smolin for at least trying to re-raise these important questions. [1] I am of the view that philosophy is distinct from physics in that it studies the nature of reality and knowledge, thus it applies to ALL fields not just physics. WHAT do we know and HOW we know is the more (or the most) fundamental science. The physicists are throwing out the baby with the bath water when they reject philosophy en masse instead of rejecting bad philosophy.
• AlexCoventry 10y ago
  > It sure seems to be an epistemology problem which puts it > squarely in the realm of philosophy, not physics. It's absolutely a physical issue, not a purely philosophical one. Under the Copenhagen interpretation, the probability densities which drop out of Quantum Mechanics reflect some sort of objective physical reality, as in Schroedinger's Cat. The alternative to this is the so-called "hidden variables" theories [1], which posit that those densities reflect variability in some kind of hidden extra state in quantum-mechanical systems of which we are currently ignorant. The very real Bell's inequality experiments [2] are an example of the physical quality of this dichotomy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments
• rdtsc 10y ago
  > It sure seems to be an epistemology problem which puts it squarely in the realm of philosophy, not physics. Sounds like a good idea and would like to see, for example, a philosophy professor from some university one day publish a paper in arxiv and turn the world of physics upside down with it. It would be like "... because of these logical inconsistencies ... x, y, z quantum mechanics is actually governed by hidden variables, q.e.d" I just don't see it in practice though. I think it only seems as if philosophy is deeply entwined with and ready to be exploited to help physics, but it is only because physicists were marginally interested in it and offered some philosophical explanations after the equations and experiments have been proven. I think most of those were mostly for curiosity's sake and were rather secondary to their main achievements.
  • naasking 10y ago
    > It would be like "... because of these logical inconsistencies ... x, y, z quantum mechanics is actually governed by hidden variables, q.e.d" They already do this. Many philosophers of science pursue realist interpretations of QM though, like de Broglie-Bohm, and so they aren't published very widely. The measurement problem is the serious stumbling block for anti-realist interpretations, and why many such philosophers are realists. The measurement problem just doesn't trouble practicing physicists.