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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 phy

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.

rudimental 12y ago
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."
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  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).
  - scott_s 12y ago
    I'm currently reading Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.
  - vacri 12y ago
    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".
    - peterashford 12y ago
      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!
vacri 12y ago
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.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  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?
  - vacri 12y ago
    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?

rudimental 12y ago

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."

AnimalMuppet 12y ago
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).
- scott_s 12y ago
  I'm currently reading Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.
- vacri 12y ago
  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".
  - peterashford 12y ago
    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!

vacri 12y ago

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.

snowwrestler 12y ago
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?
- vacri 12y ago
  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?