
Physics Needs Philosophy. Philosophy Needs Physics - lainon
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14678/
======
Ptyx
"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very
uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life
imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual
beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in
his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such
a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects
rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected.
As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in
our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to
which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to
tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises,
is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them
from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty
as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may
be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never
travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of
wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect."

Bertrand Russell

~~~
Balgair
Great passage, thank you!

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.

~~~
Schiphol
>... most philosophers do not have the calculus, let alone the matrix algebra,
diff. eqs., Lagrangians, or the stats background (anecdata, so please
rebuke!).

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.

~~~
convolvatron
also don't forget the strong historic connections between mathematical logic,
number theory, and philosophy.

------
amasad
I've never understood how some physicists disregard philosophy and do it with
a straight face. How else are supposed to understand and make meaning of their
findings?

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/](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.

~~~
borplk
> 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).

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.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _This is an extremely good point and one that people very often overlook._

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.

~~~
bolivier
> "we've observed that if you do this this, then that happens" statements

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.

------
kashyapc
I hope more scientists, specifically those in the public eye, don't blatantly
berate philosophy "because they can't do experiments on important questions".

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=...](https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4623&cpage=1)

[2]
[https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4623&cpage=...](https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4623&cpage=1#comment-109987)

------
nyc111
But what is philosophy? To say that physics excludes philosophy is philosophy.
Physics, at its core, is based on a philosophical statement. To choose
empiricism as physics' main epistemological method is philosophy. Then there
is physicists' discussions of the oldest scholastic and philosophical subjects
of time and space. And physicists' love of cosmogony, another tradional
philosophical topic.

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.

------
mrleiter
Amongst other things I study Philosophy and find it fascinating. It can really
open your mind to a variety of subjects, whether it is maths, physics,
business or law. Doesn't matter. There is a whole area dedicated to technology
[1]. I started studying it because I felt many important questions lingering
in my head, but no satisfying answer.

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/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/technology/)

[2] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/type-
theory/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/type-theory/)

[3]
[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.52360](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.52360)

[4]
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#PhilInve](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#PhilInve)

~~~
aidenn0
My experience with philosophy was all undergrad and peaked at the 300 level.
That experience is what has led to my belief that the overwhelming majority of
philosophy has little of value to offer me.

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.

------
tim333
There seems a difference between philosophical thinking by physicists or at
least people who understand the physics which can be useful and philosophising
by people who don't which is often not.

------
dionian
Newton's famous science book uses 'the philosophy of nature' in its title, not
'science'. I think those two terms tend to have different connotations these
days.

------
ptr_void
A related discussion for laymen like me:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tH3AnYyAI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tH3AnYyAI8)

------
Animats
Physics doesn't need philosophy. Physicists do.

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.

------
lainon
His lecture on this topic:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ0uPkG-
pr4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ0uPkG-pr4)

------
DmenshunlAnlsis
If anything this seems like an argument for even _less_ philosophy in physics.

~~~
Valmar
If physics removes itself even further from philosophy... it will slowly
become a cesspool of rigid dogma, becoming blind to reality. Physics, as it
is, is already lost in a jungle of abstractions, becoming more and more
divorced from the real world.

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.

~~~
forkandwait
Science avoids the "cesspool of rigid dogma" by experimentation not by a
priori argumentation.

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.

~~~
whatshisface
I'm currently reading a book that talks a lot about the history of particle
physics from 1950 to 2000. It amazes me how diverse the scientist's
philosophical outlooks were, the only thing they agreed on in the end was
empiricism. Given their success, I think that's a strong testament to the idea
that philosophy doesn't "power" science the way math does.

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.

~~~
naasking
Except that's unnecessarily inefficient and still incomplete, since it doesn't
tell you anything about what to do with multiple games that predict the same
symbols, about what sort of games you should focus more effort on, what should
you do with games that don't produce the right symbols, why you should or
shouldn't modify game rules that fail such tests so they pass such tests, and
more.

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.

~~~
whatshisface
Insights on how to write down symbol games that match sensor readings would
come from trying to do that, and gaining experience, would they not? It has an
empirical kernel: whether or not you are successful at writing down good
symbol games. That might technically be classified as philosophy, but since
"the art of writing down good symbol games" is clearly founded in a task where
you can easily evaluate your success, it strikes me as having more in common
with other bodies of knowledge that grew around goal achievement than it does
with philosophy.

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."

~~~
naasking
> Insights on how to write down symbol games that match sensor readings would
> come from trying to do that, and gaining experience, would they not?

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.

~~~
whatshisface
> _merely that a different set or a few additional rules would permit you to
> generate better games more efficiently._

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.

~~~
naasking
> 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.

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!

~~~
whatshisface
> _the analytical approach will always outpace the empirical one._

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.

~~~
naasking
> 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.

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/constructive-empiricism/)

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-
empiricism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/)

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-
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.

~~~
whatshisface
Does Newtonian mechanics really have explanatory power? You can equally well
describe motion in the language of forces and acceleration, the language of
fields and momentum, and whatever other combinations you would want to pick.
Textual "explanations" are just (non-unique!) assignments of literary
constructions to procedures of prediction.

~~~
naasking
Some textual explanations better match our daily experience, and thus our
intuitions, than others. Ask anyone if they are mapping something whether they
prefer polar or Cartesian coordinates.

