
Why Physics Needs Philosophy - jonbaer
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2015/04/physics-needs-philosophy/
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smaccoun
Beyond the technology that often emerges from scientific endeavors, science
alone is a beautiful discipline that engages man in the world from the
"objective" perspective. However science has, and always will, sit under the
umbrella of philosophy. Science stops at a basic set of assumptions which -
although valuable in a limited sense - must keep the curious mind wanting
more. More importantly though, science often leaves out those questions that
are most important to us - those questions that concern the relation of
mySELF, that most mysterious thing, with the rest of the world. Perhaps the
best person to elucidate this fact is Erwin Schrodinger, who's books My View
of the World, Nature and the Greeks, and What is Life are absolute must reads:

"I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me
is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience
in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and
sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot
tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and
physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and
eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but
the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them
seriously."

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AnimalMuppet
> What philosophy offers to science, then, is not mystical ideas but
> meticulous method.

Given the utter bilge that philosophers have seriously propounded, and the
endless arguments with no resolution between different schools of philosophy,
I'm not sold on their "meticulous method" having much to offer to physics. I
mean, yes, _at it 's best_, philosophy has something to teach physics about
meticulous though. But _at it 's best_, physics already knows it.

~~~
smaccoun
Those "endless" arguments you speak of are actually something I consider to be
one of the strengths of philosophy! In engaging in philosophy, you don't stop
at the assumptions, you questions the axioms themselves. What is the context
that produced the certainty of the axioms? Do they hold from all perspectives.

Although there is always a sense of potential circuitousness to philosophical
discussion, and a sense that there IS IN FACT NO FINAL(/CORRECT) ANSWER, this
can in fact be what's considered the strength of philosophy - that it shows
how infinitely mysterious life is! I consider this to be the fun that is
philosophy, but of course it's not everyone's cup of tea

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Roarosaur
> The reigning attitude in physics has been “shut up and calculate”: solve the
> equations, and do not ask questions about what they mean.

Really? My physics teacher has taught me the exact opposite, that you must
break away from relying on numbers and equations and approach every situation
conceptually first.

~~~
andars
Well, yes, especially in quantum theory. Seeing as no one has any idea what
quantum physics actually means (or at least there is no consensus) but it
provides theoretical results that agree with experiment, the trend has been to
"shut up and calculate".

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kazinator
Physics needs philosophical underpinnings, and has them.

Physics does not require ongoing academic activity in the area of philosophy.
That is to say, some new discovery in physics does not require new philosophy.

> _Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead._

Maybe that's just what _stable_ looks like.

