I haven't been around much lately primarily because I have been busy with other projects, but also I haven't felt that I had anything much to say on the various topics. I found this article on a Scientific American blog and thought it might be of interest to others.
Physicists should stick to physics and leave the philosophy to the muppets who play with words.
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
....well spotted. The philosophers and theologists have messed with these questions for thousands of years and either been proved wrong or got nowhere. There is no way of spinning words that can answer those types of questions.
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
The first is that reproducing an article published elsewhere and available on line is barely different from providing a bare link. Providing the link, a summation and commentary is the wy things are meant to be done here.
The second is that there is an important difference between this and a bare link. Unless permission has been granted reproducing so much text - especially when nothing is added - is a clear violation of copyright.
The source of a the blog was clear and it was for public consumption on line. However, maybe you are right and I'd appreciate admin advising me as to whether or not I should delete the post.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
It may be free to read. That doesn't mean that you can copy it. You need permission or it's a copyright violation.
Don't forget that site owners often have reasons to want people to visit their sites, such as advertising. It's possible for them to lose out if you copy material, even if it's free-to-read.
quote:Question:You are a Christian, more specifically a Quaker. Does your faith have any effect on your scientific views, or vice versa?
Answer: It may affect to some degree the topics I choose to tackle, but it cannot affect the science itself, which has its own logic that must be followed wherever it leads without fear or favour, within the domain of application of the relevant theories.
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Many key aspects of life (such as ethics: what is good and what is bad, and aesthetics: what is beautiful and what is ugly) lie outside the domain of scientific inquiry (science can tell you what kind of circumstances will lead to the extinction of polar bears, or indeed of humanity; it has nothing whatever to say about whether this would be good or bad, that is not a scientific question).
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I think that saying that anything "lies outside the domain of scientific inquiry" without explaining why or putting it into some sort of context is ridiculous.
These questions are absolutely within the domain of scientific inquiry, as long as the terms are defined. And, if you don't define the terms... then you aren't doing anything coherent at all anyway, let alone "philosophy."
Therefore, give the use of the terms, then apply the scientific method... it's that simple.
If he's only making the point that "there is no universally agreed upon definition for the terms." Well, yeah... that pretty much goes for every and all subjects. The point is to use the largely accepted definitions, make it clear that you're using those definitions, then do some testing from there. Perhaps someone should tell him that there's no "universally agreed upon definition" for scientific terms even... once you take them out of the context of science. So, get a scientific definition for these terms, use it in science for science... and it can be just as scientific as any other science. It's not rocket science
quote:Question:In some of your writings, you warn against excessive determinism in physics, and science. Could you summarize your concerns?
Answer: Many scientists are strong reductionists who believe that physics alone determines outcomes in the real world, This is demonstrably untrue — for example the computer on which I am writing this could not possibly have come into being through the agency of physics alone.
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As I stated above, mathematical equations only represent part of reality, and should not be confused with reality. A specific related issue: there is a group of people out there writing papers based on the idea that physics is a computational process. But a physical law is not an algorithm. So who chooses the computational strategy and the algorithms that realise a specific physical law? (Finite elements perhaps?) What language is it written in? (Does Nature use Java or C++? What machine code is used?) Where is the CPU? What is used for memory, and in what way are read and write commands executed? Additionally if it’s a computation, how does Nature avoid the halting problem? It’s all a very bad analogy that does not work.
Again, I disagree with the guy. He may be right... but he seems to act as if asking a bunch of leading questions is actually evidence for a position. What if those people writing those papers have answers for all his questions about where is the CPU and everything else? Then he just says "it's a very bad analogy that does not work..." Well... explain why it doesn't work instead of poking at it like a kid, then.
I don't know if physics is deterministic or not... but neither does this guy, that's obvious.
quote:Question:Einstein, in the following quote, seemed to doubt free will: If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will. Do you believe in free will?
Answer: Yes. Einstein is perpetuating the belief that all causation is bottom up. This simply is not the case, as I can demonstrate with many examples from sociology, neuroscience, physiology, epigenetics, engineering, and physics. Furthermore if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity — it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options.
I find it very hard to believe this to be the case — indeed it does not seem to make any sense. Physicists should pay attention to Aristotle’s four forms of causation — if they have the free will to decide what they are doing. If they don’t, then why waste time talking to them? They are then not responsible for what they say.
I don't have an answer to this question either, but I don't pretend to have one like this guy does... He claims to have "many examples"... but doesn't share any. And then expands upon the most flippant of responses... that the opposite "doesn't make sense" to him... therefore what he thinks must be true. Shoddy thinking.
I am left unimpressed by the philosophy of this George Ellis figure. Name seems like it should be familiar... should I know this guy from something?
I am left unimpressed by the philosophy of this George Ellis figure.
From what I just read from you, me too.
I'm probably what is referred to as a "philosophy-knocker", and reading from this guy kinda makes me feel more so.
"You shouldn't knock philosophy because there's stuff that science can't do".
Yeah, well philosophy ain't doing it either!
And unanswered questions don't impress me towards thinking that philosophy has gotten any closer to answering them, especially when they're left unanswered.
Finish it off with an argument from incredulity and I'm done.
Name seems like it should be familiar... should I know this guy from something?
Maybe your thinking of Doc Ellis... regardless, this is way more interesting:
I am left unimpressed by the philosophy of this George Ellis figure. Name seems like it should be familiar... should I know this guy from something?
Possibly this lady - made me think too.
George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871—72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
Physicists should stick to physics and leave the philosophy to the muppets who play with words.
I can't remember who said it, but a well known physicist recently quipped that in order to be taken as a serious philosopher you must be up to date on your knowledge of the latest discoveries in physics. However, to be taken as a serious physicist you don't have to know the least bit about the latest philosophies, or even the basics of philosophy.
I can't remember who said it, but a well known physicist recently quipped that in order to be taken as a serious philosopher you must be up to date on your knowledge of the latest discoveries in physics. However, to be taken as a serious physicist you don't have to know the least bit about the latest philosophies, or even the basics of philosophy.
Of course a physicist would say that.
But he ignores in doing so the fact that in its most basic Philosophy encompasses all fields of study so that one can easily be a philosopher with little regard for physics, but there are no physicists who aren't also philosophers as a simple matter of fact.
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