Why Physics Needs Philosophy
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Why Physics Needs Philosophy
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Re: Why Physics Needs Philosophy
#2> 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.
Re: Why Physics Needs Philosophy
#3> 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…
I think this is a rather unfair response. Clearly the interesting question is whether good philosophy has anything to offer. There is bad work in every discipline.
Re: Why Physics Needs Philosophy
#4Physics 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.
Re: Why Physics Needs Philosophy
#5> 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.
Re: Why Physics Needs Philosophy
#6> 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.
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".
Re: Why Physics Needs Philosophy
#7Beyond 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."
Re: Why Physics Needs Philosophy
#8> 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…
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