May 21, 2015 in a Philosophy forum (now gone)
[opinion]
I have noticed an apparent increase in Theoretical Physics as being, in the media and other popular education channels, as being equated to Science. The thinking [implied and stated alike] is this:
Theoretical physics is the future grounding for all practical knowledge. Upon Theoretical Physics rests Chemistry, Empirical Physics, Life, Biology, Cognitive Science and then all of the “Soft Sciences”, and upon those, the Humanities. All of these rest upon Mathematics, upon which the Universe is constructed.”
It just so happens that mathematics works very well as a language for Physics at present, although that is not to say something better might not come along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/…/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of…
It is a nice, closed loop. Theoretical Physics works with Mathematics. Since Mathematics works so well with Theoretical Physics, and Theoretical Physics describes the non-empirical aspects of the Universe, therefore the Universe is Math and Math is the Universe, for all things are based upon Theoretical Physics and all things are Mathematics.
Nice and neat. Easy to believe.
But it’s a religious, faith-based system ultimately when seen in that light, or, at the very least, has a number of limiting Philosophical assumptions built-in to the system.
Objective reality. The Universe as objects external to the self.
Subjectivity is assumed to be a lie, plain and simple.
Yet, who is doing the thinking?
Who is doing the “Sciencing?”
Us. Humans. Subjective beings making tools to do the work for us like creating systems like mathematics, engineering computers to work a binary system to death… and the Law of Excluded Middle (no contradictions allowed) sits right in the middle of it all.
This line.
Added to the issue, Chemistry CAN’T be modeled by Quantum Mechanics. In single atom, single molecule mode, certainly.
But beyond the simplest of examples, they need to be separate disciplines. The connection between the two is currently a faith-based connection.
The problems grow from that level up. By the time you reach Biology, there’s very Quantum anything that’s useful.
Go up to Psychology? Might as well not bother with numbers. it’s a different Science, a different discipline, requiring different sets of rules and methods.
Then you have society. There’s a movement growing stronger by the day, of “Cognitive Science-ifying” the Courts Systems.
Dangerous road. We’re not ready. Science-as-Expert-Advisor, yes. But the complexities of human relationships are better described in a 90 minute movie than anything coming out of the “hard sciences”. We’re not ready. Nowhere close to ready.
But we have the movement going. The spokespeople. The histories they present are getting more and more consistent, yet not historically accurate from a historian point of view. Lots of hyperbole in Galileo and the Church regarding the Inquisition; images of burning witches at the stake are frequently linked in the minds of the viewers with Galileo’s short lived gag order and “stay in your room and think about how naughty you’ve been.”
Besides, most of his stuff was wrong anyway. But, he’s a hero just the same; the myth of the Shoulders of Giants continues on regardless of accuracy in historical accounts.
I won’t go into how that ties into the New Atheist movement, gaining greater and greater steam on the Internet, and I see so many of these errors repeated without thought by people whose information sources have no training in theology giving opinions on theological issues… even notables like Hawking, who puts up a strawGod and then knocks it down, to the cheers of the ahistorically educated and with very few jeers because, well, he’s Hawking – he must know what he’s talking about.
But of course, being intelligent in one area (which he is and I adore him for that and for 100 other reasons), does not transfer.
Yet, people believe.
In my opinion, Theoretical Physics, should it decide to cut the tether with things empirical, it should leave the category of Science and move into Philosophy or a branch of mathematics perhaps… but not remain in Science.
It is becoming the religious component of Science, the God of the 21st Century; which is fine, as society is overdue for a new Religion.
But…
I’d rather have Scientists do what they do best, and any grand philosophies connecting it all together… especially those that make the very BASIC error of treating a mathematical infinity as if it is SOMETHING REAL. [it’s not: Basic Physics should teach the dangerous of analogizing reality to mathematics without question; some things do not analogize well to math and most importantly, some math ‘happens’ that does not reflect reality.
Lose the Empirical, and no one will notice the scissors cutting the thread.
I’m not against Math, Theoretical Physics, Science or any of these things. But they’re starting lose their way, and taking millions of believers in the up and coming Scientism movement who may cause social difficulties, painting a false black and white picture of reality, continuing a 19th century debate of “Science and Religion being polar opposites” when, of course they’re not. Not at all.
Ok. That’s the end of my unedited opinions. Thoughts?
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A reply I made in the comments #1:
I’m seeing things as they are. Mathematics is the lingua franca of many disciplines at present.
but even the lingua franca isn’t the lingua franca anymore; it’s English; and THAT can change too. Cellular automata could easily replace mathematics as the language, or programming. It’s a language, easily replaceable.
There’s nothing magical about the language of mathematics or its system. It just works _really really well_ for what we know *right now*.
But what we know now, isn’t everything that _can_ be known and just as knowing a single language can make comprehending certain concepts difficult (not impossible) that stem from another tongue, so too there are limitations to mathematics as a language.
This is not a denial of mathematics; just a recognition of its limitations as a descriptive and practical language; it can’t handle everything; just a lot of things. It’s pragmatic and practical.
Words also handle a lot of things; practical and pragmatic, but mathematical language handles some things better than words, and words handle some things better than mathematics.
There are also other creative forms of expression. Mathematics is quite _literally_ creative when used with engineering.
Yet engineers know one thing: heuristics fill in the gaps where mathematics and in places where there is a lack of scientific theory. They have projects to accomplish; whatever tools are at hand, they will use. A knowledge of local politics is just as useful to an engineer as is mathematics in the completion of a project. Nothing is pure except in our imaginations. Real world is messier than all that.
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A reply I made #2:
you can take your boxing gloves off. There’s nothing I’m atheistic about; I’m agnostic about almost everything though. I’m even skeptical about skepticism when necessary.
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A reply I made #3
Oh you don’t need to provide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologetics to the use of mathematics in physics. They’re a great fit. Not in every way for course. I’ll link to some of the limitations to overusing analogizing mathematics to physical reality, written by a professor FOR other professors who teach physics.
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A reply I made #4
Here: I’ll give you my bias though; I’m biased towards embodied cognition over brains-in-vats.
Read this. It goes beyond internet meme quotes and into the meat of the matter. Analogies are _useful_ but when we forget that mathematics is *but* an analogy to physical systems, we can end up with our heads in the clouds very quickly.
This was written by a professor _for_ other professors who teach physics.
It’s very important because a student who leaves school with excessive dependence upon analogous forms to understand concepts, will then teach and practice physics with those analogous forms embedded in their conceptual framework and can lead them to some very bad science.
https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/analogy.htm
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A reply I made #5
Thank you for your analysis. I appreciate you putting your thoughts to the matter.
I’m basically a pragmatist and consider myself a reasonable (classic definition) man. The reasonableness of mathematics, physics and all the sciences aren’t a question for me.
My concern is societal. My bias is that I am anti-division.
Idealism can cause divisions in society, because ideals only match realities insomuch as those who map their ideologies ONTO reality say they do.. consequently rejecting the rest.
“that which doesn’t fit into our model of reality, is fiction”
I don’t worry about the pragmatic, reasonable individual
I worry about the fringes gaining greater and greater influence over society, media, whose ideas are becoming embedded in the thought processes of students whose conceptualizations will power future societies goals and aims.
I’ve seen some of the problems it’s caused in my own lifetime. I’m 43 years old. I watched the switch in attitude from Carl Sagan’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism view of the Universe that I grew up with, to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism – not that he invented it by any means; just as Carl Sagan didn’t invent his view of the Universe…
…but these are trends in society that affect the attudes of each of us towards each other in ways that can become like an ax cutting across lines.
The answer is reasonableness. But we’re moving away from that as a trend and I hope it doesn’t continue. I also can’t change it much, except by posting messages on message boards. My opinions don’t have the weight of a Tyson, just as they don’t have the weight of a Sagan, whose opinions influenced my outlook towards things. [as did Joseph Campbell.. we’re products of our childhood influencers].
Joe C. very astute with regards to Kuhn – I had forgotten about Kuhn and in a quick Wikipedia search, I could’ve simplified everything I said by saying “Kuhn”; I need to re-read what he wrote again. Thanks for the pointer there.
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A reply I made #6
I’m not anti-math. We need it. It’s powerful. It predicts many things successfully and will continue to do so long after all of us are dead and buried (or scattered).
But there will come a day where we will need to move past spherical horses. Let me find that joke.
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A reply I made #7
Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, “I have the solution, but it only works in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum”.
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A reply I made #8
I’m not a “point-like” thing; there _are_ no point-like things.
It’s a useful analogy; a substitution.
It’s awesome and amazing and deserves our every respect, but not worship. We’re moving towards worship of mathematics as a society and I’m just hoping to play some part in keeping things reasonable.
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A reply I made #9
Yes, Heidegger was very astute in this regard. Shame about him believing ‘his time had time’ as Philosopher-King but I can’t blame the guy. I probably would’ve done much the same if I had an ounce more societal ambitions… and then regretted my short association. [I would’ve been a “good German”, sadly. I suppose I kind of am now but I don’t like politics].
I put Heidegger in the school of Scottish Realism [he probably is already, maybe he isn’t; that’s just how I see it] – and being born and raised in the USA, it’s nearly impossible to escape the, “Does it work? Yes? No? Let’s Try!” attitude, which isn’t strictly Heidegger, but I see it as part of the same family of “Doing”.
I’m being a deconstructionalist on myself. Very challenged but extremely rewarding.
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A reply I made #10
Very true; and I like Hofstadter. I’m too lazy to read books – not for a long time – but I peruse the Internet like crazy and learn that way.
I looked at his list of major students:
Don Byrd—Music Notation by Computer
David Chalmers—Toward a Theory of Consciousness
Gray A. Clossman—A Model of Categorization and Learning in a Connectionist Broadcast System
Hamid Ekbia—AI Dreams and Discourse: Science and Engineering in Tension
Harry Foundalis—Phaeaco: A Cognitive Architecture Inspired by Bongard’s Problems
Bob French—Tabletop: An Emergent, Stochastic Model of Analogy-Making
Francisco Lara-Dammer—Modeling Human Discoverativity in Geometry
Abhijit Mahabal—SeqSee: A Concept-centered Architecture for Sequence Perception
Jim Marshall—Metacat: A Self-Watching Cognitive Architecture for Analogy-making and High level Perception
Gary McGraw—Letter Spirit (Part One): Emergent High-level Perception of Letters Using Fluid Concepts
Marsha Meredith—Seek-Whence: A Model of Pattern Perception
Eric Nichols—Musicat: A Computer Model of Musical Listening and Analogy-Making
Melanie Mitchell—Copycat: A Computer Model of High-Level Perception and Conceptual Slippage in Analogy-making
John Rehling—Letter Spirit (Part Two): Modeling Creativity in a Visual Domain
Wang Pei (Pei Wang) — Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System: Exploring the Essence of Intelligence
and there’s David Chalmers, who while I disagree with him on _some_ nit-picky points, overall I find it difficult to argue with. [my misgivings were minimal enough that I don’t have to think of them unless probed; much like my misgivings about Sagan; they’re “close enough” for now].
Unfortunately, I don’t recognize the other names, but I love the topics they’re working on. It’s definitely within my family of cognitive beliefs, and I now have a direction of further research to explore and decide what I accept, what I reject, and ultimately making finer and finer cuts in the distinctiveness of “what I believe to be True”, which is one of my missions.
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A reply I made #11
I’m particularly interested in “Jim Marshall—Metacat: A Self-Watching Cognitive Architecture for Analogy-making and High level Perception” – as that’s what I’ve been working on for some time now and I will compare his beliefs with my own. Thank you – I look for inspiration everywhere I go because I never no from whence it will come.
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A reply I made #12
I’m not against reason or for reason; they’re tools of discovery. We have many tools to work with to discern the nature of Reality and ourselves.
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A reply I made #13
I suppose my main interest is where people draw the “lines in the sand”; the in group and out group. I consider myself potentially welcome at any party, given the right presentation. [although I hate parties because they’re noisy things] – and I want to be able to speak or at least comprehend any language of conceptual thought. High goals but I don’t think it’s impossible, via analogy, to do so.
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A reply I made #14
There are a _lot_ of working assumptions that take place with in the practices of science and the assumptions of mathematics. These assumptions aren’t necessarily *wrong* by any means; they’re likely “more right” than just about anything that’s come along so far.
I don’t want to shake anyone of their faith. But, you see, I have a strange view of things:
I’m grateful the Pauli Exclusion Principle continues to do what it does. It keeps me in my chair, and keeps my ass from going through the yellow chair, through the concrete, through the earth and to the center of the Earth (and possibly through to the other side, would I suddenly transform into neutrinos and not lose my identity)
Do I _expect_ it to continue doing what it does? No. I *hope* it does and I’m *glad* it does.
But some future reformulation of the description of reality could easily come along. Engineers could build a technology based upon those theories (or they could stumble upon new discoveries because of a floating point error in the CPU) – and a device could be made the manipulate and control the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
It’s not understood well right now. Someday, hopefully, it will be.
I’m grateful it continues working. I’m grateful for mathematics in that it works well at this point in time in human history, given the state of things as they tend to be at present.
Will it work 1000 years from now as it stands?
We *don’t* know.
It’s “close enough for now”. I’m sticking to that. Grateful, good enough but I’m not going to go Max Tegmark and say “the Universe *is* mathematics”; _that_ is my main concern as that way of thinking is gaining influence. That is what I mean by faith. I wasn’t saying that it was your faith based system, but it _is_ some people’s faith based system