Science and values etc.

[kyser_soze]

On the Einstein thing...his opposition, famously stated in the 'God does not play dice...'comment, was because of his personal values...but then he wasn't an experimental scientist and so wouldn't come at it the way Bohr and co did, which was 'Let's see how it works'...after relativity, Einstein was basically attempting to fit his beliefs into theory, which doesn't work...

 

[nosos]

Newton could apparently be a right bastard when career issues etc were at stake

Ask Leibniz.

 

[nosos]

after relativity, Einstein was basically attempting to fit his beliefs into theory, which doesn't work...

But weren't Bohr & co accepting apparant phenomena as given? So for them a commitment to empiricism precluded the existence of some non-apparant (implicate) order underlying non-locality?

 

[Knotted]

That's why I brought him up: the rejection of scientific realism* doesn't entail the abandonment of a thorough-going realism sufficient to ground scientific inquiry.

I don't think science is partly subjective! I think it's the most objective kind of human inquiry.

*Just to clarify: I don't mean this in the sense of realism about science. I mean it in the sense of Scientific Realism as explicit philosophy of science

You are making a very good point and it deserves a full answer. There are real subtleties here. I may not have shown that good science is value free but instead merely value independent. I was perhaps making an assumption that the two are the same thing.

For the minute I am going to make a small point that, at least with respect to Putnam, you are talking about metaphysical realism not scientific realism. The latter encompassing a broad range of varied points of view.

 

[nosos]

For the minute I am going to make a small point that, at least with respect to Putnam, you are talking about metaphysical realism not scientific realism. The latter encompassing a broad range of varied points of view.

Sorry could you expand? I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Regarding Einstein's problem, there's either 'spooky action at a distance' or there's waves travelling back in time. I'm inclined towards the latter as the less silly idea.

Either way, the experimental facts remain stubbornly consistent, however you explain them.

 

[nosos]

I don't mean putnam's rejection of scientific realism specifically. I was using him as an example to illustrate the intermediate positions between scientific realism and something like Rorty's textual idealism which is, I think, the spectre that so terrifies scientific realists.

Even though Rorty wants to leave scientists alone to do their business. Though the fact that they're able to do stuff pretty conclusively proves his account to be bullshit.

 

[kyser_soze]

But weren't Bohr & co accepting apparant phenomena as given? So for them a commitment to empiricism precluded the existence of some non-apparant (implicate) order underlying non-locality?

Is that 'But Bohr and co also bought their own prejudices to the investigation of the sub-atomic realm that precluded one possible explanation, or gave oxygen to Einstein's need to have order in the universe?'

Probably - IIRC as QM developed in the 40s and 50s Bohr parted company with people like Feynman because the stuff they were coming up with offended his sensibilities...

 

[nosos]

Is that 'But Bohr and co also bought their own prejudices to the investigation of the sub-atomic realm that precluded one possible explanation, or gave oxygen to Einstein's need to have order in the universe?'

Pretty much but I don't accept the term "prejudices". I just think that unless you accept scientific realism - scientists read nature off the world and their theories and posits are true and exist in the same way this table and chair do - then the idea of science uncontaminated by methodological assumption (prejudice) makes no sense.

 

[Knotted]

You mean this: At the top of Einstein's list of complaints was what he called "spooky actions at a distance". Einstein's "spookiness" is now called nonlocality? Surely both sides to the dispute accepted the phenomena of non-locality but Einstein argued this was mere appearance: a product of an incomplete theory. Whereas Bohr and co accepted the phenomena as ontologically grounded. The former was moved by a methodological commitment to realism whereas the latter was moved by a methodological commitment to empiricism. Surely the dispute was one of methodology? Neither side could hold their theory up to quantum reality and see how well it matches up because both sides had a commitment to the constitution of quantum reality which was prior to any attempt at verification. Hence why I’m still confused as to how it can be experimentally falsified. Or how Einstein can be 'simply wrong'.

The dispute is somewhat complex. Einstein made an ontological comitment to realism that Bohr was not prepared to make. Both were committed to localism (though at the minute I'm not going to comment on what this means or what this meant to Bohr and Einstein respectively - this is a fine point in its own right).

Briefly Einstein demonstrated that a commitment to locally causal explanations is not compatable with quantum mechanics. He used this to claim that QM must be incomplete and thus there is a hidden local variable. Unfortunately for Einstein the QM has been verified on this point, thus his objection was simply wrong. (There are still experimental objections that might make it possible for QM to be incomplete.)

For Jonti, note that non of this is to do with determinism at all. Incidendtly Bohm's theory has no problems here as it is explicitly non-local.

 

[Knotted]

Sorry could you expand? I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

Later. As I say, you are making a very good point, and I will need to spend a bit of time on it.

 

[nosos]

For Jonti, note that non of this is to do with determinism at all. Incidendtly Bohm's theory has no problems here as it is explicitly non-local.

I thought the dispute Bohm was responding to was about indeterminancy whereas the Einstein/Bohr dispute was about non-locality? In quite an abstract sense the fault line seems similar in both disputes though.

 

[kyser_soze]

Yeah, I'm remembering Merlin Wood talking about a single point, non-local cause now...it's seeping back into my head

 

[nosos]

Ok just to add one thing:

I think science is the most objective kind of human inquiry. I just think objectivity is a product of method and not metaphysics. For me scientific realism amounts to bad metaphysics that, if it were adopted as an arbiter of scientific practice, would actually partially impede the disengaged stance which is constitutive of objectivity and crucial to science's success.

 

[Knotted]

Yeah when I came across the implicate order it immediately struck me how similar it is to what Merlin Wood's saying.

(at least how I read both of them)

MW's "theory" has only a superficial resemblance to Bohm's theory.

 

[nosos]

MW's "theory" has only a superficial resemblance to Bohm's theory.

I read both at 17 so I think my understand of each is rather superficial.

 

[Knotted]

I thought the dispute Bohm was responding to was about indeterminancy whereas the Einstein/Bohr dispute was about non-locality? In quite an abstract sense the fault line seems similar in both disputes though.

I'm not sure if Bohm was overly concerned with determinism, but rather a materialist/realist ontology (at least earlier on when he was a marxist).

In that sense Bohm was with Einstein. But in the locality stakes he was the opposite.

 

[nosos]

I'm not sure if Bohm was overly concerned with determinism, but rather a materialist/realist ontology (at least earlier on when he was a marxist).

But fairly central to any sort of realist ontology is the commitment to determinate reality: indeterminancy creates ontological gaps which undermine mind-independence. Do you know John Polkinghorne? He's a quantum physist and theologian who argues that these gaps represent the "causal joint" within which God is capable of intervening in the world.

 

[Knotted]

But fairly central to any sort of realist ontology is the commitment to determinate reality: indeterminancy creates ontological gaps which undermine mind-independence. Do you know John Polkinghorne? He's a quantum physist and theologian who argues that these gaps represent the "causal joint" within which God is capable of intervening in the world.

Don't know of John Polkinghorne. But I agree about the ontological gaps (or causal gaps) being a cause for concern for a realist/materialist outlook.

 

[Knotted]

Incidently there are a number of excellent articles about the philosophy of quantum mechanics and the philosophical leanings of Bohr, Einstein etc. at the Stanford Encylopaedia of Philosophy.

 

[nosos]

I've had that archived on my PC for a year now and I still only feel like I've scratched the surface. Wonderful god damn site.

 

[kyser_soze]

That site is SO going to make my head hurt...

 

[nosos]

That site is SO going to make my head hurt...

It's absolutely god damn brilliant. A lot of the articles are written by some of the top people working in that area.

 

[Fruitloop]

Polkinghorne is a bit of a nut though isn't he? I mean fair enough for him to struggle with his own experience of congitive dissonance (since he says explicitly that he could never bring himself to deny the existence of a deity, even if that's the way the evidence is pointing), but he is yet to come up with a single truly compelling justification for his belief that has better or even as good explanatory and predictive power than the more conventionla explanations.

Some of his more famous theories are based on problems in QM that seem to have more atheistic solutions now (or at least possibly do) like quantum decoherence etc.

 

[Knotted]

That site is SO going to make my head hurt...

I recon you will cope with the ones about Bohr and Einstein's philosophical thinking. I'm just struggling to find them. There are articles that are apparently not online but really are. If I can sneak a minute at work, I'll find them.

 

[kyser_soze]

I'm just skimming the essay on quantum consciousness...have seen a couple of the others and they all appear to be really well written...

 

[nosos]

Polkinghorne is a bit of a nut though isn't he? I mean fair enough for him to struggle with his own experience of congitive dissonance (since he says explicitly that he could never bring himself to deny the existence of a deity, even if that's the way the evidence is pointing), but he is yet to come up with a single truly compelling justification for his belief that has better or even as good explanatory and predictive power than the more conventionla explanations.

But he would pretty inevitably say to you that you're bringing to bear a crude eliminative physicalism which reduces levels of phenomenality (religious experience) because of prior metaphysical commitments (atheism).

 

[kyser_soze]

Some of his more famous theories are based on problems in QM that seem to have more atheistic solutions now (or at least possibly do) like quantum decoherence etc.

*thinks* I remember a thread I started on this and QD neatly answered my question, which was along the lines that Polkingholme argues...didn't he have a book out on it recently?

 

[Fruitloop]

But he would pretty inevitably say to you that you're bringing to bear a crude eliminative physicalism which reduces levels of phenomenality (religious experience) because of prior metaphysical commitments (atheism).

Well no, I'm quite amenable to the idea of property dualism as a answer to the hard problem of consciousness (although an aura of cop-out hangs around it from a purely gut-reaction angle). However until the definition of a God is defined in some coherent way I don't consider atheism to have an ontological committment at all, it's like saying that my conclusions are skewed because of my non-belief in splengdorfs, and that any anti-splengdorfist would naturally reach the same faulty positions.

 

[nosos]

However until the definition of a God is defined in some coherent way I don't consider atheism to have an ontological committment at all

But he would say the elimination of religious experience is a consequence of the methodological naturalism that underlies your atheism. So while, in a sense, atheism doesn't entail an ontological commitment, this is only so because the entire framework of your ontology is such as to preclude you having to make a specific ontological commtiment re: the non-existence of god. You don't have to specifically commit to the reality of God's non-existence because you categorically reject the possibility in how you frame your view of reality.