Why Science Needs Philosophy More than

Ever
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-science-needs-philosophy-more-than-ever

What's the Latest Development?

For the last forty years, scientists have been unable to reconcile a series of fundamental
contradictions in the arenas of math and science. Generally relativity and quantum mechanics,
for example, have opposing views of the universe and have yet proven experimentally true.
Endeavors to unite them, such as string theory, are widely regarded as incomprehensible even to
those working in the hard sciences. Within quantum mechanics itself is a contradiction called the
measurement problem, arising from the Uncertainty Principle, which suggests that the very
measurements established to confirm quantum theory should be impossible.

What's the Big Idea?

Mathematics and physics have had similarly hard times coping with consciousness, or how
matter reveals itself to other matter, and the fact that, as Einstein said, the present tense"now"
in the strictest senselies just outside the realm of science. "This should open up larger
questions, such as the extent to which mathematical portraits capture the reality of our world
and what we mean by 'reality'. ... 'It is time' physicist Neil Turok has said, 'to connect our science
to our humanity, and in doing so to raise the sights of both'. This sounds like a job for a
philosophy not yet dead."

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Read it at the Guardian

Philosophy isn't dead yet

Raymond Tallis

Far from having replaced metaphysics, science is in a mess and needs help.
Einstein saw it coming

In 2010 Stephen Hawking, in The Grand Design, announced that philosophy

was "dead" because it had "not kept up with modern developments in science,
particularly physics". He was not referring to ethics, political theory or
aesthetics. He meant metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that aspires to the
most general understanding of nature of space and time, the fundamental
stuff of the world. If philosophers really wanted to make progress, they should
abandon their armchairs and their subtle arguments, wise up to maths and
listen to the physicists.

This view has significant support among philosophers in the English-speaking

world. Bristol philosopher James Ladyman, who argues that metaphysics
should be naturalised, and who describes the accusation of "scientism" as
"badge of honour", is by no means an isolated case.

But there could not be a worse time for philosophers to surrender the baton of
metaphysical inquiry to physicists. Fundamental physics is in a metaphysical
mess and needs help. The attempt to reconcile its two big theories, general
relativity and quantum mechanics, has stalled for nearly 40 years. Endeavours
to unite them, such as string theory, are mathematically ingenious but
incomprehensible even to many who work with them. This is well known. A
better-kept secret is that at the heart of quantum mechanics is a disturbing
paradox the so-called measurement problem, arising ultimately out of the
Uncertainty Principle which apparently demonstrates that the very
measurements that have established and confirmed quantum theory should be
impossible. Oxford philosopher of physics David Wallace has argued that this
threatens to make quantum mechanics incoherent which can be remedied
only by vastly multiplying worlds.

Beyond these domestic problems there is the failure of physics to

accommodate conscious beings. The attempt to fit consciousness into the
material world, usually by identifying it with activity in the brain, has failed
dismally, if only because there is no way of accounting for the fact that certain
nerve impulses are supposed to be conscious (of themselves or of the world)
while the overwhelming majority (physically essentially the same) are not. In
short, physics does not allow for the strange fact that matter reveals itself to
material objects (such as physicists).

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And then there is the mishandling of time. The physicist Lee Smolin's recent
book, Time Reborn, links the crisis in physics with its failure to acknowledge
the fundamental reality of time. Physics is predisposed to lose time because its
mathematical gaze freezes change. Tensed time, the difference between a
remembered or regretted past and an anticipated or feared future, is
particularly elusive. This worried Einstein: in a famous conversation, he
mourned the fact that the present tense, "now", lay "just outside of the realm
of science".

Recent attempts to explain how the universe came out of nothing, which rely
on questionable notions such as spontaneous fluctuations in a quantum
vacuum, the notion of gravity as negative energy, and the inexplicable free gift
of the laws of nature waiting in the wings for the moment of creation, reveal
conceptual confusion beneath mathematical sophistication. They demonstrate
the urgent need for a radical re-examination of the invisible frameworks
within which scientific investigations are conducted. We need to step back
from the mathematics to see how we got to where we are now. In short, to un-
take much that is taken for granted.

Perhaps even more important, we should reflect on how a scientific image of

the world that relies on up to 10 dimensions of space and rests on ideas, such
as fundamental particles, that have neither identity nor location, connects
with our everyday experience. This should open up larger questions, such as
the extent to which mathematical portraits capture the reality of our world
and what we mean by "reality". The dismissive "Just shut up and calculate!" to
those who are dissatisfied with the incomprehensibility of the physicists'
picture of the universe is simply inadequate. "It is time" physicist Neil
Turok has said, "to connect our science to our humanity, and in doing so to
raise the sights of both". This sounds like a job for a philosophy not yet dead.