Jump to content

Mathematicians vs. Philosophers: Cage Match


maarsen

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

Until the 20th century or so, there was little difference between those two or between either of them and philosophers. Many of the truly great (Leibniz, Descartes, Newton, etc.) made contributions to all three disciplines. Even today, a theoretical physicist is effectively a practical flavor of mathematician and both physicists and mathematicians dabble in philosophy.

Indeed, and any distinction between mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers was drawn by philosophers in the first place, probably in consideration of the former two being, from a philosopher's point of view, applied disciplines (e.g., mathematics as applied logic).

Philosophy earns its keep during periods of paradigm shift. It's the discipline you pull out of your pocket for those trips to the drawing board.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Physics started out as the field of "natural philosophy". I don't think they're inherently at odds at all!

I say this as a physicist* whose father is a philosopher, so I may have a somewhat skewed view. :)

*sort of

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, sologdin said:

nonono quite correct.  was thinking that an effective categorical-imperator provides the appropriate imperative for any historical conjuncture whereby a course of action is identified as consistent (or not) with a principle to be elevated to universal law.

Only I want this as a dating app. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Weeping Sore said:

Tolkien contending that the universe was created by the music of the Ainur borne out by the mathematics of string theory, in that the fabric of everything is nought but manifold vibrations?*

 

*of inherently massless sub-Planck-length one-dimensional loops.

Well, the only thing they share in common is that they are both fantasy.

I will say this, the vast majority of scientists, myself probably included, don't really engage with the philosophy of science as much as we should. It is only when you get to the quantum realm though, that philosophical implications become really profound. For instance, the role of the observer in quantum mechanics etc...It also leads to a lot of BS (see Deepak Chopra) that makes many scientists a bit leery of the whole enterprise. There's a lot of chaff out there that's hard to wade through.

When it comes to string theory....I think the situation is a bit more dire where some string theorists, lacking experimental evidence, have begun to change the nature of what is broadly considered the scientific method (with the help of philosophers). I think the most dangerous idea is some sort of Bayesianism, where trust in a theory is not binary but has a sliding scale between 0 and 1 in the absence of any empirical evidence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

 ...in the absence of any empirical evidence.

Right. String theory's entire purview being mathematically described structures that are by definition too small to create empirical evidence. Still, the idea of having a universal substrate for all sub-atomic* particles is a worthy one. And a string theorist is a mathematician, whether or not the math describes reality.

ETA: I guess what I'm saying is that string theory is definitely mathematics, but whether it is physics is an open question. It describes physics at least, so does that make it metaphysics?

*do I need another word here? sub-atomic would include protons and neutrons, which are a step up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I will say this, the vast majority of scientists, myself probably included, don't really engage with the philosophy of science as much as we should. It is only when you get to the quantum realm though, that philosophical implications become really profound. For instance, the role of the observer in quantum mechanics etc...It also leads to a lot of BS (see Deepak Chopra) that makes many scientists a bit leery of the whole enterprise. There's a lot of chaff out there that's hard to wade through.

Re: sorting chaff, try sorting metaphysics papers by authors who have also published in logic, or by adding logic as a search term. 

Or at least that's how you get a bunch of papers by philosophers full of equations that I don't understand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Weeping Sore said:

ETA: I guess what I'm saying is that string theory is definitely mathematics, but whether it is physics is an open question. It describes physics at least, so does that make it metaphysics?

You dont need to observe strings, there are predictions that can be made with certain flavors of string theory that could have shown up at current LHC energies. Unfortunately, none of these signatures showed up. In the sense that it can make predictions, I think it is still physics, but not particularly relevant physics. I think the metaphysical part comes when people start rationalizing the lack of evidence with changing the very nature of the scientific method itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Ariadne23 said:

Re: sorting chaff, try sorting metaphysics papers by authors who have also published in logic, or by adding logic as a search term. 

Or at least that's how you get a bunch of papers by philosophers full of equations that I don't understand.

The standards of rigor for mathematicians, and apparently, philosophers in mathematics is much higher than for physicists as well. It also makes for denser reading I suppose.

One example I always like to give is that of rain. You can describe the physics of rain much more easily than you can solve the non-linear equations for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The standards of rigor for mathematicians, and apparently, philosophers in mathematics is much higher than for physicists as well. It also makes for denser reading I suppose.

One example I always like to give is that of rain. You can describe the physics of rain much more easily than you can solve the non-linear equations for it.

Fair enough. And, an update: I was perusing the Wiki on analytic philosophy and evidently there is a sub-branch of analytical metaphics called the philosophy of physics, further subdivided into the philosophy of space and time and the philosphy of quantam mechanics. No idea what person in any philosophy department publishes in this area, however. All the citations in the wiki are to theoretical physicists.

ETA: Exception: Tim Maudlin, in the Philosophy Department at NYU. Anybody heard of that guy or read his stuff?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The standards of rigor for mathematicians, and apparently, philosophers in mathematics is much higher than for physicists as well. It also makes for denser reading I suppose.

One example I always like to give is that of rain. You can describe the physics of rain much more easily than you can solve the non-linear equations for it.

I wouldn't go as far as your first sentence. It is true that physicists rely a great deal on approximations, but as long as one fully understands the uncertainties associated with the approximation and regions where it is not valid, this is mathematically rigorous (it wouldn't be useful if it weren't).

56 minutes ago, Ariadne23 said:

Fair enough. And, an update: I was perusing the Wiki on analytic philosophy and evidently there is a sub-branch of analytical metaphics called the philosophy of physics, further subdivided into the philosophy of space and time and the philosphy of quantam mechanics. No idea what person in any philosophy department publishes in this area, however. All the citations in the wiki are to theoretical physicists.

ETA: Exception: Tim Maudlin, in the Philosophy Department at NYU. Anybody heard of that guy or read his stuff?

There are a few (see, for example, this brief list which describes a bit of what Maudlin does). However, on the whole, I wouldn't say philosophy earned its keep in this instance. Quantum mechanics and general relativity were paradigm shifts if ever there were any. We've mastered them to the point where we can have smartphones and GPS satellites, but there's still no universally accepted explanation for what they mean and in fact the most widely accepted ones (and perhaps the best) are still those of the physicists who originally developed them. The philosophers dropped the ball here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Altherion said:

However, on the whole, I wouldn't say philosophy earned its keep in this instance. Quantum mechanics and general relativity were paradigm shifts if ever there were any. We've mastered them to the point where we can have smartphones and GPS satellites, but there's still no universally accepted explanation for what they mean and in fact the most widely accepted ones (and perhaps the best) are still those of the physicists who originally developed them. The philosophers dropped the ball here.

That's pretty persuasive, IMO. People in philosophy tend to start off as pretty open-minded and original thinkers in the first place, and the area of study itself encourages development of those cognitive abilities, but then, like every other academic field, they spend their younger years when fluid intelligence is at its highest earning their chops by jumping on some bandwagon or another, which tamps it down.

Plus, people with the quantitative chops to be of use to physics would have next to no practical reason to get a philosophy graduate degree. I can't imagine a less employable academic field than philosophy, even among the economic wasteland that is academia. It'd maybe help if some top tier school developed a joint theoretical physics/analytical philosophy PhD program, if they have not already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, maarsen said:

There is a chance for philosophers to redeem themselves. The problem of consciousness is a wide open field and has so far been a quagmire for science.  Have at it.

No one has a prayer with that one until we can come up with a viable description of what consciousness actually is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No one has a prayer with that one until we can come up with a viable description of what consciousness actually is.

And that is exactly what philosophy should be able to do. Define the terms of the argument. Start now while you have the lead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, maarsen said:

There is a chance for philosophers to redeem themselves. The problem of consciousness is a wide open field and has so far been a quagmire for science.  Have at it.

I feel like there's been a lot on philosophy of mind? I had a class on it? Are none of the theories useful for science? I think psychoanalytic theory has a lot to offer here. Simply stated, I'd say consciousness is the ability to form a narrative and place oneself in it. In some ways that makes consciousness the ability to maintain a useful illusion, cognitive dissonance and the like being manifestations of the phenomena.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...