An Introduction to Anti-Realist Positions on Quantum Mechanics

Philosophical Realism and Anti-Realism

Hilary Putnam defines what he calls “metaphysical realism” in very clear terms. In his Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers, he states that the metaphysical realist believes that “the world consists of a fixed totality of mind-independent objects”. As a consequence of that, the realist also believes that “there is exactly one true description of the way the world is”. In addition, metaphysical realism is the position that “truth involves some sort of correspondence between words or thought-signs and external things and sets of things”.

Metaphysical realists also believe that the world has a “built-in” structure. In other words, we have a “ready-made-world”. Thus there must be (or can be) only one true theory of the world.

So what about anti-realism?

Anti-realism isn't only a position which can be applied to quantum mechanics or even to science generally. If anti-realism is primarily about observation, verification or “justified assertion”, then such things as counterfactual conditionals, other minds, the past, infinities, mathematics and suchlike are rendered problematic. Nonetheless, the usual argument in most of these cases (at least from “constructive empiricists”, etc.) is that such examples are “observable in principle”.

Simon Blackburn (as a “quasi-realist”) recognised these problems when he wrote the following:

“... let us suppose that some things lie outside observation: the past, or other people's sensations, or sub-atomic particles... I cannot display or make visible past events I talk about, the future ones, my own pains and thoughts, let alone electrons or numbers.”

So here, clearly, we must “manifest our understanding” (Michael Dummett's words) of such things in other ways. And we do so (in most of the cases mentioned) by relying on what's observable today or what's observable in principle. However, this is easier said than done in some cases, if not in all.

For example, we have observational evidence of the past today; even if we can't observe the past itself. As for “other people's sensations”, we can take (for instance) a quasi-behaviourist or Wittgensteinian position on this issue. Finally, we don't observe sub-atomic particles; though scientists certainly do observe patterns in cloud chambers and whatnot. And since this piece is about quantum mechanics, we can elaborate what's just been said about sub-atomic particles by saying that the standard anti-realist position is that statements about particles are actually (or really) statements about observables. In other words, all statements about (or references to) sub-atomic particles are simply “convenient fictions”.

Finally, the most important or relevant part of the anti-realist position (at least as it applies to science) is that it (to put it bluntly) doesn't accept the notion of truth when it comes to scientific theories and statements. To put some meat on that claim. Anti-realists emphasise what we can observe. And, in parallel to that, they underplay what's often called the “underlying causes” of what we can observe. Thus it's not that these underlying causes are said not to exist: it's just that we can never observe them. Or, at the very least, epistemically (or scientifically), and at this moment in time in our epistemic (or scientific) community, such underlying causes cannot be observed.

Realism in Physics

Scientific realism is well-defined by Bas van Fraassen. He wrote:

“Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involved the belief that it is true.”

This gives us a position on those just-mentioned underlying causes: even if we can't, as yet, observe them. Thus there can be truths (according to scientific realists) about unobservable entities.

Famously, Albert Einstein took a very strong realist line on physics – specifically on quantum physics. He believed that science should tell us how the world is. He didn't believe that science is all about “empirical adequacy” (Bas van Fraassen), experiments, technological success, predictions and whatnot. Ultimately, then, science must also express truths.

Einstein's main problem was the clash between “instrumentalism” in quantum mechanics, and the crazy nature of some of its claims. Not only that: there were many different interpretations of quantum mechanics on the market place. Indeed many physicists didn't even get hot under the collar about these rival (or complementary) interpretations. That is, they didn't bother themselves with the “real nature of things”. Instead, they focussed all their attention on observation, accurate predictions, technological applications and whatnot.

In terms of a concrete example of Einstein's realism, we can take his position on Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Here we have a split between our knowledge of reality and reality itself. Alternatively, this can be seen as a split between epistemology and ontology.

Einstein admitted that we have limited knowledge of the position and velocity of an electron. However, he also believed that electron nonetheless does indeed have a definite position and a definite velocity regardless of our limited knowledge. Thus, in this instance, epistemology and ontology are dis-joined.

Anti-Realism in Physics

Scientific anti-realism and instrumentalism seem to simply re-express a position of Bishop Berkeley and others. That position being that we have no epistemic - or even ontological - right to move beyond what empiricists called “sense impressions” (or observations) to the “underlying true causes” of those sense impressions (or observations). That epistemic gap, of course, was at the core of modern scepticism; and, as a consequence, it turned various philosophers and scientists into anti-realists/instrumentalists and sometimes into various kinds of idealist.

Nonetheless, scientific anti-realists don't necessarily claim that underlying causes don't exist: it's just that we can never observe them. It follows from this, then, that certain brands of anti-realism are epistemological (i.e., not metaphysical) in nature. In other words, anti-realism is about what we can know and say, not about what is. That is, we can know about what it is we can observe, measure or experiment upon; we can't know about what is (as it were) “behind” what it is we observe. Thus, in scientific anti-realism, epistemology trumps metaphysics/ontology.

The American theoretical physicist and string theorist, Brian Greene, put this quandary here:

“... whether the uncertainty principle is a statement about what we can know about reality or whether it is a statement about reality itself.”

That first clause is a perfect expression of anti-realism. (That is, “what we can know about reality”.) That, of course, can be tied in with what anti-realist philosophers have called “verification”. This sets up a profound disjunction between metaphysical speculations as to “reality itself” and what we can know about reality. Thus, as a result of this, it can be argued that reality itself is (in Wittgenstein's words) a “wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it” - therefore it's “not part of the mechanism”. To put that another way: reality itself is roughly equivalent to Kant's noumena. In other words, noumena are the “ground” of our experiences or observations. Nonetheless, they are something we can't know anything about.

We can capture the anti-realist (or verificationist) position on quantum mechanics by simply emphasising the notion of measurement. Take Niels Bohr again. He believed that physics only deals with things which we can measure. In other words, in science there's nothing more than what we can measure; just as, to certain philosophers (from the logical positivists to contemporary verificationists), we can only speak about what we can observe or verify.

So perhaps we shouldn't get hung-up about what's often called “the true nature of reality” - specifically if it throws up conundrums which haven't (at least as yet) been solved.

The Swiss and American theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli went further than Bryan Greene by rejecting the opposition (i.e., between reality itself and what we can can know about reality) entirely when he stated the following:

“One should no more rack one's brain about the problem of whether something one cannot know anything about exists all the same, than about the ancient question of how many angels are able to sit on the point of a needle.”

Bohr too put this position when he said:

“It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.”

Although I'm shoehorning terms from philosophy into physics here, this quote is also an almost perfect statement of anti-realism. In other words, what “how Nature is” is a metaphysician's dream. All we have is “what we can say about Nature”. And, at the quantum-mechanical level, what we can say in what we can say with mathematics. Consequently, just about everything else is analogical and/or imagistic. Indeed the analogical stuff can (or does) often mislead us. And perhaps it's also partly the source of quantum mechanic's "weirdness".

So this anti-realist position can be summed up by saying that something is indeed the case at the quantum-mechanical level. However, we can never know what it is. Indeed we can go even further than this and argue that it must follow that there's no "fact of the matter" about anything at the quantum-mechanical level. After all, can anything beyond what we can know be factual in nature or a candidate for truth?

Despite all that's been said, the quotes above are essentially about the attitudes physicists should (or do) uphold regarding nature or reality. In other words, there are no explicit claims about what does or doesn't exist. So here's where Werner Heisenberg made the next radical move when he said that

“atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts”.

However, there's a problem here. In one breath Heisenberg says that “atoms and elementary particles are not real”. Though in the next breath he talks about “potentialities or possibilities”. Thus was Heisenberg simply being realist about potentialities and possibilities instead of about atoms and elementary particles? Regardless of that, it's difficult to know what's meant by “potentialities or possibilities” when surely it must be something real which has such potentialities or possibilities. If we forgot the controversies concerning the “quantum vacuum” or quantum field theory here, the words “potentialities or possibilities” must be a reference to a something which has these features.

Interpretations

One can take a positive pragmatic (or instrumentalist) position on these interpretations of quantum mechanics. Alternatively, one can take a pessimistic position on them. Steven Weinberg takes the latter option. He writes:

“My own conclusion is that today there is no interpretation of quantum mechanics that does not have serious flaws. This view is not universally shared. Indeed, many physicists are satisfied with their own interpretation of quantum mechanics. But different physicists are satisfied with different interpretations. In my view, we ought to take seriously the possibility of finding some more satisfactory other theory, to which quantum mechanics is only a good approximation.”

Now is Weinberg's position philosophical/ontological in nature? Is he saying that it's not all about predictions, experiment, etc. – it's also about what is? In other words, is it a realist position on the interpretations of quantum mechanics?

David Finkelstein also notes the problems with these different interpretations; though he doesn't really hint at any metaphysical concern. He tells us that “[q]uantum theory was split up into dialects” and that this was the case because “[d]ifferent people describe the same experiences in remarkably different languages”. Consequently, this pluralism may seem fine except for the fact that all “[t]his is confusing even to physicists”.

Instrumentalism

Instrumentalism can be deemed to be a subset position of anti-realism with a particular relevance to science. 

For the instrumentalist, theories are seen as instruments which deal with what is observed in experimental situations. Thus theoretical terms or concepts are also deemed to be “fictions” which are instrumentally useful to scientists.

Instrumentalism can also be said to date back to the beginnings of modern science. This isn't to say, of course, that the word “instrumentalism” was ever used in the 17^th century or even that such scientists saw themselves as instrumentalists. Nonetheless, take the words of the Lutheran theologian, Andreas Osiander, in his unsigned preface to Copernicus's The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. 

Osiander intentionally expressed an instrumentalist position on Copernicus's science in order to play down (as it were) the truth-claims contained within his book. (Osiander believed that such truth-claims would have clashed with aspects of Christian theology.) Osiander wrote (as quoted in A.F. Chalmers' What is this thing called Science?) the following:

“... it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and skillful observation. Then turning to the causes of these motions or hypotheses about them, he must conceive and devise, since he cannot in any way attain to the true causes, such hypotheses as, being assumed, enable the motions to be calculated correctly from the principles of geometry, for the future as well as the past. The present author [Copernicus] has performed both these duties excellently. For these hypotheses need not be true or even probable; if they provide a calculus consistent with the observations that alone is sufficient.”

In this quote it can be seen that there's a clear separation between what Osiander called “observation” and the “true causes” of those observations. Indeed it was said earlier that the notion of truth is sidelined by anti-realists. So here we have Osiander saying that Copernicus's “hypotheses need not be true nor even probable” if “they provide a calculus consistent with the observations that alone are sufficient”.

Thus, if Osiander were alive today, he would see quantum mechanics as a (mere) “calculus” which needn't concern itself with “true causes”. And that's exactly what many contemporary physicists do believe. Indeed we can go one step beyond that and say that instrumentalists deem particles and even atoms to be what's often called “convenient fictions”.

Conclusion: Options

It's possible to take up a position of anti-realism towards certain parts of science (or towards certain theories of science) and not towards others. Thus, since this piece is about quantum mechanics, then it can be said that one can be an anti-realist about the phenomena posited in QM yet not be an anti-realist when it comes to the everyday “classical world”. Of course this neat division of the micro/macro world comes up against two fundamental problems. One: the questioning of the micro-macro distinction when it comes to quantum mechanics itself. Two: the (as it were) theory-laden nature of statements about, for example, planets and even about whales or chairs.

People can also take the position called “semantic instrumentalism”. In other words, the terms used in quantum mechanics aren't taken as referring to literal entities. Instead, such terms are “logical constructions” (a term first used by Bertrand Russell) which are employed to make sense of the things we can indeed observe.

Anti-realists also argue that the statements which involve such terms aren't what they call “assertoric”. That is, they can't be either true or false. (Thus, I suppose, they can't be “factual” either.)

A middle way seems to be what's been called “reductive empiricism”. That is, what we observe is primary - even if what we observe doesn't include the theoretical entities of our theories. Nonetheless, the fact that we do observe some things which (at it were) hint at unobservables, that makes it the case that the statements within such theories are indeed assertoric.

Intertextuality or Philosophy Ex Nihilo?

How original can a philosopher's philosophy be? If it were utterly original (i.e., if it had no links to any previous philosophy), then perhaps it wouldn't be philosophy at all.

Take the “radicals” in the tradition of analytic philosophy.

Eliminative materialists and “anti-realists”, for example, needed to share some kind of a philosophical language with their contemporaries (as well as with the tradition), otherwise their chosen language and positions would have been inscrutable.

Perhaps at another possible world there are other philosophies which are completely alien to our own. We can now ask:

Why are “alien philosophies” philosophies at all if they share nothing with our own philosophies – i.e., if they're truly alien?

Schopenhauer once asked the following question (to paraphrase):

Why do philosophers never step outside books [or “texts”]?

Schopenhauer was very critical of the parasitical nature (as he saw it) of much philosophy. That is, he was critical of philosophers' reliance on other philosophers' texts. This was a philosophical point about what some Continental philosophers have called “intertextuality”. This term itself was coined by Julia Kristeva. However, let the semiotician Roland Barthes explain it:

“Any text is a new tissue of past citations. Bits of code, formulae, rhythmic models, fragments of social languages, etc. pass into the text and are redistributed within it, for there is always language before and around the text. Intertextuality, the condition of any text whatsoever, cannot, of course, be reduced to a problem of sources or influences; the intertext is a general field of anonymous formulae whose origin can scarcely ever be located; of unconscious or automatic quotations, given without quotation marks.”

Thus if Schopenhauer had spoken in contemporary terms, he might have said that (philosophically speaking) intertextual webs trap philosophers within them .

In response, the post-structuralist/deconstructor Jacques Derrida might have said that Schopenhauer was fooling himself if he really believed that he could escape from all the webs - or snares - of intertextuality. Derrida believed that we're all trapped within them (at least all Westerners are). And, as the fictional deconstructing car mechanic said to the analytic philosopher John Searle: "There is nothing outside the text.” (Il n'y a pas de hors-texte. - The apparently “correct” translation of Derrida's French doesn't help either.)

Philosophy Ex Nihilo

What would a philosophical a priori (as it were) be like? A philosophy untouched by other philosophies - untouched by other philosophical texts? Take the British broadcaster, politician and populariser of philosophy, Bryan Magee, and his account of his own ex nihilo philosophising:

“Until I went to university it never entered my head to associate any of these [philosophical] questions with the word 'philosophy'…I discovered that this is what they were…I had grown up a natural Kantian… I discovered…that I had been immersed in philosophical problems all my life.” [From Magee's Confessions of a Philosopher: A Journey Through Western Philosophy.]

What a strange passage that is. Magee wasn't claiming to be "outside language"; though he was claiming to have been outside philosophy. He was claiming that all of us are born with a kind of quasi-Chomskian Philosophy Faculty. However, if he wasn't claiming something about a universal philosophy faculty, then Magee must have been making a claim about himself - and himself alone. That claim must therefore be that Magee was somehow genetically programmed to philosophise in the particular manner in which he did in fact philosophise.

If the first option is taken (i.e., the quasi-Chomskian philosophising faculty), then many - if not all - young children (throughout the world) would be asking the same questions which Magee asked himself when he was a young child. It's of course true that many children do indeed ask philosophical questions. So which questions and problems was Magee talking about?

As Magee put it, he asked himself questions which he later realised were Kantian, Schopenhauerian, Leibnizian and Wittgensteinian in nature. If that's the case, then why weren't Kantian and Leibnizian - never mind Wittgensteinian - problems raised years before the birth of these particular philosophers? If these questions and problems are so natural (Magee claimed to be a "natural Kantian"), then why are they certainly not asked in other cultures in our own time (that's unless they come into contact with Western philosophy)? There may indeed be certain philosophical givens. (The American philosopher Thomas Nagel - in his book The Last Word - believes this to be the case.) Nonetheless, they certainly aren't, say, Kantian or Wittgensteinian givens. And any any givens (uncovered by empirical research) tend to be more theological, mystical or spiritual in nature; rather than (strictly speaking) philosophical.

It's of course possible that Magee was an incredible genius who not only came to Kantian questions and problems without the help of Kant; but to Leibnizian and Wittgensteinian problems and questions without their help too! (Rather modestly, Magee did claim that he didn't find "solutions for them".)

In the end it will be empirical research which will determine whether or not Kantian, Leibnizian, etc. problems and questions are really part of the philosophical a priori. From my own knowledge and reflections, I suspect that they aren't. Despite saying that, this doesn't devalue such philosophy in any way.

Intertextual Philosophy

So where did Kant's Kantian problems and questions come from?They largely came from other philosophers. And where did Leibniz’s Leibnizian problems come from? Ditto.

More clearly, Kant wouldn't have been a Kantian (ostensibly unlike Magee) without the problem of the impasse between Rationalism and Empiricism; as well as the scepticism of Hume. Schopenhauer wouldn't have been a Schopenhauerian (again, unlike Magee) without Kant and the work of the German Idealists who came before him (among other things).

Thus perhaps Magee simply felt inclined to squeeze his own childhood questions and problems into a Kantian hole.

Schopenhauer also saw himself in the way in which Magee saw himself. In other words, he saw himself as a kind of aprioristic philosopher. So Schopenhauer didn't only take a position on the a priori within philosophy; but also an a priori position towards philosophy itself. He thought that the best way to do philosophy isn't to read philosophical texts. Instead, it's simply to think and reason independently. (Wittgenstein also claimed this!)

Yet in his early life Schopenhauer confessed to being more or less obsessed with Kant. This must surely mean that Schopenhauer simply took an independent position on philosophy after the fact. He was like a car driver in a long car race who drives a car with an extra large petrol tank filled up to the brim. A driver who then claims to his fellow competitors that his car doesn't need any extra petrol. Yet, of course Schopenhauer partly - or even largely - lived off his memories of other philosophers' texts.

As for intertextuality as it applies to other philosophers.

Take William G. Lycan’s medium-length paper ‘The Continuity of Levels of Nature’: it includes fifty-two references to other philosophers’ texts. And, in addition, Jaegwon Kim’s ‘Supervenience as a Philosophical Concept’ has fifty-one such references.

And since two analytic philosophers have just been mentioned, it can be said that when a student of analytic philosopher thinks about the nature of the mind, all he primarily does is read and think about what, for example, Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett have said about the nature of mind. This must mean that he too may well be caught in his own intertextual trap. (Though, of course, it’s unlikely that any philosopher of mind would rely on just two philosophers of mind.) Indeed all his responses, reactions and commentaries on the nature of mind may also be largely intertextual in nature.

Thus when students study philosophy at university, it seems that reading texts often seems far more important than independent thinking and reasoning. Isn't this called “research”?

On the other hand, many philosophers (or wannabe philosophers) would like to flatter themselves with the view that their own philosophical views have occurred ex nihilo. However, genuine ex nihilo philosophical thought may be as unlikely as ex nihilo mental volition or action (what philosophers call “origination”). As I said, there may be some cognitive givens; though whether or not they're truly philosophical is open to debate. They certainly aren't Kantian or Wittgensteinian givens.

It can be asked where would the novice aprioristic philosopher get his concepts and tools from? Isn't it the case that he wouldn’t have the vocabulary to philosophise in the first place? Isn't it also the case that he wouldn’t even feel the need to ask philosophical questions without the spur of preceding philosophy?

As Derrida put it (in his 'Violence and Metaphysics' ) in a slightly different context (as well as to paraphrase):

The apriorist philosopher would still think or speak Greek.

Derrida himself - despite his deconstructions! - admitted to being a “Jew-Greek”. He said that he lived in a “house” which had been built for him by (religious) Jews and Christians; as well as by philosophical Greeks.

Deflating Quantum Mechanics: Pictures, Images & Analogies

The use of the words “deflating quantum mechanics” isn't meant in the sense of offering any challenge to quantum mechanics (QM) itself. Of course not. For a start, I'm not a physicist. (One would need to be a great physicist to challenge the fundamentals of quantum theory.) This piece, instead, is primarily aimed at the interpretations of QM by the layperson and indeed even by some physicists. In other words, quantum theory is fine by me. What I do have a problem with is commentators deliberately attempting to make QM even more (as it's often put) “weird” than it actually is. In addition, there's also of the problem of people focusing entirely on quantum weirdness.

More relevantly, it's argued that this quantum weirdness is largely brought about when people use images, pictures or analogies which are only applicable to the everyday world, and then applying them to the quantum realm. This - almost by definition - must surely be like pushing square shapes into round holes. In other words, it's bound to make QM weird/er.

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It would seem that one of the main positions advanced in this piece is partly contradicted by a well-known quote from Albert Einstein. Namely:

“If I can't picture it, I can't understand it.”

So despite Einstein's words, it can also be said: 

If you can picture the phenomena of quantum mechanics, then you don't understand them. 

Werner Heisenberg, for example, argued that all the imagistic or analogical descriptions of QM are problematic. More precisely, he stated the following:

“Progress in science has been bought at the expense of the possibility of making phenomena of nature immediately and directly comprehensible to our way of thought.”

In other words, in order to make the scientific 

“phenomena of nature immediately and directly comprehensible to our way of thought”, 

scientists have relied on images, pictures and analogies which simply don't do the (complete) job. On the other hand, when scientists don't use such analogies, pictures or images, then QM is incomprehensible to “our way of thought”.

There's a deep problem here - at least for laypersons!

So what if it's partly the overuse of imagery and analogies which makes QM seem so weird? Sure, QM is indeed weird. Nonetheless, using images, picture and analogies which are applicable to the macro-scale (then applying them to the micro-scale) can't help but make things weirder. On the other hand, without imagery and the requisite mathematics, how does any layperson or even physicist know that QM is weird at all?

It's not only laypersons who have problems with “picturing” the phenomena of QM - physicists do too. And since the failures (or limits) of the imagination have just been been stressed, here's the philosopher Ernan McMullin stating the following:

“If we cannot quite imagine what they are, this is due to the distance of the microworld from the world in which our imaginations were formed, not to the existential shortcomings of electrons...”

Of course all this depends on what exactly is meant by the word “picturing” or “imagining”. It also depends on what's meant by the words “understanding quantum mechanics”. Sometimes the problem is also to do with the concepts we use to describe QM phenomena. In other words, it's not only about imagery.

Take a classic example: “wave-particle duality”.

Perhaps part of this problem is that the wave description isn't very apt in the first place. That is, waves at the subatomic level aren't like waves in the sea, in your bath or even like waves at all. (The graphic representations of the “peaks and troughs” of the interference pattern, for example, may not help.) This is why Erwin Schrodinger, for one, decided to call them “wave functions” instead of "waves". In other words, the wave description (even if only analogical) was never satisfactory to Schrodinger and indeed to many other physicists.

So what about particles?

The American philosopher Ernest Nagel once discussed the “puzzling characteristics” of particles. These puzzling characteristics were seen to have been “incompatible”. (The word “incompatible” isn't a synonym of “contradictory”.) More precisely, Nagel argued that electrons are

“construed to have features which make it appropriate to think of them as a system of waves”.

Yet, on the other hand, electrons “also have traits which lead us to think of them as particles”.

Since waves and particles have just been discussed, it's worth noting here what the astrophysicist and writer John Gribbin has to say on this. Gribbin ostensibly takes an extreme position on this part-rejection of analogies, images and pictures. He writes:

“In the world of the very small, where particle and wave aspects of reality are equally significant, things do not behave in any way that we can understand from our experience of the everyday world...all pictures are false, and there is no physical analogy we can make to understand what goes on inside atoms. Atoms behave like atoms, nothing else.” 

It can of course be said that even if it's correct that

“all pictures are false, and there is no physical analogy we can make to understand what goes on inside atoms”,

then it may still be the case that (at least for laypersons) that's all we've got. Indeed without the mathematics, all we have are pictures, images and analogies. So we'd better make do with all that. And surely John Gribbin isn't arguing that pictures, images and analogies serve no purpose. Indeed he can't be arguing that because his books make extensive use of them. Having said that, all Gribbin's pictures, images and analogies do come with words of warning (as can be seen in the quote above).

In fact we can even say that the very use of the words “particle” and “wave” may mean that Gribbin himself is using pictures or images and/or being analogical. That is, if “in the world of the very small” it's the case that

“things do not behave in any way that we can understand from our experience of the everyday world”,

then why is Gribbin using the words “particle” and “wave” in the first place?

Concepts

It's not only QM that's the problem here.

According to Freeman Dyson (who was talking about a “new theory [of] black holes”), the problem was that Stephen Hawking (at least at that point) was “still groping in the dark for concepts which will make his theory [of black holes] fully intelligible”.

All this depends on what Dyson meant by “concepts”. After all, he might have only been referring to mathematical concepts. In fact Dyson continued by saying that

“[a]s usual when a profoundly original theory is born, the equations come first and a clear understanding of their physical meaning comes later”.

So not only is it the case that the mathematics isn't equal to the later images, pictures and analogies which people use for physical phenomena: at first the mathematics isn't even equal to anything “physical” at all. Or, more precisely, the maths isn't equal to the “physical meaning” which may - or will - “come later”.

This shouldn't be a surprise because mathematics itself is an abstract realm and numbers and equations (not their written symbols, etc.) are said (at least by some philosophers and physicists) to be “abstract objects”. Thus the equations Dyson referred to only became (as it were) concrete when given a “physical meaning” or when applied (in this case) to black holes.

So here we have a disjunction between mathematics and reality/nature that's only brought together when the mathematics is given a physical meaning or when applied to reality. However, even then it can be said that the disjunction still exists in a strong way. This means that whereas many scientists stress the unity of maths and physical reality, the opposite (as with string theory!) can also be stressed.

So we can still ask this question:

Freeman Dyson talked about the concepts which will make the theories of physics fully intelligible... but fully intelligible to whom?

Was it to himself and Stephen Hawking? To other physicists generally? Or to laypersons?

Scales and Levels

Richard Feynman once wrote (when talking about an electron taking “many paths” at the same time) the following:

“[Quantum mechanics] describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is – absurd.”

Perhaps when Feynman used the words “common sense”, that common sense position may primarily be a result of attempting to think of (or visualise) what happens at the quantum-mechanical scale in the same way in which one thinks of (or visualises) what happens at the everyday scale.

Feynman himself singled one such scale: the scale of the atom. He said that

“if an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple”.

We also have this from the nuclear physicist Kenneth W. Ford:

“For example, to picture the nucleus, whose size is about 10^-4 to 10^-5 of the size of the atom, one may imagine the atom expanded to, say, 10,000 feet or nearly two miles... A golf ball in the middle of New York International Airport is about as lonely as the proton at the center of the hydrogen atom.”

Think also the extra dimensions of string theory. Only four of string theory's extra dimensions are observable. (That's if you can literally observe macro-object-free spacial or time dimensions.)

Even if extra dimensions do exist, they may still be (or are) incredibly small; as well as “compacted”. Thus the very idea of extra dimensions bears little relation to those portrayed in horror and science-fiction films. Indeed, way back in 1926, the extra dimension suggested by Oskar Klein was thought be curled up and too small to be detectable. Thus only something equally small could (as it were) live in this extra dimension.

And strings themselves are fantastically smaller than protons, neutrons and electrons. Let Freeman Dyson explain by going even further with superstrings:

“First, the entire universe. Second. The planet Earth. Third, the nucleus of an atom. Fourth, a superstring. The step in size from each of these things to the next is roughly the same.The Earth is than the visible universe by about twenty powers of ten. An atomic nucleus is smaller than the Earth by twenty powers of ten. And a superstring is smaller than a nucleus by twenty powers of ten. That gives you a rough measure of how far we have to go in the domain of the small before we reach superstrings.”

In any case, things at different scales (or things of different types) display remarkably different kinds of behaviour.

Take fleas, which can jump 100 times their own height. Take the bacteria that survive below freezing point. And on the moon, astronauts can float. However, these examples are still in a different logical space to the things which occur at the quantum scale. At the QM scale, some things are deemed to be "paradoxical" and even "logically contradictory". Nothing a flea or astronaut does can be described that way.

So when we're talking about the subatomic scale, things are almost bound to be fundamentally different. And when we get down to the scales tackled by string theory, then you'd hardly expect the kind of things you experience in your local pub.

Scales and Superposition

There's a big problem with this emphasis on the importance of scales when it comes to QM. This means that it will need to be said why it is that these scales (i.e., the micro and macro scales) should make such a profound difference to things.

Take superposition.

It's often argued that superposition is only applicable at the micro-scale. It's also argued that it “cancels out” at the macro-scale. More technically, it's said that when there are many superpositions at the quantum level, then when such superpositions are taken together, they produce a macro-state that is “definite”. That is, such a “probabilistic collapse” would result in a definite statistical process at the macro-level.

Nonetheless, this very-neat division also needs to be explained: it has been rejected.

Put simply, there are good reasons to expect superpositions at the macro-level too. Indeed there are “interpretations” (for example, Hugh Everett's) which state that superpositions do occur at the macro-level: it's just that we only experience one such state of each superposition.

We can also take Professor Brian Greene's general point about this far-too-neat micro/macro division:

“It's not as though the universe comes equipped with a line in the sand separating things that are properly described by quantum mechanics from things properly described by general relativity. Dividing the universe into two separate realms seems both artificial and clumsy.”

This position seems to back up a point Roger Penrose has made about how different levels of description (which, he argues, are brought about by the effect of “measurement” or observation) determine Greene's “line in the sand” between the quantum realm and the “classical” realm. In Penrose's own words:

“Since randomness comes in, quantum theory is called probabilistic. But randomness only comes in when you go from the quantum to the classical level. If you stay down at the quantum level, there's no randomness. It's only when you magnify something up, and you do what people call 'make a measurement'. This consists of taking a small-scale quantum effect and magnifying it out to a level where you can see it. It's only in that process of magnification that probabilities come in.”

Thus Penrose particularly notes how randomness is a consequence of observing quantum phenomena at the “classical level”. Nonetheless, this can still be deemed to be an epistemic problem, rather than an ontological one. That is, the probabilities (or randomness) arise not from the ontology of the quantum world, but from our epistemic access to it.

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Philosophical Questions About Philosophy

Philosophy can be defined or described in accordance with how it has been practiced in the Western tradition. Alternatively, the word 'philosophy' can be defined simply in terms of dictionary definitions or even according to its etymology.

The latter approach isn't very helpful. At least not from a metaphilosophical perspective. Similarly, saying that philosophy, for example, was simply the “study of all examples of knowledge” (at least for some ancient Greeks) isn't going to get us very far either. For a start, it simply begs the question: What is knowledge?

And neither does etymology help us. Namely, philo = love; phia = wisdom. One problem with taking the etymology of the word 'philosophy' seriously (as Martin Heidegger did) is that it seems to be the case that philosophy should be all about the self – or about the “lover of wisdom”. In other words, “how to live well”, “how to live the good life”, “how to be fulfilled and happy", etc. Clearly all this has only been a small aspect of Western philosophy; and, perhaps, a big aspect of various religions. It can even be classed as self-centered. (In certain strands of existentialism, it's mainly about living a sincere life – sincere to one's genuine self.)

Here questions abound. Why should philosophy be all about how to live one's life? Why should I live the good life rather than the bad life?

Some have explicitly said that “philosophy is committed to self-knowledge”. There's some truth in this in that Socrates famously said “know thyself”. Though was that really about the self or was it more about the self's relation to knowledge about the world/reality generally? In other words, if one knows oneself (therefore one also knows where one's going wrong – intellectually), then one will have a better philosophical grip on the world or reality.

We can also answer the question “What is philosophy?” by asking a similar questions about the sub-branches of philosophy. For example, we can ask: What is metaphysics? Here too we can become all etymological and say that the Greek word meta-physika literally means "what comes after physics". That's not very helpful either. (What's meant by “after” or “meta”?) So let's forget dictionary or etymological definitions and go with the following.

According to Wikipedia, metaphysics is “the study of existence, causation, God, logic, forms and other abstract objects”. So why isn't metaphysics the study of cups or cats? Can one study "existence" in the abstract? The point here is that we can't help but be metaphilosophical (or simply philosophical) in pursuit of an answer to the question “What is metaphysics?”.

What is Philosophy?

Every statement on what philosophy is - or what it should be - will elicit the question: Why do you believe that philosophy is x? The philosophical opponent can easily tell the original philosopher his own view on what he thinks philosophy is - or what he thinks it should be. If that occurs (which it often does), then what happens next? How is the what-is-philosophy question settled when rival views are on the market place? Surely the opposing positions on philosophy will be debated; though I doubt that the debate will be settled. And I also doubt that they can be settled by taking various metaphilosophical positions on the what-is-philosophy question.

Let's take a couple of examples.

One philosopher can say that philosophy is about “finding the fundamental nature of everything”. Why should a philosopher do that? And doesn't this stance on philosophy simply assume that there is a fundamental nature of things taken individually or a fundamental nature of “everything”? What if there are no such fundamentals? And, even if there are, why should a philosopher see them as important? (Though classing something as “fundamental” sort of gives the game away.)

Alternatively, a philosopher may say that philosophy is about (or should be about) intellectual unification. Specifically, unifying the insights from other disciplines; particularly science and philosophy itself. Another philosopher may say that such a position is impossible. He may also dd that science itself is a discipline which simply doesn't require philosophy. (Many scientists - particularly biologists - have said this.) Indeed such a philosopher may say that philosophy itself should incorporate science and its findings. Thus - from such a place - it would be very difficult to take a useful (or genuine) metaphilosophical position on science.

The Question: “What is Philosophy?”

Some of statements and arguments from philosophers on the nature of philosophy seem well-trodden. That is, they're simply of the traditional “What is philosophy?” variety.

For example, a philosopher can say that “philosophy doesn't rely on faith or revelation”. Instead it relies on “reason” or on (in 21st century pretentious terms) “cognitive criticality”. Nonetheless, such a position of faithlessness or lack of revelation doesn't automatically make philosophy a science either. Some philosophers might have said that there's no need to rely on observations or experiments in philosophy. A contemporary philosopher, on the other hand, may say that sometimes philosophers indulge in thought experiments (as the the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford, Timothy Williamson, does in his The Philosophy of Philosophy) which are very like the thought experiments engaged in by scientists (Williamson cites Galileo). Nonetheless, they're still not physical experiments as they're commonly understood in science. In addition, observations may be said to be prerequisites for just about any kind of philosophy. And technically it can also be said that observations (or at least “a posteriori reasoning”) can defeat seemingly a priori claims or statements.

Bertrand Russell on Philosophy

Bertrand Russell seems to have believed that when it comes to the definition of the word 'philosophy' (or to a description of the practice of philosophy), one can't help but be metaphilosophical. (Of course Russell never used the word 'metaphilosophy'; or even the words 'the philosophy of philosophy'.) In his The Wisdom of the West, Russell wrote:

“Definitions may be given in this way of any field where a body of definite knowledge exists. But philosophy cannot be so defined. Any definition is controversial and already embodies a philosophic attitude. The only way to find out what philosophy is, is to do philosophy."

Surely it can said that a definition of the word 'science' won't be equally as problematic as the word 'philosophy'. In addition, one will need to take a philosophical stance on what science is (if not on the word 'science' itself). Similarly, would all scientists agree on such a definition? Thus it can't be the case that simply because the word 'philosophy' is about philosophy that all definitions will be more problematic (or controversial) than definitions (or descriptions) of science.

So let's rewrite a bit of Russell's quote. Thus:

The only way to find out what science is, is to do science. (Or at least see how science is done.)

So it can be said that this controversy (or problem) is also the case with the definitions of many other words. That's unless one simply stipulates: This is how this dictionary defines the word x.

Despite saying all that, the analytic approach to philosophy, for example, certainly “embodies a philosophic attitude” and that attitude is “controversial”. The same can be said of deconstruction, phenomenology, structuralism, etc. - i.e., virtually any way of doing philosophy. Of course one would now need to distinguish positions within philosophy from positions on philosophy itself.

It's hard to grasp Russell's final sentence in the quote above. (Namely: “The only way to find out what philosophy is, is to do philosophy.") Surely there can't be such a case of (as it were) a priori philosophising. Firstly, a student of philosophy must read the books of certain philosophers and only then can he write about the things they too have written about. He may even adopt the prose style of those philosophers. Later he'll probably make a self-conscious attempt to write a certain kind of philosophy in a certain kind of way. In no way will he simply discover his own voice the first few times he writes philosophy. If he didn't do all that, then isn't it likely that he'd be doing stream-of-consciousness expressionism rather than philosophy? Unless, again, he's literally writing genuine philosophy from an a priori position; which, surely, is almost impossible. Sure, in order to “find out” if one can do philosophy one will need to “do philosophy”. And then one will discover which approach one likes. However, an original position can't come about simply as a result of doing philosophy from nowhere.

Finally, we must conclude that the question “What is philosophy?” is itself philosophical in nature. Or at least we need to indulge in philosophy in order to discover an answer to that question.

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