Dear Rafael & Dear colleagues,
Allow me to try to advocate reductionism. I know how unpopular it might be.
Reductionism is an ideal of a physicist (and yes please, notice the
important distinction made by Steven Weinberg between petty reductionism
and grand reductionism!)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=1785
The
ideal of grand reductionism is to find the most general underlying
physical principles for the physical reality. What else would we expect
of a physicist?
I also believe that no reasonable physicist today believes that atoms
can account /directly/ for all the diversity of this complex world, not
even of the physical phenomena alone. But they make an enormous amount
of sense at certain levels of abstraction.
Lets consider "panatomism" - the claim that mater is made of atoms.
Of course theory of atomic structure of matter can not help us to solve
ethical problems of humanity. But it is very good to know that matter
consists of atoms. There is a range of phenomena that atomic theory can
account for and its very generality is an enormously powerful feature.
I agree that in questions metaphysical, such as in the choice of the
general framework of realism or anti-realism (Ontological?
Epistemological? Is anti-realism synonymous with Platonism or with
constructivism? - It is not always clear.)
In any event the choice of metaphysical framework is nothing that you
have scientific proof for, but some research communities (for good
reasons I would say) prefer ontological realism (physical sciences are
typical example), some communities tend towards Platonism
(mathematicians are sometimes inclined towards this) - and I guess that
what makes certain framework attractive is its intuitive appeal to the
research community.
Are scientist more qualified to impose their own frameworks (based on
their own intuitions) within their research fields? I think they are.
The same way we trust medical doctors when they make judgments of our
complicated health state, the same way we may trust physicist's
ontological realism. If they don't have the right intuition, who has?
Of course, it is a question of intuition, not of knowledge, and it is
worth to make that distinction - I agree.
All the best,
Gordana
http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/
Rafael Capurro wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> declarations of faith are declaration of faith.
> Nothing more, nothing less. They are self-contradictory in case they are
> supposed to be the truth about reality. In that case they are no
> recongnized
> as declarations of faith. The faith of a scientist that acknowledges
> to be a
> (materialist) realist is no less a faith than the one that believes
> reality
> is "just" numbers (or bits or...). The poverty of reductionisms
is
> that they
> give the impression that in the long run we just need to make, as in this
> case, good physics and everything will be explained. This is not very
> realistic, in fact.
> kind regards
> Rafael
>
>
> Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
> Hochschule der Medien (HdM) - Stuttgart Media University, Wolframstr.
> 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
> Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
> E-Mail: rafael@capurro.de; capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de
> Voice Stuttgart: + 49 - 711 - 25706 - 182
> Voice private: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
> Homepage: www.capurro.de
> Homepage ICIE: http://icie.zkm.de
> Homepage IRIE: http://www.i-r-i-e.net
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Devereux"
> <dbar_x@cybermesa.com>
> To: "FIS Mailing List" <fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2006 8:58 PM
> Subject: [Fis] Realism
>
>
>> Dear Arne and colleagues,
>>
>> There is an essential reason, I believe, why nearly all physical
>> scientists are realists. There would be no physical science without
>> realism. Perhaps the most fundamental assumption upon which physical
>> science depends is the conviction that all of us are imbedded in the
>> same, objective physical reality.
>> I understand that one cannot prove this deductively, but the
>> inductive evidence seems, to most of us, to be overwhelming. From the
>> very beginning of physical science, through to the present, all of
>> our scientific accomplishments rely on a description of nature that
>> is observer independent. We�ve incorporated Gallilean relativity into
>> the fundament of classical physics. All the classical equations of
>> motion are observer independent. Would there be anything at all left
>> of the physical sciences if we discarded classical mechanics?
>> It is exactly the consistency and usefulness of the physical sciences
>> that argues, irrefutably, I believe, for the validity of the axioms
>> upon which physical science depends. Statistical mechanics,
>> hydrodynamics, electrodynamics, and others cannot stand without
>> classical mechanics. So, we physical scientists must adamantly refuse
>> to concede that because realism is not deductively derivable, it
>> might not be correct.
>> I note that Einstein built both his theories of relativity, special
>> and general, on the postulate of observer independence. Should we
>> throw out those extraordinarily valuable and consistent theories
>> because we wish to debate the lack of a deductive argument for
>> realism? I�m sure that quantum mechanics (which also employs
>> classical mechanics via the Hamiltonian formalism, Poisson Brackets,
>> etc.) does not imply observer dependence, though some eminent
>> physicists, like Wigner and von Neumann, have read it that way.
>> The accepted understanding of the wavefunction, Psi, was given in the
>> early 1920s by Max Born. As you know, If we wish to calculate the
>> probability for each possible measured value of the system we take
>> the projection of the eigenfunction for that value on the wave
>> function, then calculate the inner product with Psi*. That we are
>> predicting a probability for a measured outcome does not, at all,
>> imply that human consciousness plays any part in the measurement. In
>> fact, as Hawking, Penrose, and so many other physicists have so
>> carefully calculated, there is every reason to believe that quantum
>> mechanics described the cosmos billions of years before any humans
>> and their conscious minds existed.
>> In general, measurement is information exchange between two separate
>> physical objects. Neither object need be human, of course. The
>> canonical model for a measurement that transfers one bit of
>> information is the bi-level atom located along one arm of the
>> Stern-Gerlach apparatus described in 1978 (Physics Reports) by
>> Scully, Shea, and McCullen. When a spinning molecule collides with
>> the bi-level atom, a single quantum of energy is transferred to the
>> atom. This is a real, physical, energetic signal that carries
>> information about the change in energy of the molecule to the atom.
>> Since energy is always conserved, the energy jump in the detector
>> atom always records the exact information about the change in energy
>> of the molecule.
>> One may, of course, still ask how human beings are able to observe
>> properties of our shared physical reality. I�m convinced that at the
>> most basic level of human percepta, more fundamental than learned, or
>> perhaps innate, shapes and objects, we all look at the same pattern
>> of minute color specks and see (and describe) the same specks. The
>> key here is to look only for each speck of color, as one might do to
>> a pointillist painting by Signac, say, ignoring any impression of
>> physical objects that the artist may have portrayed. If necessary,
>> scientists could employ such a basic technique to insure that the
>> pattern which carries information about results of a measurement
>> (like the face of an ammeter, for instance) really is observer
>> independent. I�m convinced that there are no cultually-inculcated
>> tendencies at this most basic level.
>> Cordially,
>>
>> Michael Devereux
>>
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Received on Mon Jun 26 14:22:45 2006
