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Science And Metaphysics
I read from, 'Sämtliche Werke und Briefe in Vier Bänden', a biography of the Berlin German woman poet; Mascha Kaléko, that in 1952 she sent one of her poems to Albert Einstein, the opening line was; "Time stands still. It is us who are passing away".
Einstein replied: "I think your poem is very beautiful and rich in meaning. It touches upon a deep metaphysical problem that has become relevant through physics".
What do you think he meant by that?
Einstein replied: "I think your poem is very beautiful and rich in meaning. It touches upon a deep metaphysical problem that has become relevant through physics".
What do you think he meant by that?
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Nope Khandro, no scientist anywhere at any time has ever believed that science is "a discipline somehow standing alone outside of the mind" - that statement is plumb ridiculous! You even attribute it only to AB scientists as if they differ from others outside AB for your own contentious attitude.
Science is a philosophy which holds that there is a method of learning about ourselves, others, our enviroment and origins of everything else eventually if mankind survives that long.
Like god, the scientific method is a creation of mankind's mind alone.
Science does not dabble with areas beyond its method e.g. how we fall in love.
I repeat again, we are all experimental scientists, even you!
Here and from now on I shall refer to the mind (I prefer that word anyway) but I still contend that the mind is simply a combination of conciousness and thought and material-based. That's for clarification not, please, a point for debate - we've trodden that path before.
SIQ.
Science is a philosophy which holds that there is a method of learning about ourselves, others, our enviroment and origins of everything else eventually if mankind survives that long.
Like god, the scientific method is a creation of mankind's mind alone.
Science does not dabble with areas beyond its method e.g. how we fall in love.
I repeat again, we are all experimental scientists, even you!
Here and from now on I shall refer to the mind (I prefer that word anyway) but I still contend that the mind is simply a combination of conciousness and thought and material-based. That's for clarification not, please, a point for debate - we've trodden that path before.
SIQ.
jomifl; You always seek deviousness (in me!) where none exists, the original question still awaits your attention; is time a human construct? Having read the exchange between the poet Kaléko and Einstein, I put a log on the fire and watched it burn, it changed from being the substance 'wood' to being the substance 'ash', and in consideration the above, I wondered what 'time' had to do with it. I could have measured 'something' with my watch, but what has that to do with the observed process?
Dear Khandro,
Regarding Einstein's reply to Mascha Kaleko do you not recognise it as a polite reply only?
He said that "it touches upon a deep metaphysical problem that has become relevant through physics"
I read this as saying the old metaphysical approach to knowledge has been superceeded by observation, hypothesis, testing-to destruction or confirmed (to the date of the confimation, at least) i.e. the scientific method but restricting himelf to physics because he was a physicist!
In other words he was politely saying that the metaphysical approach was dead in the water.
Kaleko's poem starts as a typical metaphysicist by making a statement of belief rather than a hypothesis and then expecting others to accept and build on it.
This is contradicted by Francis Bacon's earlier : "If a man will begin with certainties he shall end in doubts but if he begin with doubts he shall end in certainties"
I do not accept Bacon's unqualied use of certainties (as an end-point) but it is generally true.
The nonsense of metaphysical argument is that it begins with "self-evident truths" and demands others to start from there. For example the metaphysicist will, from his/her armchair, say something like "look around at the degree of organisation of the world, it must have been created by a great designer" and then rejects anything which does not start from that point - Darwin suffered from such nonsensical thinking re evolution theory.
SIQ.
Regarding Einstein's reply to Mascha Kaleko do you not recognise it as a polite reply only?
He said that "it touches upon a deep metaphysical problem that has become relevant through physics"
I read this as saying the old metaphysical approach to knowledge has been superceeded by observation, hypothesis, testing-to destruction or confirmed (to the date of the confimation, at least) i.e. the scientific method but restricting himelf to physics because he was a physicist!
In other words he was politely saying that the metaphysical approach was dead in the water.
Kaleko's poem starts as a typical metaphysicist by making a statement of belief rather than a hypothesis and then expecting others to accept and build on it.
This is contradicted by Francis Bacon's earlier : "If a man will begin with certainties he shall end in doubts but if he begin with doubts he shall end in certainties"
I do not accept Bacon's unqualied use of certainties (as an end-point) but it is generally true.
The nonsense of metaphysical argument is that it begins with "self-evident truths" and demands others to start from there. For example the metaphysicist will, from his/her armchair, say something like "look around at the degree of organisation of the world, it must have been created by a great designer" and then rejects anything which does not start from that point - Darwin suffered from such nonsensical thinking re evolution theory.
SIQ.
From wiki..
Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3]
What is ultimately there?
What is it like?
I think that is what particle phycsicists are working on and I think the answer will be mathematical rather than poetical since poetry almost certainly isn't up to the job.
I also think that Einstein was being mischievously polite.
Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3]
What is ultimately there?
What is it like?
I think that is what particle phycsicists are working on and I think the answer will be mathematical rather than poetical since poetry almost certainly isn't up to the job.
I also think that Einstein was being mischievously polite.
Sorry jomifl but none of us need quotes from wiki as it is open to us all and well used by most for various reasons. Wiki also admits to being susceptible to correction/expansion etc., but for me it is the best encyclopoedia ever.
Now! Referring to your quotes re metaphysics can you please tell me how ancient metaphysics differs from the modern scientific aims and the methods of achieving those aims? I believe they are radically different (see above) notably in their starting point.
None of your confusing joke/no-joke approach or just moving on to something else.
A straight answer please jom or I will reluctantly find it difficult to take you seriously.
What's the difference?
I await your reply and ty in advance.
SIQ.
Now! Referring to your quotes re metaphysics can you please tell me how ancient metaphysics differs from the modern scientific aims and the methods of achieving those aims? I believe they are radically different (see above) notably in their starting point.
None of your confusing joke/no-joke approach or just moving on to something else.
A straight answer please jom or I will reluctantly find it difficult to take you seriously.
What's the difference?
I await your reply and ty in advance.
SIQ.
SIQ, at risk of not being taken seriously, can you explain your question and why you asking it of me?
My quote from wiki was to clarify (or not) what we were attempting to discuss but that seems to have failed. I don't pretend to know anything about metaphysics and have never claimed to know anything about metaphysics. Both metaphysics and modern physics seem to be attempting to determine what 'stuff' is, however their methodology seems to differ. I can't add any more, threats or no threats.
My quote from wiki was to clarify (or not) what we were attempting to discuss but that seems to have failed. I don't pretend to know anything about metaphysics and have never claimed to know anything about metaphysics. Both metaphysics and modern physics seem to be attempting to determine what 'stuff' is, however their methodology seems to differ. I can't add any more, threats or no threats.
Jomifl; I think you are probably right about Einstein, though "Since change occurred before humans existed I think we can safely assume that time is not a human construct." I think is a bit unsafe metaphysically, however we dwell in a strange world and probably nothing 'stands still', I have just been looking at some figures and it would appear that though we may think we are 'still' we are in fact all moving at different speeds from one another, according to where we are located; if I stand on the north pole it would take me 24 hours to turn through 360 degrees, but if I stand on the equator I am travelling at 1,038 mph. and yet we are all also travelling at 67,000 mph orbiting the sun. and as time and space are inter-related it's all a rather confusing picture.
Khandro, there is more....
Never mind how steady the Earth seems beneath your feet; we're moving in more ways — and at far greater speeds — than we realize. In order to complete a single rotation in just 24 hours, our planet must turn at 1,000 m.p.h. (1,600 km/h) — and that's the least of it. At the same time the Earth is spinning so fast, it's revolving around the sun at a far brisker 67,000 m.p.h. (104,000 km/h), even as the spiral arm in which our little dust-fleck planet sits is orbiting the galactic center at 483,000 m.p.h. (792,000 km/h). And if that's not vertigo-inducing enough, the solar system is also bobbing along through the local interstellar medium at about 59,000 m.p.h. (95,000 km/h).
Read more: Solar System Not Quite the Speedster It Was Thought to Be - TIME http://
Never mind how steady the Earth seems beneath your feet; we're moving in more ways — and at far greater speeds — than we realize. In order to complete a single rotation in just 24 hours, our planet must turn at 1,000 m.p.h. (1,600 km/h) — and that's the least of it. At the same time the Earth is spinning so fast, it's revolving around the sun at a far brisker 67,000 m.p.h. (104,000 km/h), even as the spiral arm in which our little dust-fleck planet sits is orbiting the galactic center at 483,000 m.p.h. (792,000 km/h). And if that's not vertigo-inducing enough, the solar system is also bobbing along through the local interstellar medium at about 59,000 m.p.h. (95,000 km/h).
Read more: Solar System Not Quite the Speedster It Was Thought to Be - TIME http://
Dear jomifl,
Many thanks for your prompt and serious answer. The wiki-definition just seemed to be synonymous with science and hoped you could explain the difference. Frankly, how the two differ in methodology is beyond me.
Sorry about the "threat" of not taking you seriously. Of course you know from past experience that I hold you in high regard but occasionally you seem to swerve around a bit. Please see earlier re the value of Arm-chair philosophy when you appeared to take me to task but promised me a reply but warned I might have to wait till hell freezes over.
I don't think many others, if any, care about my views but I do not ask or demand them to - this is just a talking-shop.
No hard feelings I hope,
Ty for your honest serious answer and carry on with your debate with Khandro which is way beyond me.
Kind regards,
SIQ.
Many thanks for your prompt and serious answer. The wiki-definition just seemed to be synonymous with science and hoped you could explain the difference. Frankly, how the two differ in methodology is beyond me.
Sorry about the "threat" of not taking you seriously. Of course you know from past experience that I hold you in high regard but occasionally you seem to swerve around a bit. Please see earlier re the value of Arm-chair philosophy when you appeared to take me to task but promised me a reply but warned I might have to wait till hell freezes over.
I don't think many others, if any, care about my views but I do not ask or demand them to - this is just a talking-shop.
No hard feelings I hope,
Ty for your honest serious answer and carry on with your debate with Khandro which is way beyond me.
Kind regards,
SIQ.
SIQ, I have just found your post of 14:14 yesterday, I don't know how I missed it earlier, probably not concentrating hard enough. I agree with what you said and support your view that 'pure' philosophy has often derailed 'natural' philosophy until the natural philosophers managed to see past it's 'self evident' assumptions. I think one of the big problems with pure philosophy is that philosophers rely only on deductions based on their senses. They do not realise are unreliable because they don't do any practical experiments, to test either their senses or their conclusions. One small false and untested assumption can lead to a chain of erroneous deductions that can end in a result like belief in god and the development of religion which in turn adds dogma to ignorance.
SIQ; //The nonsense of metaphysical argument is that it begins with "self-evident truths" and demands others to start from there.//
This can also be applicable to some 'scientific truths' such as the belief that the evolutionary drive is always essentially self-centred, as seen at its most extreme in Dawkins's 'selfish gene' theory.
This can also be applicable to some 'scientific truths' such as the belief that the evolutionary drive is always essentially self-centred, as seen at its most extreme in Dawkins's 'selfish gene' theory.
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