From: johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Report on Philosophies of Physicists
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:05:20 GMT
Reply-To: johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin

In article <1223@kepler1.rentec.com>, andrew@rentec.com (Andrew
Mullhaupt) writes:
|>In article <Aug.28.14.08.10.1992.14230@ruhets.rutgers.edu>
bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
|>>Barry Merriman writes:
|>	[No Mush Allowed! Deleted]
|>
|>>...
|>...
|>This is a good point. But there is also room for a little mush in the real
|>physics - but let me say carefully what I mean. The laws of physics are a
|>human construct, and a result of choices. There is no particular reason why
|>they should appear serious or silly or cruel or mushy other than the choices
|>of the authors.
|>
|>Since even before Aristotle, there has been an inexplicable
(Wignerian) success
|>in the use of mathematics as the expressive idiom of physics.

Agreed -- see below

|> But there is a
|>great blindness in the idea that mathematics is "objective", as
opposed to the
|>result of choices. It is quite possible to create many convincing
mathematical
|>pictures of the universe but some (e.g. Newtonian mechanics) have
subtle flaws
|>which may be quite difficult to expose. 

again, I agree (I also give three cheers for the particular example you use) 

|>In other words, I defy anyone to make sensible the claim that mathematics is
|>_not_ a soft, warm fuzzy, human frailty. Mathematics is a nearly universal
|> [argument about math is a human endeavor and therefore is subjext to
|>  human frailties, mixed with allusions to mathematics self-confessed
|>  incompleteness].
|> ...
|>Your only card to play is that it seems to us today be the only way to arrive
|>at a description of the world which satisfies certain requirements.
But then the
|>choice of requirements is again questionable. 
|> ...
|>It seems largely a question for the psychologists _why_ we prefer an
impersonal
|>physics, and one which will not have a physics answer until physics looks a
|>whole lot more fuzzy and warm than it does today.
|>

But here I take (personal) issue.

Before we hand it off to the psychologists to determine why we have a need
to explain the world, I would like to offer an alternative. That there is
something that does exist apart from us and that it does possess a
property that I will call "objective truth" and that this property is fairly
well approximated by our visceral feelings about this property. Now the
fact may be that we cannot prove that such is indeed that case, as you
have pointed out above (and including  the arguments to which you allude).
However, the fact that we cannot prove the existence of an objective reality
(or more to your point, even fully conceive what a consistent and complete
picture of reality would be) is not a proof of non-existence, in my mind.

So in a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is that perhaps it is indeed "out
there" even if we cannot ever see it clearly. Now this statement is a
large concession to your points above. I am saying that I feel that science
provides (at least in our time) a good description of a reality that actually
exists, but I am making a weak statement by acknowledging up front that
I reach this position from one of belief and choice. I am not beaten and
driven to this conclusion by inescapable logic --- so maybe I am being
just a little bit mushy, but as you point out, I think it is unavoidable.
Moreover, I am also unable to force the mystics about me into a similar 
position, because they can just make other choices in their world-views.
However, I deeply feel that the existence of an external reality and my
place in it assures me that I am indeed not a figment of their imagination
and I consequently defy them to ignore me and my physical reality when I
stomp on their toes. :> So I do indeed thain I am correct and that there
are indications (but not ironclad guarentees) that that is the case.

|>If you put on your hardest core positivist pretense ...

O.K., you've made me admit it, I'm really a warm and fuzzy positivist.
Geesh, and what an identity crisis that presents. It is a severe strike
against scientific machismo.


But at the bottom, I think all three (Andrew, Barry and myself) will agree 
that physics (or other sciences) cannot be used as normative guidelines for 
constructing value systems, since the sciences themselves are a reflection of 
explicit or implicit a-priori choices. It can be seen clearly in such abuses
as Eugenics and subtly in such notions as Cartesian Determinism. I think that
is is better to be strict about such a divorce of disciplines.

This is, to me, a big problem today in some of the softer sciences such as
economics and sociology where some (but not all) assume that the simple
application of "A scientific method" will lead to confident conclusions.
For instance, there is now a small, but growing, set of academic 
sociologists who seem to be making statements that societal inequities
between the sexes and higher order behavior can be mapped directly to
portions of the human genetic code. If the rhetoric I am hearing about
this is correct, then it really bothers me.

-john w. cobb
Newsgroups: sci.physics