The last few years have seen a number of prominent scientists step up to microphones and belittle the value of philosophy. Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, and Neil deGrasse Tyson are well-known examples. To redress the balance a bit, philosopher of physics Wayne Myrvold has asked some physicists to explain why talking to philosophers has actually been useful to them. I was one of the respondents, and you can read my entry at the Rotman Institute blog. I was going to cross-post my response here, but instead let me try to say the same thing in different words.
Roughly speaking, physicists tend to have three different kinds of lazy critiques of philosophy: one that is totally dopey, one that is frustratingly annoying, and one that is deeply depressing.
- “Philosophy tries to understand the universe by pure thought, without collecting experimental data.”
This is the totally dopey criticism. Yes, most philosophers do not actually go out and collect data (although there are exceptions). But it makes no sense to jump right from there to the accusation that philosophy completely ignores the empirical information we have collected about the world. When science (or common-sense observation) reveals something interesting and important about the world, philosophers obviously take it into account. (Aside: of course there are bad philosophers, who do all sorts of stupid things, just as there are bad practitioners of every field. Let’s concentrate on the good ones, of whom there are plenty.)
Philosophers do, indeed, tend to think a lot. This is not a bad thing. All of scientific practice involves some degree of “pure thought.” Philosophers are, by their nature, more interested in foundational questions where the latest wrinkle in the data is of less importance than it would be to a model-building phenomenologist. But at its best, the practice of philosophy of physics is continuous with the practice of physics itself. Many of the best philosophers of physics were trained as physicists, and eventually realized that the problems they cared most about weren’t valued in physics departments, so they switched to philosophy. But those problems — the basic nature of the ultimate architecture of reality at its deepest levels — are just physics problems, really. And some amount of rigorous thought is necessary to make any progress on them. Shutting up and calculating isn’t good enough.
- “Philosophy is completely useless to the everyday job of a working physicist.”
Now we have the frustratingly annoying critique. Because: duh. If your criterion for “being interesting or important” comes down to “is useful to me in my work,” you’re going to be leading a fairly intellectually impoverished existence. Nobody denies that the vast majority of physics gets by perfectly well without any input from philosophy at all. (“We need to calculate this loop integral! Quick, get me a philosopher!”) But it also gets by without input from biology, and history, and literature. Philosophy is interesting because of its intrinsic interest, not because it’s a handmaiden to physics. I think that philosophers themselves sometimes get too defensive about this, trying to come up with reasons why philosophy is useful to physics. Who cares?
Nevertheless, there are some physics questions where philosophical input actually is useful. Foundational questions, such as the quantum measurement problem, the arrow of time, the nature of probability, and so on. Again, a huge majority of working physicists don’t ever worry about these problems. But some of us do! And frankly, if more physicists who wrote in these areas would make the effort to talk to philosophers, they would save themselves from making a lot of simple mistakes.
- “Philosophers care too much about deep-sounding meta-questions, instead of sticking to what can be observed and calculated.”
Finally, the deeply depressing critique. Here we see the unfortunate consequence of a lifetime spent in an academic/educational system that is focused on taking ambitious dreams and crushing them into easily-quantified units of productive work. The idea is apparently that developing a new technique for calculating a certain wave function is an honorable enterprise worthy of support, while trying to understand what wave functions actually are and how they capture reality is a boring waste of time. I suspect that a substantial majority of physicists who use quantum mechanics in their everyday work are uninterested in or downright hostile to attempts to understand the quantum measurement problem.
This makes me sad. I don’t know about all those other folks, but personally I did not fall in love with science as a kid because I was swept up in the romance of finding slightly more efficient calculational techniques. Don’t get me wrong — finding more efficient calculational techniques is crucially important, and I cheerfully do it myself when I think I might have something to contribute. But it’s not the point — it’s a step along the way to the point.
The point, I take it, is to understand how nature works. Part of that is knowing how to do calculations, but another part is asking deep questions about what it all means. That’s what got me interested in science, anyway. And part of that task is understanding the foundational aspects of our physical picture of the world, digging deeply into issues that go well beyond merely being able to calculate things. It’s a shame that so many physicists don’t see how good philosophy of science can contribute to this quest. The universe is much bigger than we are and stranger than we tend to imagine, and I for one welcome all the help we can get in trying to figure it out.
Physics is a branch/application of philosophy: physics = { ontology ∩ mathematics ∩ empiricism } .
The irony I suppose is that the underlying principles of both are powered from the same mainspring.
I’ve studied, at undergrad and postgrad level, to varying degrees, physics, computer science, history and philosophy. The underlying motivation for them all is of course the search for (but not necessarily the absolute acquisition of) truth. But not just this – truth by skepticism, by asking questions that can and will conflict with societies expectation and the established truths of authority and conventional wisdom. Good philosophers, whose use of the deductive method to take apart the concepts that stem from such sources and subject them to doubt have an important social role to play in ensuring that many fundamental assumptions are not taken for granted, or not left unquestioned. Just as the historian who deconstructs the myths of the past that we live for has the important task of disabusing us from such myth-making (and look at human history can show you their power and capacity for misery). And of course the physcist, whilst having an important technical role in the furthering of the understanding of the laws of nature for technological purposes, also has a philosophic role as chief skeptic, calling into question our assumptions and understandings of nature and the use of natural processes – which now include the beginning of the universe and causality – for the purpose of superstition.
It’s no coincidence that the two great moments of western intellectual history, mythologised as they have been, are Socrates death for the ‘corruption of youth’ – for asking questions that conventional society did not wish to be answered – and Galileo’s fate at the hand of the inquisition. Both were acts of courage for the defense of that great intellectual goal of skepticism and hard-won truth.
Part of the problem I guess is two-fold – the nature of philosophy prior to the 20th century, many of whose adherents did, given the state of science at the time, make statements that now seem arrogantly presumptuous. I’m thinking of Kant’s embedding of Euclidean geometry into the intuition of space (something Einstein picked up on). And it’s true that these invalidate many of the details, if not necessarily the method or the whole argument. Secondly the nonsense that often gets spewed out by continental philosophers with their echo-chamber references and purposefully obscure arguments with little semantic meaning when deconstructed. The Sokal affair details this. But it is kind of unfortunate that this stereotype has allowed the overshadowing of the great conceptual clarification undertaken by philosophers in the form of modern analytical philosophy and especially the great skepticism towards the slipperiness of words themselves as expressed by Wittgenstein. It strikes me in this sense, done properly, philosophy should no more be a “rival” to physics than mathematics. Both aim at a clarification and the drawing out of the consequence of some raw material – maths, the logical structures and operations of quantative reasoning – philosophy of concepts and logical ideas when put against the flames of logic.
There are so many ludicrous posts in this discussion it has been genuinely entertaining to read. I just cannot understand what all the fuss is about. Philosophy is an incredibly broad subject – for starters, there are four classical areas of inquiry. But the idea that science is somehow going to do without conceptual clarification and the rigour of argumentation is just silly. This is what good philosophy does. Before I take my leave just a question for Benny Goren: how do you make sense of experience?
Clue – it is through the production of categories/concepts that the multiplicity of sense-perceptions are given consistency and objectivity. Philosophy is very interested in this process and the adequacy of the concepts we employ to make determinations about what is. It is for this reason that philosophy still has a small role to play in the unfolding of scientific knowledge.
If one ignore philosophy and theory, how does one decide, say, when there is enough evidence to consider something a scientific theory? I’ve heard physicists talk about why they dislike the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum physics, and it usually comes down to subjective reasons. Is it bad if we have to assume pilot waves but OK if we have to assume a stochastic universe? What if we have to make up extra dimensions for a theory to work? When individuals assume the Copenhagen interpretation, why are they doing so? Is there even a reason to choose an interpretation when we don’t know if it’s correct? And when this criticism is coming from public physicists who are often guilty of perpetuating “lies to children”, how about giving some thought to what is and isn’t acceptable to tell the public, and what the ultimate goal of a pop physicist should be?
Everyone makes certain philosophical choices. However, some ignore what choices they have made and aren’t able to understand the bedrock behind what they believe (from what I’ve seen, physicists have a similar difficulty with math).
Top rung, celebrity scientists are quite arrogant. They live in an intellectual vacuum, thinking that the intellectual world revolves around them. They are loathe to acknowledge any debt to early scientists who were motivated in their quest by the Christian religious idea that there was a pattern or design in the universe that could be discovered and understood. Why should anyone expect these same scientists to acknowledge any debt to the people that have supplied many of the tools of language and reason scientists use everyday? Only they have discovered any truth worth knowing. They alone are the high priest purveyors of the great holy, scientific mysteries.
Both Philosophers and Physicists have good intentions and neither can prove the existence of Creator with their views, knowledge, evidence, data or scientific evidence. Many intellectual physicists like Einstein are deep down philosophers. Thinking starts both their processes, agreements and disagreements. Many eminent scientists and mathematicians will be disproved shortly with their views like Hawking that there is no need for God. Einstein was right to state that if their is a watch implies their is a watchmaker. Similarly, the greatest thinkers or physicists do feel there has to be a Creator as everything is so finely balanced in our Universe.
I have spent 14 yrs in search of Creator of this Universe from a different approach. I am coming out with new scientific evidence with a saying that where human science ends Original God’s science begins. I have discovered Quantum Universe or 5th Dimension( remember what Kaluza and Klein had said about this with respect to Einstein’s calculations), Quantum Code in which are present all the subatomic particles and energy in our Universe and Quantum Light which is the key to get inside Quantum Code. I am coming out with new evidence after meeting one Creator of this Universe ( God has not made any religions of the world and is not found in any religions of the world) after 14 yrs search. I will sign, seal and deliver the arguments for both sides with my new and original knowledge with finest details which neither physicists or philosophers are aware of. I have seen how 2 types of consciousness forms, seen how 3-D vision forms inside human brain (I have seen live visions of all this and more) and have discovered 1st tier of life which is completely hidden and starts from the 5th dimension, Come to my scientific lecture (free of charge), as I will share new evidence unknown on Earth as I have been shown finest smallest subatomic particles and how Planets are formed and 5 types of energies. My new MC- Theory solves the entire dichotomy with the Mystery of Origin of Life with a complete and practical united theory by Dr.M.Chauhan UCH,UCL London and India. Creator’s name is completely covered up in a veil of conspiracy on Earth with mega corruption from higher spheres of life which I am also revealing. 99.99% of people will simply not reach their with monumental problems I had encountered in my life. I had to face problems as there are many powerful invisible energies who do not want the name of Creator to emerge on Earth. All the false religions and devotion on Earth will disappear once the truth emerges.
Looks like the crackpots have finally descended onto this thread 😉
This is a very nice article! Precisely what I have been debating on. Why do people think things have to be black and white, this or that. Without Philosophical postulation we cannot let free our imagination out of human experience. We’re only going to find out and explain the origin of the universe, life, God, etc if we think outside the human perceptional spectrum, we can only do that with creative critical thought!
Re: Chatham
Interesting question — The standard to consider something a scientific theory is that the theory (or model or whatever) in combination with past observations predicts future observations.
The theories that pass that “test” can be ranked on how accurate they predict observations, how useful they are, complexity, and how general they are.
For example one can argue that GR mechanics is more accurate and more general than Newtonian mechanics, but most practitioners would argue that Newtonian mechanics is less complex and more useful for everyday predictions than GR.
Both the GR and NM theories are examples of great scientific theories and they both pass the test. But there is a twist GR has a very interesting feature from a philosophical perspective it opens up for predictions of of the reality that cannot be directly observed, at least not for the same observer, e.g. events inside the event horizon of a black hole, parallel realities, closed time-like loops (what is the distinction between past and a future observations?).
Above standard definition of science does not specify which observer, for an observer inside the event horizon GR may be completely scientific, observers outside the event horizon can either subscribe to realism, the reality is independent of our observations, or argue that we cannot make observations the predictions of any reality beyond the observable part of the reality, and hence such predictions are useless and is the analog of predicting what is north of the north pole.
That part of GR may, or may not, be considered a scientific theory depending on how strict you are on the observation part. For the applications in which observations for the same observer is not possible it probably does not make a difference if the theory is called “scientific” or not, it is still the same theory. If the theory is valid in the observable domain it can be logically extrapolated, or continued, to the non-observable domain, not scientifically, but logically. To me this is mostly semantics if you want to call a theory that make prediction in the non-observable domain scientific, philosophical, realistic, …
And now over to the many worlds formulations of QM. The theory makes perfectly good predictions of future observations and there could be the end of the story. MWF allows for (or assumes) parallel realities to extrapolate to the non-observable domains. This lead to similar questions such if the extrapolation to parallel realities is scientific, or which formulations carries unnecessary assumptions, which formulation is more or less complex, which is more or less useful, etc.
Personally I think it unlikely that we will have observations that will reject the formulation of QM and philosophizing about it will likely not yield any useful findings either.
Philosophy may be able to put together an interesting fiction, i. e. a story based upon rational arguments, assumptions, and the relative beauty of your favorite QM formulation or how to fill the non-observable holes in the model.
The subject we are discussing in this forum is about if there is anything useful for scientists in the fiction of philosophers. Not so much if the philosophical fiction is useful at all, which is a philosophical question, which answer might be found in science.
Houet provided the marvelously provocative, yet ambiguous quote from Henry Miller:
“You see, to me it seems as though the artists, the scientists, the philosophers were grinding lenses. It’s all a grand preparation for something that never comes off. Someday the lens is going to be perfect and then we’re all going to see clearly, see what a staggering, wonderful, beautiful world it is…”
It is in some ways appropriate that artists, scientists and philosophers are lumped together by this metaphor. Yet for the lens to become “perfect” some nearly miraculous convergence of modes of perception would seemingly have to occur. Does this “never come off?” Or is “the lens going to be perfect and then we’re all going to see clearly?”
If it is ever to come off, then those spots that have been missed in the grinding process will have to be taken care of. For example, collisionless radial falling due to gravity, which physicists only pretend to see, because they have no empirical evidence from near the center of the source mass. Galileo, who first put the telescope to such good use, also suggested probing gravitational motion to the centers of massive bodies. In this physical regime, physicists are sadly satisfied with a big blur.
To bring that zone into focus, what we need is a Small Low-Energy Non-Collider.
http://www.gravitationlab.com/
“Philosophers do, indeed, tend to think a lot.”
And the rest of us don’t.
1- “Many of the best philosophers of physics were trained as physicists, and eventually realized that the problems they cared most about weren’t valued in physics departments …But those problems… are just physics problems, really.”
2-“Philosophy is interesting because of its intrinsic interest”
Physics problems or of intrinsic interest? And “intrinsic” to what?
Are physics problems also “intrinsically” interesting? If curiosity is intrinsic to humanity is poetry like physics?
“The point, I take it, is to understand how nature works. Part of that is knowing how to do calculations, but another part is asking deep questions about what it all means.”
That’s deep, but as Timothy Williamson says, “impatience with the long haul of technical reflection is a form of shallowness, often thinly disguised by histrionic advocacy of depth.”
My earlier questions about “meaning” concerned grammar. What do you mean?
On to other questions:
The Trolley Problem is foundational to military logic: the men who order others to their deaths and the men they send to die are not allowed to fraternize; utilitarianism and friendship are incompatible, so utilitarianism and democracy are incompatible. Why do cops and mobsters both hate snitches? Because you need to trust the man who’s got your back more than you need to trust anyone else. Psychologists and anthropologists understand these things, and if philosophers were as interested in the world as they are in their formal games they’d have noticed. But philosophers are like economists who don’t have to worry about ever being embarrassed by a crash. And their recent invention “experimental philosophy” is poaching by people desperate for relevance. It’s experimental psychology for logicians.
The problem with the ideal of technical specialization is that it models curiosity only in terms of expertise. Philosophical thinking in the broader sense is not technical, because it’s second-order curiosity. A mathematician might ask himself why he loves numbers, but except for the most hard-core determinists, it’s not a questions mathematics can answer. The geek model of intellectualism as simple enthusiasm is intellectualism without without irony. That’s why the post above and most of the responses are equally useless.
Philosophical thinking is necessary for adults, because the ability to laugh at yourself is necessary. There’s no such thing as value-free science. The world is meaningless and void, but we manage to fill it up, regardless, that the post above is as confused as it is is proof enough of that. Too many assumptions and not enough questions.
Thank you Prof. Carroll! Well, and bravely, said. I would just add that is that it’s truly astonishing how utterly and appallingly ignorant philosophy-bashing physicists can be about philosophy, especially those you’ve listed. They’re bashing a non-existent phlogiston-like entity they call “philosophy” which they seem to view — absurdly — as akin to theology — an embarrassing and cringing schoolboy error. In short, they have no idea what philosophy even is but are prepared to mouth off about it in a dangerously and recklessly ignorant way. If a physics-bashing philosopher were as ignorant about contemporary physics as philosophy-bashing physicists are about philosophy, he would think contemporary physics was about Aristotelian entelechies and Ptolemaic epicycles. But of course philosophers are not ignorant of physics. On the contrary, a central sub-field in philosophy of science is the philosophy of physics. And as you rightly point out, most, perhaps even all, philosophers of physics are trained physicists, with at least a BSc in physics and in many cases a PhD in physics. Some even publish in physics journals. How many physicists have any training in philosophy? Although it seems, remarkably, unknown to the philosophy-bashing physicists, this has been the case for a century. Almost all of the logical empiricists (who founded the sub-discipline of philosophy of science) — Carnap, Hempel, Reichenbach, Schlick, Feigl, et. al. — held PhDs in physics and many were friends with Einstein (Schlick trained under Planck). And what is arguably the single greatest influence on contemporary analytical philosophy? Logical empiricism. So this whole recent business is particularly galling for philosophers because philosophers do know what physics is and try their best to keep abreast of the latest developments in physics. Indeed, it’s safe to say that the orthodoxy in Anglophone analytical philosophy is to hold physics in extremely high regard, probably higher regard even than mathematics (and logic, for that matter). And they teach their students to have a high regard for physics. The high esteem in which physics is held by mainstream philosophy is obvious to any sophomore philosophy student and is further apparent by the increasingly vocal minority of philosophers (and publications) who accuse mainstream philosophy of an unhealthy physics worship. For an example (although admittedly an extreme one) of the virtually ubiquitous pro-physics attitude in philosophy see the philosopher Alex Rosenberg’s The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. In short, what we have is a philosophy-ignorant deriding of philosophy by (some) physicists and a physics-knowledgeable admiration of physics by (almost all) philosophers. Given this, I think many philosophers feel deeply betrayed by (prominent parts of) the physics community. Philosophers reading your post will take a lot of comfort in it, I think. I certainly I did. So thanks again!
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Dear Philosophers,
If possible, please point me to a work of philosophy that, 1) does not overstate the obvious (usually in tortured language that only the philosophical priesthood has patience for), and 2) sheds light on some area of science where previous to the work dark and fog prevailed. In other words, the discovery of some kind of truth or technique that moves the ball down field.
I’m with Hawking, Krauss, Tyson, and Feynman. As an outsider, I see philosophy as more subjective semantics than science (w/vanishingly small S/N ratio). And as it becomes more incestuous it also becomes less relevant.
I disagree with this article. I made some points here: http://pulsarnebula.weebly.com/reviews-blog/in-defense-of-tyson-hawking-and-krauss
I know my blog isn’t too well written, so I’ll take whatever critiques readers have to offer.
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Dear paul kramarchyk,
I have offered a list of books written by philosophers that are well known and address science issues. Look a little ways up this list under “couchloc” at (June 25, 6:08). Some of these are co-authored by scientists and none are fairly characterized as semantics.
“Personally I think it unlikely that we will have observations that will reject the formulation of QM and philosophizing about it will likely not yield any useful findings either.”
I think one of the big misperception here is that many people think that in order for philosophy to be useful to science, it has to produce the same results as science. Of course part of the problems is that some philosophers buy into this as well (see junk like the Chinese box and the hard problem of consciousness).
Philosophy is for aspects where empiricism is lacking. What subjective decisions are you making, why are you making them, and what’s the greater framework that will give you some consistency?
And it makes a difference. Which assumptions people use when making theories, which theories get support, when and how one should develop a particular hypothesis. What’s funny about individuals quoting Feynman is that one of his books I’m reading now, which is supposed to be a survey of physics, often goes off into philosophy and theory (what are we actually talking about when we say that Newtonian mechanics are right or wrong, or how should we react to new observations that are inconsistent with our past observations).
You actually see a lot of philosophy come into play when physicists at the frontiers argue. “Why should X be accepted and not Y, if they both come to the same conclusions?” “If X theory is consistent with all observations, why doesn’t everyone accept it?” “Is it reasonable to create Y unsubstantiated assumption just to make your theory work?” If you say “screw philosophy and theory, I’ll just go with my gut” then you dramatically increase the risk that your work is going to reflect a personal whim whether than a well-defined framework. It’s better to let people know what criteria you have then pretending them away.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that someone who is trained in philosophy with little to no scientific background is the best person to approach these issues. They may be good at setting a general framework, but in my experience the best philosophy/theory comes from people in the field.
It seems to me there are only a few philosophers who take the empirical world as their starting point, the Churchlands, Dan Dennett come to mind. Often the criticism from Krauss and others is that philosophy, like theology is often so speculative and removed from the empirical world that, what has it contributed? Not much. And to do science no matter how folks like Pigliucci or Van Frassen and company define it is wholly unreliant on whatever characterizations they come up with. I think thats where Krauss and others are coming from. Studying Plato and Liebniz’s monads for example are good historical exercises, but beyond that, not much use in discovering how the world works. Much of philosophy is harmless distraction, while theology just gets in the way in its delusional claims. Check out the Stockholm debate with philosophers/journalists with Krauss for a bit of the conflict.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL84Yg2dNsg
The journalist comes off most clearheaded it appears. I think Krauss is in good company with Weinberg, Feynman and Bohr.
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Someone wrote:
«Richard Feynman (or maybe Steven Weinberg):
Philosophy is as useful to physicists as ornithology is to birds.»
The knowledge gained in ornithology
maybe useful for birds
-even saving some of them from extinction-
without birds even knowing…
Could that be the case with philosophy for physicists?
Someone else wrote:
Philosophy is great at asking interesting questions but lousy at answering them.
Raising good
and interesting questions
is a fundamental part of the job
and perhaps the best place to begin
to open a trail towards
eventual fine answers,
that surely will
open new questions,
hopefully more fundamental
and fruitful as the best ones
that preceded them.
I just LOL at all the pro-physicists that dismiss philosophy by unknowingly making philosophical wuestions including whether or not is the meaning of a wavefunction physical or philosophical, or “what can philosophy contribute to science/the world?” which is obviously a topic of philosophical and not physical content. All this trying to dismiss philosophy as useless while trying to appeal to philosophy themselves to do it (and not physics!). Fail.
PS: Try to criticize philosop´hy using physics equations, then we talk. Noobs.
Re, William A. Zingrone :
“Check out the Stockholm debate with philosophers/journalists with Krauss for a bit of the conflict. The journalist comes off most clearheaded it appears. I think Krauss is in good company with Weinberg, Feynman and Bohr.”
What is just as interesting is Dr. Krauss’s Stockholm lecture preceding the debate; two separate videos. I have already brought attention to the 2013 Isaac Asimov debate with Dr. Krauss and Dr. DeGrasse Tyson (see comment thread: T.E.Oakley, June 24, 2014 12:40 PM and my response to Alan J., posted June 25, 2014, 10:02 AM).
After reviewing the Stockholm material, here are my additional observations on Dr. Krauss’s “nothing” conjecture:
1). There is a MAJOR problem with “physical law” in his scenario; Dr. Krauss declares in the Tam Hunt interview (Santa Barbara Independent, August 1, 2013):
“…the transition [from ‘absolute nothing’ to the early universe i.e., t= ‘a millionth, of a billionth, of a billionth, of a billionth of a second old’] is mediated by some physical laws. Where did they come from? That is a good question, and one of the more modern answers is that even the laws themselves may be random, coming into existence along with the universes that may arise….” Dr. Krauss’s conception/ definition of physical law is never made clear, to my knowledge, in any of his writing; perhaps this is an issue he SHOULD address (see: my blog thread, T.E. Oakley, June 25, 2014 10:02 AM). All physical laws are PHYSICAL and said laws don’t exist in his conception/ definition of “nothing”
as he explicitly states in his Stockholm lecture: “no laws, no space, no time, no particles, no radiation…to me that’s nothing” (Dr. Krauss, Stockholm Lecture, YouTube 1:05:00). To assume, as he does in his “Universe From Nothing” book, that “…certain properties, like quantum mechanics, permeate all possibilities,” including, NECESSARILY FOR THE VALIDITY OF HIS ARGUMENT, the domain of “nothing,” is to make a confused a priori assertion lacking any empirical foundation; how do physical laws necessarily exist in a domain he defines as not having them! In Dr. Krauss’s view, if we can’t empirically test an idea “we call it impotent.” (Stockholm Debate, 28:20).
2). The simple “bookkeeping problem” of kinetic and gravitational energy fails ultimately to prove the point of cosmic genesis from the above definition of “nothing.” Think of a billiard table; think of an equal number of positive (kinetic energy) and negative (gravitational energy) billiard balls; they sit on the table but they don’t annihilate each other, energetically speaking; the energy conservation law still applies; we have NEVER observed ENERGY DESTRUCTION, only MUTATION into a different form. Energy is STILL conserved. Are we supposed to believe in quantum scale, zero energy “universes” like “zero energy” virtual particles? The former supposedly emerging “quantum mechanically” from the above defined “nothing” as a quantum gravity “variable” (Stockholm Lecture, 53:00), a variable in a quantum theory that has not yet been formulated! Dr. Krauss states EXPLICITLY his defined “nothing” cannot function quantum mechanically because there are NO QUANTUM LAWS in his concept of “nothing.” Note also that the latter, “virtual particles,” always emerge from an ENERGETIC FIELD; one can’t empirically observe something i.e. “absolute nothing,” that is DEFINED as non empirical!
What if just one or two of the “positive” billiard balls on the billiard table were larger or smaller, by some very small amount, as would be the case on a quantum scale in the early universe. How would that work? Positive and negative energies would certainly not cancel to zero. We are told by Dr. Krauss that the cosmic microwave background radiation measurement indicates a flat universe to an accuracy of +/-1%. (Stockholm Lecture, 32:00). but ACTUALLY, he tells us, we live in a CLOSED UNIVERSE because a “closed universe” is the only universe with zero total energy! (Stockholm Lecture, 54:15). It ionly appears flat because the universe is so large, but as Bengt Gustafsson, the Swedish astronomer in the Stockholm Debate noted, there is a potential problem vis-à-vis the error margin in the Omega measurement (Stockholm Debate, 4:31). The question of the possibility of “excessive extrapolation” from data, data that must be extraordinarily accurate to justify the conclusions, is a real possibility.
3). Dr. Krauss does concede that our cosmos could have come from something physically greater and eternally existing, with meta-laws that transcend our universe’s specific laws: this being “the multi-verse.” But, he nevertheless:
a). Doesn’t admit that a PHYSICAL LINK is necessary to any previous cosmic “phase” or “domain,” as would be the case if he considered that Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss didn’t exist a hundred thousand years ago, but nevertheless must have had a GENETIC, PHYSICAL link to a previous life stream which makes his present existence possible.
b.) clings tenaciously to a metaphysical definition of “nothing” because he apparently has no clear conception of the demarcation line between the “physical” and the “nonphysical.” We can use Dr. Sean Carroll’s beloved Boltzmann entropy formula in this context:
S=k log W
Where a.) W = { } “set of microstates,” and
b.) W is equal to or greater than one = a “physical state.”
c.) W = { 0 }, a null set = a “non-physical state.
***** ***** *****
In conclusion. I would like to bring to your attention an alternate cosmic evolutionary viewpoint:
“Aeons before the Big Bang”
Lecture by Sir Roger Penrose,
November 18, 2011
Kraków Methodological Conference: Physics and Philosophy. (YouTube).
Cheers,
T.E. Oakley
Sent from my iPhone
There’s a lot of discussion of Krauss. It may have been missed in the blizzard of comments so I’m repeating the link Professor Brown gave to his own thoughts on the subject.
http://andersonbrownphilosophy.blogspot.com/2013/03/lawrence-krauss-david-alpert-jim-holt.html
Why Does the World Exist? —- Jim Holt and Stephen Colbert
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/lsl385/jim-holt
Why Does the World Exist? —- Jim Holt and Sean Carroll
http://vimeo.com/68101888
After Stephen Colbert, Sean Carroll does the 2nd best job of answering, “Why Does the World Exist?” Jim Holt doesn’t buy either answer. Too bad, because both Stephen and Sean are correct.