> On Oct 1, 2014, at 3:00 PM, Howard Pattee <hpat...@roadrunner.com> wrote: > >>> On Oct 1, 2014, at 4:00 AM, John Collier wrote: >> >>> I think that it is a given that for any realist position there is a >>> nominalist position in the contemporary sense that can fit the same assent >>> structure. Typically one is realist about some things, but not others (for >>> example one can be a realist about physical laws but not numbers, or vice >>> versa). > > HP: That is the way most physicists think (if they think about it). They > don't make a big point of it one way or the other because any model must be > empirically testable. Epistemological opinions do not provide a test.
I think there’s definitely a subgroup that does worry about such things. Sometimes in an informed way (I knew many physicists who also got philosophy degrees or at least took a lot of classes). More often by approaching it in a more naive way. I think asking what it means to test is an important consideration though that not enough physicists ask. >> At 02:03 PM 10/1/2014, Clark Goble wrote: > >> Its also interesting in that even people Id largely call nominalist in >> science still tend to have a dodge regarding the fundamental laws of >> physics that govern dynamics within fundamental stuff. Those they treat as >> real and in that sense they arent nominalists. However in practice theyre >> very nominalist towards everything else. i.e. dont accept mathematical >> abstract entities, colors, qualia or so forth as mind independent. > > HP: That is the case. But why do you call this a "dodge"? In physics, Natural > Law is a category based on its principles of invariance and symmetry to > obtain maximum objectivity. Laws are expressed in the formal language of > mathematics, but this language is a different category. It has many types of > axioms and rules that are not dependent on, or limited by, Natural Laws > (except for information processing satisfying the 2nd Law). > I think it a dodge because they think they are answering a question when they really haven’t. Further that problem that the fundamental laws are treated differently from everything else tends to cause problems when some physicists critique others. That is they create distinctions they don’t properly hold to themselves. Again I can think of many examples of this among popular physics books which engage somewhat with philosophy. One recent one purportedly dealing with why there’s something rather than nothing is a good example. But that’s all a bit tangental to the dicisign discussion. >> CG: But its also tricky in that most scientists arent philosophically >> informed and thus are ignorant of many subtle issues. Incoherent beliefs >> that might bug a philosopher are thus quite common. > > HP: The European founders of modern physics had philosophy in their > curriculum. As C. P. Snow would have said, "most philosophers arent > scientifically informed and thus are ignorant of many subtle issues. > Incoherent beliefs that might bug a scientist are thus quite common." Yes at one time physicists were quite sophisticated philosophically. It’s much more in the post-war era that things changed. I’d like to see it change back. I think Lee Smolin in particular has argued persuasively for this. Of course philosophers of science have argued for this as well for some time. I also think philosophers should study more science. So I’m an equal opportunity critic here. I do think this is a bit different an issue than what Snow was going on about though.
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