“...until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.”
NEW YORK TIMES
November 24, 2007
Taking Science on Faith
By PAUL DAVIES
Tempe, Ariz.
SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term “doubting Thomas” well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.
The problem with this neat separation into “non-overlapping magisteria,” as Stephen Jay Gould described science and religion, is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
The most refined expression of the rational intelligibility of the cosmos is found in the laws of physics, the fundamental rules on which nature runs. The laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, the laws that regulate the world within the atom, the laws of motion — all are expressed as tidy mathematical relationships. But where do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?
When I was a student, the laws of physics were regarded as completely off limits. The job of the scientist, we were told, is to discover the laws and apply them, not inquire into their provenance. The laws were treated as “given” — imprinted on the universe like a maker’s mark at the moment of cosmic birth — and fixed forevermore. Therefore, to be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin. You’ve got to believe that these laws won’t fail, that we won’t wake up tomorrow to find heat flowing from cold to hot, or the speed of light changing by the hour.
Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are — they just are.” The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational. After all, the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality — the laws of physics — only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science.
Can the mighty edifice of physical order we perceive in the world about us ultimately be rooted in reasonless absurdity? If so, then nature is a fiendishly clever bit of trickery: meaninglessness and absurdity somehow masquerading as ingenious order and rationality.
Although scientists have long had an inclination to shrug aside such questions concerning the source of the laws of physics, the mood has now shifted considerably. Part of the reason is the growing acceptance that the emergence of life in the universe, and hence the existence of observers like ourselves, depends rather sensitively on the form of the laws. If the laws of physics were just any old ragbag of rules, life would almost certainly not exist.
A second reason that the laws of physics have now been brought within the scope of scientific inquiry is the realization that what we long regarded as absolute and universal laws might not be truly fundamental at all, but more like local bylaws. They could vary from place to place on a mega-cosmic scale. A God’s-eye view might reveal a vast patchwork quilt of universes, each with its own distinctive set of bylaws. In this “multiverse,” life will arise only in those patches with bio-friendly bylaws, so it is no surprise that we find ourselves in a Goldilocks universe — one that is just right for life. We have selected it by our very existence.
The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn’t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.
Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.
This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships.
And just as Christians claim that the world depends utterly on God for its existence, while the converse is not the case, so physicists declare a similar asymmetry: the universe is governed by eternal laws (or meta-laws), but the laws are completely impervious to what happens in the universe.
It seems to me there is no hope of ever explaining why the physical universe is as it is so long as we are fixated on immutable laws or meta-laws that exist reasonlessly or are imposed by divine providence. The alternative is to regard the laws of physics and the universe they govern as part and parcel of a unitary system, and to be incorporated together within a common explanatory scheme.
In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.
Paul Davies is the director of Beyond, a research center at Arizona State University, and the author of “Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life.”
Yesterday on the radio program ‘Science Friday’ they replayed an interview with Paul Davies which Ira Flato did shortly after ‘Cosmic Jackpot’ was published. I bought the book after hearing the interview the first time around. Listening to the interview yesterday I was thinking ‘Gosh, this is really great stuff for the Sam Harris forum’ and….here we are!
The web site also has some great stuff on it. I forget the name of the site…just a minute….
Well this is certainly true and interesting but it is still basically ‘more of the same’. What I mean by this is that it still leads in the same general direction “Always Outward, Never Inward”. There is no thought of inquiring into the nature of what it is that ‘apprehends or knows all this’ and this is just as important a question as ‘what are all these laws based on?’ Maybe, just maybe, the answers are connected.
When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
That expectation is not “faith.” Faith is an expectation that is not based on any observational history, or one that even disregards any observational history. Davies doesn’t seem to understand that observation drives expectation. If the physicists observed disorder, or an order that defied mathematics, then the expectation of order would go away and physicists would reevaluate their understanding of physical laws in light of the new observations.
the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm.
The notion was created by physicists to codify observed phenomena in the universe. I know of no physicists who claim that physical laws have some transcendental existence.
The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational.
That is simply the creationism/intelligent design argument transplanted to physics. The idea that all order must have a designer is a baseless assumption, a natural if misguided attempt to ascribe human qualities to the universe. I strongly suspect that Davies is misinterpreting the “There is no reason they are what they are” response. The physicists were probably refuting the designer assumption. We don’t have an answer to why there is order in the universe, and that is not only OK but it’s also the only intellectually responsible answer. Any other answer is to claim to know things that one doesn’t know. We have no evidence for any cause or origin for the order in the universe. Without such evidence, there is no reason to make any assumption for the origin, and any ideas about the origin are the merest speculation.
” If the physicists observed disorder, or an order that defied mathematics, then the expectation of order would go away and physicists would reevaluate their understanding of physical laws in light of the new observations.”
As I try to understand quantum physics (Feynman said no one understands it, so I’m not hopeful) it seems like physicists keep changing the math to fit the observations. If a NOT = a, then come up with a variable b such that a = ab = a. This seems to be the approach behind all the properties of quarks—flavor, color, spin, charm, etc.
I must admit, however, that I don’t understand anything beyond e=mC^2, which is pretty straightforward, as math goes—about like the area of a circle. Calculus? Fugetaboutit.
When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
That expectation is not “faith.” Faith is an expectation that is not based on any observational history, or one that even disregards any observational history. Davies doesn’t seem to understand that observation drives expectation. If the physicists observed disorder, or an order that defied mathematics, then the expectation of order would go away and physicists would reevaluate their understanding of physical laws in light of the new observations.
Exactly. There’s no faith involved in accepting what seems to work seems to work, and in accepting when revision of our understanding is called for by the data—at least not faith in the same sense as required for religious belief; belief in the existence of the supernatural and such.
Werner Heisenberg; “What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”
Albert Einstein; “On principle it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe.”
And Einstein again; “Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.”
Yet again; “Even scholars of audacious spirit and fine instinct can be obstructed in the interpretation of facts by philosophical prejudices. The prejudice consists in the faith that the facts by themselves can and should yield scientific knowledge without free conceptual construction. Such a misconception is possible only because one does not easily become aware of the free choice of such concepts, which through verification and long usage, appear to be immediately connected with the empirical material.”
Max Planck; “Science demands also the believing spirit. Anybody who has seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words; Ye must have faith. It is a quality which scientists cannot do without.”
Planck again; “Every measurement first acquires its meaning for physical science through the significance which a theory gives it.”
Planck again; “A new scientific idea does not triumph by convincing it opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.”
The idea that one’s own personal point of view can be kept out of ‘science’ is naive, and one’s own personal point of view is largely a matter of faith. It is well known that scientific paradigms change when the believers in those paradigms die.
The idea that one’s own personal point of view can be kept out of ‘science’ is naive, and one’s own personal point of view is largely a matter of faith. It is well known that scientific paradigms change when the believers in those paradigms die.
Not very often, JT, and only during the time that evidence for a new theory is not definitive. The quotes you have conjured up are, in fact, by scientists who themselves were trying to understand a particular revolution in physical thought. As you can see, they had trouble with it. Nevertheless…
It sometimes simply takes my breath away how resilient has been the atomic theory of matter in the face of persistent challenges from those who seek to walk directly through brick walls rather than through doorways.
By all means, comfort yourself with philosophical quotations made by famous scientists of the past, as you seek to convince yourself via some social-constructivist rhetoric that the scientific enterprise stands on the same legless foundation that your mysticism does. Aren’t you really just recruiting people as gullible as yourself into the same pointless enterprise as has so-obviously damaged beyond recovery any capacity you might ever have possessed for critical thought?
If the fact that science revises its theories is troubling to you, I hope you do not regard the germ theory of disease as presently too much a matter of personal opinion or faith. If you do, however, just don’t suck too hard on your thumb right after you’ve pulled it out of your butt unless you first wash it carefully with soap and water.
The idea that one’s own personal point of view can be kept out of ‘science’ is naive ...
It’s also completely impertinent to the issue at hand.
[quote author=“JustThis”] ... and one’s own personal point of view is largely a matter of faith.
That’s rather presumptuous ... and I’m quite sure false in many cases.
[quote author=“JustThis”]It is well known that scientific paradigms change when the believers in those paradigms die.
That’s like saying the water here in this river won’t be the same water when we stop observing as if that’s reason to doubt it’s really “this” water that’s here right now. It’s never the same water. It’s always changing, just as science is always developing and growing ... accusing science of changing is nothing but an admission that the accuser doesn’t understand science at all.
By all means, comfort yourself with philosophical quotations made by famous scientists of the past, as you seek to convince yourself via some social-constructivist rhetoric that the scientific enterprise stands on the same legless foundation that your mysticism does.
Personally, I don’t see why there should be any conflict between so-called mystics and scientists. No “real” mystic (whatever that means) should have any conflict or dispute whatsoever with or any branch of science as far as theories, models etc. of the physical world.
Up to a point, they are on the same ground, and both therefore condemn fantasy, supernatural, religious dogma, legends, magic, etc., as valid explanations of anything, much less the physical world.
The point of departure is philosophical, only. A mystic is someone who has had some sort of experience, the result of which leads to a rejection of realisim, as a philosphical viewpoint, and logic and reason, as the last words on the subject of explaining or understanding the human condition - without rejecting in the validity of logic and reason, up to that point. Therefore, they don’t try to walk through walls.
From their point of view they have gone forward, not backward, but that is their problem, not anybody else’s. Any scientist who espouses realism as a philophical viewpoint should simply view a mystic as a harmless crank.
Harmless, in that mystics aren’t a threat to society or science or anyone, inasmuch as they don’t believe they have a monopoly on truth; don’t hold to unverifiable dogma in any respect; don’t attempt to censor the public schools; don’t think they should have a say in government; don’t murder abortion doctors; don’t blow themselves up in public places; don’t fly airplanes into buildings, etc.
Mr. Davies appears to be a scientist who has been infected by philosophy. There were some examples of those in the 1920’s (e.g. Bohr); there apparently still are.
Up to a point, they are on the same ground, and both therefore condemn fantasy, supernatural, religious dogma, legends, magic, etc., as valid explanations of anything, much less the physical world.
How are you defining a mystic? I’ve always understood that term to mean someone who advocates those fantastic ideas as valid explanations.
mahahaha - 26 November 2007 07:02 PM
A mystic is someone who has had some sort of experience, the result of which leads to a rejection of realisim, as a philosphical viewpoint, and logic and reason, as the last words on the subject of explaining or understanding the human condition - without rejecting in the validity of logic and reason, up to that point…any scientist who espouses realism as a philophical viewpoint should simply view a mystic as a harmless crank.
Sounds like you’re making the same mistake as the fundamentalists, who falsely claim that naturalism is a philosophy rather than a scientific principle. Science has nothing to say about the human condition, and that’s the way it should be.
I’m not sure “realism” qualifies as a philosophy. Doesn’t that word refer to the condemnation of those fantastic elements as valid explanations since there is no evidence for them?
I’m not sure “realism” qualifies as a philosophy. Doesn’t that word refer to the condemnation of those fantastic elements as valid explanations since there is no evidence for them?
You are lacking an elementary exposure to philopsophy.
Realism and all its subcategories, including scientific realism, are all philosophical points of view and nothing more.
True dat. The way it seems to me, reality owns us. Dust to dust, and all that.
I could leave it there, as it seems a friendlier riposte than I normally deliver to you, but I want to try to correct a misapprehension you seem to have regarding my remarks about mysticism. I more or less agree with you that true mystics are almost assuredly harmless. I don’t have a diagnostic for “true mystic”, however, so I qualify my sentiment with “almost”. Perhaps a “true mystic” might better be able to sneak up on us unseen. I’m sure you can live with that.
To the point, though: JT is not a mystic, and seems much more focused on blasting away at science and its paradigm shifts as evidence for its fundamental inadequacy. In brief, JT is more interested in scorning science than he is in defending mysticism. And reading Davies’ pornographic article evidently stimulated him enough to allow him to produce his little ejaculation, above.
This is the mark of a person who is deeply insecure about something, and we’ve seen it come out in his exchange with burt a few weeks back where JT and he were arguing about whose Third Eye was more acute. The thrust of JT’s remark was to try to smash some of the windows of science with bricks from its very facade. JT has no bricks of his own to do this, and the results were tragi-comic, to say the least.
Naturally (no pun intended) I continue to operate as if the sum total of human activity is based on the flesh and blood of the organism. As neurologists map the activity of the brain in greater and greater detail, we will see that even mystical transports are foundationally neurological. Placing your bets on an undetectable essence has been shown on far too many occasions to be a dead end.
Yes, Paul Davies is a scientist infected, as you say, by philosophy. The philosophy that men construct and elaborate with words is a neurological product, and gives us artifacts of culture that feed back into the development of future human beings. I’ll grant you the power of ideas to transform people, but it still doesn’t allow them some liberties, such as that of passing through walls. So: Reality owns us.
JT is simply not happy with the benefits of his own attempt at mysticism. You posted the article from the Times. Just what do you suggest it can teach us? What does the non-mystic need, in the sense that both mystics and non-mystics need air to breathe?
A mystic is someone who has had some sort of experience
Yah, yah. Mystics have that experience, make their beds with it, and are, IMO, a little too willing to lie down and sleep in them. The decision to reject a materialist or realist philosophy is a personal one, and (I suspect) an emotional one. I regard emotion as a neurological product as well, abetted by the various chemical neurotransmitters the body is capable of producing to modify its neurologic state.
Realism and all its subcategories, including scientific realism, are all philosophical points of view and nothing more…
Nobody “owns” reality
What I’m saying is that reality is and should be independent of any philosophical point of view. Sort of like Salt Creek’s point about reality owning us. If reality is nothing more than a philosophical position, then hypothetically anyone can make any sort of claim and present it as “reality.” The Creation Museum is an excellent example - it uses a philosophical position to distort reality, blaming humanity for all suffering.
True dat. The way it seems to me, reality owns us. Dust to dust, and all that.
You mean that reality has some sort of agency and can own things (us included)? We are slaves to reality? Gee, I didn’t know you anthropomorphized reality. We’re certainly a part of reality, but that reality includes our perceptions and thoughts as well as tables and chairs and kittens.
Salt Creek - 27 November 2007 04:02 PM
Naturally (no pun intended) I continue to operate as if the sum total of human activity is based on the flesh and blood of the organism. As neurologists map the activity of the brain in greater and greater detail, we will see that even mystical transports are foundationally neurological. Placing your bets on an undetectable essence has been shown on far too many occasions to be a dead end.
The neurological activity of my brain allows me to see that tree outside my window—but that experience is only in my mind. The neurological activity of my brain also allows me to experience various other things that have no posited external referent (as in mathematical objects), as well as speculative thoughts about imaginary creatures. It all goes on in my brain and mind—the question is how the electro-chemical actions in the brain result in the qualitative experiences. The only answer that you can accept is that they are somehow identical, my mental experience of a color just is neural firings—a very unsatisfactory answer to me.
Salt Creek - 27 November 2007 04:02 PM
A mystic is someone who has had some sort of experience
Yah, yah. Mystics have that experience, make their beds with it, and are, IMO, a little too willing to lie down and sleep in them. The decision to reject a materialist or realist philosophy is a personal one, and (I suspect) an emotional one. I regard emotion as a neurological product as well, abetted by the various chemical neurotransmitters the body is capable of producing to modify its neurologic state.
You are conflating realism with materialism. That is an assumption. It depends on what you believe is reality. Some “mystical” systems are not materialist, others (e.g., the Stoic system) are.
The fact that an experience is only possible because of neural activity in the brain doesn’t mean that the content of the experience is nothing other than neural activity in the brain—I assume that the tree outside my window is real (recognizing that is an assumption, but a pretty secure one). The only reasonable attitude towards experience, as I see it, is suspension of judgement. “I’ve had this experience, what can be learned from it without falling into the assumption that its superficial appearance is the actual reality?” And, “Having had this experience once, can I repeat it again?” For example, if I do this particular meditation again, will I find myself in a state of consciousness that I can recognize as the same, or at least similar, to the state I was in the last time I did the same meditation (allowing for recognition of a deepening of the state). Subject, of course, to a recommendation of Georg Polya: “Do not believe anything, but question only that which is worth questioning.”
What I’m saying is that reality is and should be independent of any philosophical point of view.
Great. Then you qualify as a Realist, which is the philosophy which holds that physical reality is independent of the observer.
As opposed to idealism.
Did you not ready ANY of the cited wikipedia texts?
What is your level of education?
“Reality” is not a settled issue, grasshopper, either philosophically or scientifically. If you doubt the latter, then research why Albert Einstein could not accept the quantum mechanics theories espoused by Bohr and Heisenberg in the 1920’s: “God does not play dice.”
Think, man, think
Here’s another quiz for you to ponder: How can I post the ideas I have in this thread and those in the “Science Must Destroy Religion” thread, and remain consistent?
