Physicist George Ellis Knocks Physicists for Knocking Philosophy, Falsification, Free Will

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-george-ellis-knocks-physicists-for-knocking-philosophy-falsification-free-will/

created by drinka40tonight on 18/01/2016 at 17:45 UTC

269 upvotes, 23 top-level comments (showing 23)

Comments

Comment by MaceWumpus at 18/01/2016 at 21:11 UTC

13 upvotes, 0 direct replies

The title should really be "falsifiability"; "falsification" is ambiguous between that and "falsificationism" which they don't talk about.

Comment by johnbbuchanan at 19/01/2016 at 00:19 UTC

23 upvotes, 3 direct replies

You cannot do physics or cosmology without an assumed philosophical basis. You can choose not to think about that basis: it will still be there as an unexamined foundation of what you do. The fact you are unwilling to examine the philosophical foundations of what you do does not mean those foundations are not there; it just means they are unexamined.

This point should get more emphasis when teaching science. Scientists should be philosophers as much as philosophers should be scientists and examining the foundations of the scientific theories we learn goes a long way to marrying science with philosophy.

Comment by dnew at 18/01/2016 at 18:41 UTC

25 upvotes, 6 direct replies

I can't imagine any scientist giving up falsifiability. If a theory isn't falsifiable, then it doesn't tell you anything about the universe, right? You're equally well off with and without it.

Comment by lilchaoticneutral at 19/01/2016 at 15:37 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Appeals to "quantum vacuums" and "virtual particles" are trash philosophy point blank, it's a trash explanation and most philosophers are absolutely right to ignore it as such.

Comment by SafranFan at 18/01/2016 at 21:39 UTC

19 upvotes, 5 direct replies

I do wish more scientists would engage in philosophy meaningfully. I look around my colleagues and don't see that we have a genuine understanding of our assumptions and presuppositions. I think a typical scientist being walked through an examination of their underlying beliefs, specifically those that haven't been falsified or are not falsifiable, would be startled by how weak their foundations are.

Of course that takes the kind of courage most of us don't have.

Broad brush unhelpful statement there I know, but scientists are often incredibly smug in their self-assurance, yet they often haven't critically evaluated their own assumptions to anywhere near the degree a typical philosopher has, and so doesn't know how much it they influence their thinking and interpretation.

Comment by ShitClicker at 18/01/2016 at 21:52 UTC

12 upvotes, 3 direct replies

So he's just uncomfortable about not having free will, he didn't even try to make an argument

Comment by Propertronix7 at 18/01/2016 at 17:52 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Can't disagree with anything he says. The affirmation of the existence of free will in particular and the criticism of reduction as well.

Comment by giltirn at 18/01/2016 at 21:27 UTC*

3 upvotes, 3 direct replies

I feel he kind of jumps the shark about halfway through when his religious views start to come out. For example he criticizes reductionists who assert that everything is a product of physics alone, and cites as evidence the existence of the computer he is writing on, as if somehow the fact that it is a creation of mankind separates it from the world of physics; as if mankind themselves are somehow separate from physics and not just an expression of it.

Comment by MechaSoySauce at 18/01/2016 at 19:40 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Man, that interviewer is baiting pretty hard.

Comment by notataco007 at 18/01/2016 at 21:13 UTC

2 upvotes, 3 direct replies

"Physicist" is a strong word for this specific headline. He is a Theoretical Physicist, which is just a Philosopher who uses math a lot.

Comment by nobodylikesgeorge at 18/01/2016 at 22:21 UTC

2 upvotes, 2 direct replies

When I saw Rupert Sheldrake I thought they were going to chime in with some of his philosophical thoughts. He has a really great book called the Science Delusion in which he touches on all the dogmatic assumptions that are made in modern sciences. http://youtu.be/JKHUaNAxsTg

Comment by lossyvibrations at 19/01/2016 at 01:41 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

This attitude toward experiment bothers me - the idea for instance that because we can't build an accelerator larger than the earth, and we haven't yet thought of a different way to measure or probe these systems, means it won't ever be possible.

The existence of the aether - which had been in contention for decades to centuries - was disproved with a simple benchtop experiment using a technique no one had considered before (the famous Michelson-Morley interferometer.) We simply don't know what probes or experimental methods we might come up with in the future, and the assumption that we simply can't build a bigger and more expensive hammers means we can't know seems to go against decades of beautiful creativity coming out of the world of experimental physics.

Comment by kvist at 19/01/2016 at 02:48 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

An interview[1] with Krauss is very interesting as well.

1: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/has-physics-made-philosophy-and-religion-obsolete/256203/

Comment by 7b-Hexer at 19/01/2016 at 02:55 UTC*

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Science alone can't but work on the visible universe (at any scale). It can thus only give a theory of the visible universe. Visibility requires information being transmitted (including basic values needed for that).

Explaining the universe's existence yet means explaining the whole (and way unlike bigger invisible part) of it. Also it being without it being observed. It exists beyond visibility, beyond where science applies. The notion of "information" then reduces to "interaction" taking place. Basic values for information being transmitted to an observer then are not needed - only such basic values that must still allow for interaction taking place.

In greatest distances, due to fast expansion, parts of the universe are not causally linked to one another - if they ever were, they share only that same history. No interaction can now take place between them - their existence is disconnected from one another.

Expressing lightspeed in covered parts of the diameter of the whole universe, it is constantly shrinking to ever smaller. And with it the basic values time light takes from A to B related to the time it takes to cover the whole diameter and space as distance between A and B related to the whole diameter are constantly shrinking to ever smaller with that diameter expanding with more than lightspeed. The range for information *and* interaction transmitting shrinks inrelation to the whole. Time and space lose their validity as unalterable universal basic values. They remain valid on connected local scales only.

No info-transmitter can yet distinctly 'see' into quantum world that yet exists no matter if observed or not.

There can by nature not be any scientific solution to questions reaching beyond the existing visible universe, unless it can be verified and falsified fromout our visible part of it.

E.g. by finding such actually disconnected distant regions of the universe connected early during bigbang.

Or unless we find a better information source than em-waves. Still then it will only provide info with *c* from the distance. All that's then left is human reason to think into these dark regions and hopefully find ontological necessities that can be verified fromout the outcome in our small visible part of the universe by reasoning well and finding ontological laws.

Comment by wubalubadubduub at 19/01/2016 at 00:23 UTC

0 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I can't help but think that the author of this is lacking in scientific understanding because he said that Rupert Sheldrake was 'fascinating' and "a scientist". If he can't identify Rupert Sheldrake for what he is, a quack, than I have serious doubts that he can be trusted on scientific matters.

Comment by popcan2 at 18/01/2016 at 23:56 UTC

1 upvotes, 2 direct replies

if you think about it, every possible combination of every possible out come of every possible action is possible to calculate, it's just not possible to "know" every interaction in relation to every other interaction in the universe. But theoretically, it is possible, and it's possibly one of the ways God knows everything.

Comment by nodette at 18/01/2016 at 23:58 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

No fucking clue what this topic is about. Why are philosophy and science at odds?

Is philosophy not getting the respect it deserves or something?

Comment by HilariousConsequence at 19/01/2016 at 10:39 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

The number of times I've seen this posted on social media in the last couple of days makes me worry that philosophers are an insecure bunch.

Comment by rainbowSober at 19/01/2016 at 00:57 UTC

-3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

So everyone has an "assumed philosophical bias" to their science apart from his science, which "has its own logic and must be followed wherever it leads." This guy is so far up his own ass he can no longer see the shit.