Nail. Head. Squarely. I couldn't agree more on so many points. This one especially: "I find it sort of telling that the philosophy cited— Kierkegaard, Kant, Plato— is all old." I laughed so hard I had to get up and walk it off. I've been thinking exactly the same thing for a while now. Any statements about the physical world made by philosophers more than 100 years ago (pre quantum) should, I think, be taken with salt. Statements about human thought are timeless — the ancient philosophy of stoicism is as relevant today (if not more so) than when conceived — but those same ancients thought there were only four elements.
Smolin is, um, a 'free' thinker, but I've long regarded him as a theoretical physicist who values philosophical thought. (As an aside, he and I both seem to regard time as fundamental and axiomatic, so I rather enjoy his kookiness.)
As to the meat of the post, something else on my mind lately is the disastrous consequences of a culture that's lost touch with physical reality. I've been ranting about it for fifty years, and the proof of my fears now squats in the Oval Office. There is also, I think, that any given field plucks the low-hanging fruit, so as the field ages, advances become harder. Add to that the dynamics of a planet with eight billion souls, and it's kind of no wonder the social fabric is fraying.
There are a few positives to reading the older philosophers.
- They knew next to nothing, so their approaches to problems were more likely to suggest empirical approaches. If you start with a question like about light having a wave or particle nature, you can quickly come up with ideas for experiments. If you start with quantum field theory, you can get bogged down by the mere idea of making an observation.
- They did come up with some good observations. Kant, for example, recognized the problem of thinking about thinking without thinking about thinking about something. Modern studies of brain function find some of his ideas informative, while modern artificial intelligence has been ignoring such ideas at its peril.
- They still expected to find universal truth. The closer one looks and the more one knows, the fuzzier things can appear. Chemical reactions are complex interactions moving forwards and backwards at the same time. Axioms and theorems can change places in the dance.The rules of biology, seem dominated by exceptions. Hard truths seem shrouded in cloud.
To be honest, I still don't think much of philosophy, but I'm still willing to poke around the rubble heap for recyclable parts.
As I said to Jim, my complaint is with those for whom Kant, or Hume, or Berkeley is largely the end of the discussion. We can't take matter seriously because Berkeley, or we can't take causality seriously because Hume, or we can't know anything about "things in themselves" because Kant.
As you point out, their process and ideas are absolutely worth learning about. But they got a lot of things wrong with regard to the physical world.
In truth, my approach to formal philosophy is well reflected in the online cmoic strip, Existential Comics. It's a humorous comic strip starring the likes of Hume, Sartre, and Kant. Sometimes it's just wonderfully ridiculoous, but now and then it hits the nail on the head.
The Bluesky tweet(?) you replied to also mentioned history. With limited class time, I think that's where we need more education for upcoming physicists before considering philosophy. We don't need physics students reading Plato, but we do need them to read Heisenberg claiming that reality doesn't exist in the "quantum realm" between measurements.
>>> One of my bigger weaknesses as a blogger (other than the fact that every post comes out to be at least 1500 words) ...
A feature, not a bug, as far as I am concerned.
P.S. LOL @ fn1
Nail. Head. Squarely. I couldn't agree more on so many points. This one especially: "I find it sort of telling that the philosophy cited— Kierkegaard, Kant, Plato— is all old." I laughed so hard I had to get up and walk it off. I've been thinking exactly the same thing for a while now. Any statements about the physical world made by philosophers more than 100 years ago (pre quantum) should, I think, be taken with salt. Statements about human thought are timeless — the ancient philosophy of stoicism is as relevant today (if not more so) than when conceived — but those same ancients thought there were only four elements.
Smolin is, um, a 'free' thinker, but I've long regarded him as a theoretical physicist who values philosophical thought. (As an aside, he and I both seem to regard time as fundamental and axiomatic, so I rather enjoy his kookiness.)
As to the meat of the post, something else on my mind lately is the disastrous consequences of a culture that's lost touch with physical reality. I've been ranting about it for fifty years, and the proof of my fears now squats in the Oval Office. There is also, I think, that any given field plucks the low-hanging fruit, so as the field ages, advances become harder. Add to that the dynamics of a planet with eight billion souls, and it's kind of no wonder the social fabric is fraying.
There are a few positives to reading the older philosophers.
- They knew next to nothing, so their approaches to problems were more likely to suggest empirical approaches. If you start with a question like about light having a wave or particle nature, you can quickly come up with ideas for experiments. If you start with quantum field theory, you can get bogged down by the mere idea of making an observation.
- They did come up with some good observations. Kant, for example, recognized the problem of thinking about thinking without thinking about thinking about something. Modern studies of brain function find some of his ideas informative, while modern artificial intelligence has been ignoring such ideas at its peril.
- They still expected to find universal truth. The closer one looks and the more one knows, the fuzzier things can appear. Chemical reactions are complex interactions moving forwards and backwards at the same time. Axioms and theorems can change places in the dance.The rules of biology, seem dominated by exceptions. Hard truths seem shrouded in cloud.
To be honest, I still don't think much of philosophy, but I'm still willing to poke around the rubble heap for recyclable parts.
I don't disagree with any of that. Jim Baggott and I had a discussion about this in Notes. If you're interested:
https://substack.com/@wyrdsmythe/note/c-100461444
As I said to Jim, my complaint is with those for whom Kant, or Hume, or Berkeley is largely the end of the discussion. We can't take matter seriously because Berkeley, or we can't take causality seriously because Hume, or we can't know anything about "things in themselves" because Kant.
As you point out, their process and ideas are absolutely worth learning about. But they got a lot of things wrong with regard to the physical world.
In truth, my approach to formal philosophy is well reflected in the online cmoic strip, Existential Comics. It's a humorous comic strip starring the likes of Hume, Sartre, and Kant. Sometimes it's just wonderfully ridiculoous, but now and then it hits the nail on the head.
The Bluesky tweet(?) you replied to also mentioned history. With limited class time, I think that's where we need more education for upcoming physicists before considering philosophy. We don't need physics students reading Plato, but we do need them to read Heisenberg claiming that reality doesn't exist in the "quantum realm" between measurements.
does this mean you shouldn't read my article or you should?
https://open.substack.com/pub/mathiasmas/p/kants-transcendental-idealism-as-a2a?r=3elpqi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false