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Philosophy and Physics: a Reconciliation

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PHILOSOPHY AND PHYSICS: A RECONCILIATION JESSICA ODDAN Bachelor of Arts, University of Lethbridge, 2015 AThesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of the University of Lethbridge in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS Department of Philosophy University of Lethbridge LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA, CANADA c Jessica Oddan, 2017 PHILOSOPHY AND PHYSICS: A RECONCILIATION JESSICA ODDAN Date of Defence: June 15, 2017 Dr. K. Peacock Professor Ph.D. Supervisor Dr. B. Brown Professor Ph.D. Thesis Examination Committee Member Dr. S. Das Professor Ph.D. Thesis Examination Committee Member Dr.M.Stingl Professor Ph.D. Chair, Thesis Examination Committee ii ABSTRACT Historically, philosophy and physics have been highly integrated disciplines. However, after the Quantum Revolution, physics distanced itself from the philosophical method, leading to a dramatic change in methodology and philosophy of science. As scientific style has shifted and philosophy fallen out of favour, the distancing of philosophy and physics has made its way into the public arena, with highly regarded physicists denigrating the discipline of philosophy and philosophers arguing for the value of their discipline. This thesis discusses di↵erent conceptions in philosophy of science, the role of scientism in the public discussion of the integration of philosophy and physics, and how string theory provides a unique and fitting example of how science can be a↵ected by unrecognized changes in underlying philosophies of science. I determine that as evidenced by my discussion of string theory, philosophical intervention is necessary for solving some of the most fundamental problems in physics and that collaboration between the two disciplines must continue to increase. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Kent Peacock, for his continued support. Thank you for our endless conversations, for continuing to inspire me, and for pushing me to always do my best. I truly could not thank you enough. I would also like to thank Dr. Bryson Brown and Dr. Saurya Das for serving on my committee and for your wonderful feedback. Thank you to Dr. Michael Stingl for serving as the Chair for my defence. Thank you to my family and friends, particularly my mother, who has always encouraged me. And finally I extend my thanks to the University of Lethbridge, to the School of Graduate Studies, and to the Government of Alberta for providing funding and support throughout this endeavour. iv Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Philosophy of Science: Karl Popper 4 3 Philosophy of Science: Thomas Kuhn 12 3.1 Phase change in science .......................... 13 3.2 Tradition and innovation ......................... 16 3.3 Paradigm use ............................... 18 3.4 Incommensurability thesis ........................ 19 3.5 Objections ................................. 22 3.6 Conclusions ................................ 30 4 Scientism 37 4.1 The honourific use of “science” and its cognates ............ 38 4.2 Inappropriately adopting the trappings of science ........... 40 4.3 Preoccupation with “the problem of demarcation” ........... 41 4.4 The quest for the “scientific method” .................. 44 4.5 Looking to the sciences for answers to questions beyond their scope . 46 4.6 Denigrating the Non-scientific ...................... 48 4.7 Deference, Respect, and Anti-Science .................. 49 5 History of String Theory 51 5.1 The First Revolution ........................... 56 5.2 The Second Revolution .......................... 61 5.3 A Theory of Anything .......................... 65 6 Philosophy of Science: String Theory 72 6.1 The Current Status of String Theory .................. 73 6.2 Canonical Understanding of Scientific Process ............. 76 6.3 Paradigm shift .............................. 78 6.4 Three Contextual Arguments ...................... 80 6.5 Scientific underdetermination ...................... 83 6.6 Summary ................................. 86 7 Concluding Remarks 91 v Chapter 1 Introduction It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are so well established that waves of doubt can not reach them; but it can not be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations; for, he himself knows best, and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for a new foundation, he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities. (Einstein) [16] The above quotation comes from one of the most profound thinkers of the 20th century. Albert Einstein approached questions in physics with philosophy in mind, as did many pioneers of quantum theory such Heisenberg and Niels Bohr. These people who revolutionized quantum theory, physics, and knowledge as a whole practiced physics with a di↵erent ‘style’ than is predominant today. Of late, it appears as though physics and philosophy are at odds. Many of the world’s most celebrated physicists (such as Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, and Steven Weinberg) have publicly denounced philosophy as useless, fickle, and obsolete. The quotation below is a poignant example of what I argue is a widespread contemporary attitude toward the integration of physics and philosophy: 1 How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.Philosophyhas not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow [My emphasis] [67] Lawrence Krauss, upon receiving criticism of his book A Universe from Nothing from philosopher and physicist David Albert, called Albert a “moronic philosopher” [2]. Steven Weinberg, a theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate wrote that he finds philosophy “murky and inconsequential” [24]. These examples are an indication of the gradual distancing between two robust disciplines, physics and philosophy. But physics and philosophy have always been closely intertwined, physics being born out of philosophy. So the disintegration of the connection between these two disciplines is surely a matter of interest, the disintegration being, Iargue,adangerousoccurrencefortheadvancementofknowledge.Theweakening link between physics and philosophy is the antithesis of what I am arguing, that a continued and open dialogue and collaboration between physicists and philosophers is necessary for the betterment of both academic fields and knowledge as a whole. I shall begin with Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion as it is important for my discussion of the status of string theory. I shall then discuss Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy of science which I shall use for the notion of phase change. The above quotations by Hawking, Feynman, etc., are examples of scientism, a notion discussed by Susan Haack. I shall identify scientistic attitudes as an obstacle to my overall thesis. I shall then go through the historical development of string theory as I have emphasized that keeping science in a historical context is important for overall understanding. A discussion of Richard Dawid’s String Theory and the Scientific Method will follow where I shall argue that the current disagreements regarding the status of string theory stem from a fundamentally philosophical disagreement. Finally, I shall conclude that in order to properly discuss the status of 2 string theory there must be an increased integration of physics and philosophy. I use string theory as a real-world example of how physics can go awry when philosophy and physics are not integrated. This integration of the philosophical method into physics is what I shall consider a necessary paradigm shift in physics. 3 Chapter 2 Philosophy of Science: Karl Popper The principle of falsification in science was described by Karl Popper. Popper’s work in the philosophy of science focused on the demarcation between science and pseudo-science and the search for “a criterion for the scientific character of status of atheory“[54,p.3].Popperbelievedthedemarcationbetweenscienceand pseudo-science to be the foremost problem in the philosophy of science. He was moved to work on the problem of demarcation because he observed a tendency for scientific inquiry to fail, and for pseudo-science to nonetheless be perceived as being successful. According to Popper, the general consensus within philosophy of science is that the demarcation between science and pseudo-science occurs in virtue of science’s empirical method that is based upon observation and experimentation [54, p. 4]. This empirical method relies on the process of induction, a philosophical notion with a complicated history. A general definition of induction is the process of predicting future events on the basis of previous experiences. However, this definition is limited; induction is difficult to
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