Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Terrapin Station]

That's how science works. When you see something that doesn't make sense, you come up with a hypothesis for the reason why. In this case calculations for many galaxies show they should fly apart based on the amount of matter they have. The math indicates dark matter should be there.

So, putting it more generally, we observe patterns in our observations. We use mathematics as the language to describe those patterns; like English but more precise and quantitative. That then helps us to extrapolate from those patterns and make predictions of future observations. In some cases, the predictions lead to the hypothesis that the best way to describe those future observations would be to propose the existence of some thing. In this case, that something is "dark matter", but in principle it could be anything.

The issue that some people seem to have with this process is that last part. There appears to be a view that jumping from patterns in observations to proposing the ontological existence of "things" whose proposed existence fits the patterns in the observations is going too far. It seems almost like a form of dualism - i.e. a fundamental separation into two parts - between ontology and utility; between what is and what is useful for predicting the results of experiments. In some ways ( but certainly not all ways) it reminds me of the disdain for experimentation that is often traced back to the likes of Pythagoras, and which led, for a thousand years or more (at least in Western Science/Natural Philosophy), to the view that if you want to understand the way that the world is, the one thing you don't do is look at it!

One of the core problems--maybe the single core problem--lies in what we take mathematics to be. If one is a mathematical platonist, and one tends to think that we've more or less correctly figured out "real" mathematics, then one is far ore likely to take mathematical manipulations that lead to predictive success to be telling us something about what the world is really like.

Similar comments go for physical law realism and the like.

Re instrumentalism, if we're taking our theories to be telling us what the world is really like, then we're no longer in the world of instrumentalism. Per the Wikipedia article on instrumentalism, for example (and there's a very extensive citation for this), "According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes."

[Terrapin Station]

Oops I missed an "m" in "more" above lol

[Faustus5]

Obviously I hold it.

Call me confused--you believe energy somehow exists "on its own" ? You called that view nonsense in your first post of this thread!

I explained this already. The mismatch is that what's really going on is something instrumentalist, but it's talked about in the guise of realist ontological commitments.

You may have thought you explained it sufficiently, but you didn't. I'm a fairly smart, educated guy--I know when an argument coheres and when it doesn't. I'll try to invent a charitable version of what you might be trying to say and you can correct me.

So instramentalism is to be understood as a pragmatic approach to doing science which de-emphasizes getting at "truth" or "the way reality is independent of us" and instead focuses on models just being useful tools for prediction. This, in opposition to realism, which I think is pretty obviously where most mainstream scientists sit, in some form or other. We good so far?

So what's really going on is that our current models fail to correctly predict what we are observing, but since most scientists are realists who project ontological reality from their models onto the universe, they imagine that some new forces and particles must exist to save their models and this is "nonsense" because if they were being wise they'd just invent new models which made the correct predictions and call it a day?

Is that a fair interpretation of what you are saying or at least in the ballpark?

[Palumboism]

So, putting it more generally, we observe patterns in our observations. We use mathematics as the language to describe those patterns; like English but more precise and quantitative. That then helps us to extrapolate from those patterns and make predictions of future observations. In some cases, the predictions lead to the hypothesis that the best way to describe those future observations would be to propose the existence of some thing. In this case, that something is "dark matter", but in principle it could be anything.

Math is used to describe the science, but it's also doing much more than that. In the case of Dark Matter, the math told us we were wrong about our understanding of the universe because there was a mathematical contradiction. It was not a small something we were missing, it was huge.

James Clerk Maxwell won the Adams Prize in 1859 for his essay "On the stability of the motion of Saturn's rings" using sixty pages of mathematics to prove what Saturn's rings were made of. This is a case where the math is doing more than describing something. It's proving something from millions of miles away. James Maxwell went on to develop some of the most important equations in science, the Maxwell equations.

[Palumboism]

It could be that we picked most of the low-hanging fruit with industrial application in the middle of the 20th century but I think we're getting close to needing a new framework in which to think about the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, etc.

Science can make discoveries thousands of years before any industrial application can be made of the discovery. Is there any current industrial application of Einstein's theory of relativity?

Why do we need a new framework to think about the Big Bang and Quantum Mechanics?

[Terrapin Station]

Obviously I hold it.

Call me confused--you believe energy somehow exists "on its own" ? You called that view nonsense in your first post of this thread!

I must have gotten very confused somewhere. I thought you were asking about my view. You were asking about people believing that energy can exist on its own?

This is not an example from someone known to be a physicist, unfortunately, but for example, "Radio waves, light, and other forms of radiation all have energy, but do not need matter" is a clear instance of this from https://physics.stackexchange.com/quest ... out-matter

For examples from physicists, I'd have to quote a lot more, because we have to quote stuff about fields, too, as well as talk about spacetime as if it exists as something "on its own."

[Terrapin Station]

Here's an example from someone who has a physics background:

https://www.thoughtco.com/light-and-hea ... ter-608352

[Sculptor1]

So, putting it more generally, we observe patterns in our observations. We use mathematics as the language to describe those patterns; like English but more precise and quantitative. That then helps us to extrapolate from those patterns and make predictions of future observations. In some cases, the predictions lead to the hypothesis that the best way to describe those future observations would be to propose the existence of some thing. In this case, that something is "dark matter", but in principle it could be anything.

The issue that some people seem to have with this process is that last part. There appears to be a view that jumping from patterns in observations to proposing the ontological existence of "things" whose proposed existence fits the patterns in the observations is going too far. It seems almost like a form of dualism - i.e. a fundamental separation into two parts - between ontology and utility; between what is and what is useful for predicting the results of experiments. In some ways ( but certainly not all ways) it reminds me of the disdain for experimentation that is often traced back to the likes of Pythagoras, and which led, for a thousand years or more (at least in Western Science/Natural Philosophy), to the view that if you want to understand the way that the world is, the one thing you don't do is look at it!

One of the core problems--maybe the single core problem--lies in what we take mathematics to be. If one is a mathematical platonist, and one tends to think that we've more or less correctly figured out "real" mathematics, then one is far ore likely to take mathematical manipulations that lead to predictive success to be telling us something about what the world is really like.

Similar comments go for physical law realism and the like.

Re instrumentalism, if we're taking our theories to be telling us what the world is really like, then we're no longer in the world of instrumentalism. Per the Wikipedia article on instrumentalism, for example (and there's a very extensive citation for this), "According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes."

"According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes"

I see no problem with this. Science is an attempt to describe in order that experiments are replicable, and repeatable. That is the basis of a working theory.
Since science describes, what it says cannot be the object of its decription but a set of meptaphors around and about things in themselves. Whilst we might get close to "truth", it is really of no consequence. The real question is, does it work? If not then your description is poor.
The history of science is littered with the shibboleths of monumental ideas that have all been dumped in the trash can. Monuments of understanding like "coldness", "geocentricity", "phlogistan", "the four humours" have been fetishized as over arching truths, protected knowledge that only hermentic organisations protect.
We are always in danger of continuing this folly on the periphery of scientifc specualtion, by scientists staking their careers on various favoured systems; Steady state, quantum entanglements, strings, dark matter. If these move from the realm of specualtion into the core of science they had better have a good empirical basis, but remain open for modification and/or rejection.

[Sculptor1]

Here's an example from someone who has a physics background:

https://www.thoughtco.com/light-and-hea ... ter-608352

It's a bit simplictic.
Types of "energy" are more diverse than his description allows, but only hints at.
The potential energy held in a pencil that could fall to the ground is not of the same order as light which, incidentally needs extension to exist, in contradiction to what he says. Heat can travel through, or exist in a solid object but causes expansion- need for space. Light cannot travel through a solid object and needs extension to express itself. I'll not list the different types of heat.
Sound requires matter, and is not present without it. thus also requiring space.
So boiling down energy as something that is not quite right and misleading to the children that read that sort of web page for the year 6 sats test.

[Terrapin Station]

Again, I wasn't complaining about instrumentalism. I was complaining about instrumental approaches accompanied by comments that aren't at all instrumentalist in flavor. So something where an instrumental approach is taken but then statements are made about what objects, processes, etc. in the world are really like, especially where that turns out to really just be an interpretation of the mathematical conventions that were employed for the instrumental approach.

[Sculptor1]

Again, I wasn't complaining about instrumentalism. I was complaining about instrumental approaches accompanied by comments that aren't at all instrumentalist in flavor. So something where an instrumental approach is taken but then statements are made about what objects, processes, etc. in the world are really like, especially where that turns out to really just be an interpretation of the mathematical conventions that were employed for the instrumental approach.

If this is directed to me. I was not taking you as complaining. I was just commenting on it.
I'd never used the jargon "instrumentalist" as such before, so was interested in the wiki entry.
Just seems reasonable, even wise to appraoch science like that, rather then have some high and mighty -"Look what I have uncovered about the fundemental truth of the universe"- that some scientists are lured to express to futher thier careers and to establish a place for themsleves in history.

[Faustus5]

Here's an example from someone who has a physics background:

https://www.thoughtco.com/light-and-hea ... ter-608352

I wonder why this person thinks the distinction is so important. I mean, all energy is still mediated by some sort of particle, correct? At least, that is what I've always been lead to believe. That means it doesn't magically exist "on its own".

[Palumboism]

Here's an example from someone who has a physics background:

I wonder why this person thinks the distinction is so important. I mean, all energy is still mediated by some sort of particle, correct? At least, that is what I've always been lead to believe. That means it doesn't magically exist "on its own".

That's not true at all. Electromagnetic radiation doesn't have a particle. Matter can be converted to energy by the formula E=MC^2.

[Faustus5]

That's not true at all. Electromagnetic radiation doesn't have a particle.

That is an absolutely false statement, sorry. Have you never heard of electrons or photons?

[Steve3007]

James Clerk Maxwell won the Adams Prize in 1859 for his essay "On the stability of the motion of Saturn's rings" using sixty pages of mathematics to prove what Saturn's rings were made of. This is a case where the math is doing more than describing something. It's proving something from millions of miles away.

The maths doesn't prove anything about the real world. It helps us to elucidate patterns in what is observed and allows us to ask what we'd expect to observe if those patterns continued. In that case, the patterns were Newton's laws of motion and gravitation. The things that Maxwell concluded about the nature of Saturn's rings were based on the notion that Newton's laws apply to Saturn's rings as they do to other things. The mathematics was the language in which he elucidated the consequences of that notion.

James Maxwell went on to develop some of the most important equations in science, the Maxwell equations.

Yes, Maxwell's equations were, I think, the most important achievement in theoretical physics of the 19th Century, bringing together decades of experimental findings by numerous experimental physicists (e.g. Faraday) in four simple equations. Among other things, it was a consideration of the implications of Maxwell's Equations in reference frames that are moving relative to each other which led to Einstein et al's Special Relativity.

Is there any current industrial application of Einstein's theory of relativity?

Yes. There are many. General Relativity is famously required for GPS systems and for plotting the trajectories of space probes. Special Relativity is intimately connected to the relationship between electricity and magnetism. It's what allows us to see electricity and magnetism as the same phenomenon (electromagnetism) viewed from different reference frames. And electromagnetism obviously has numerous industrial applications.

Electromagnetic radiation doesn't have a particle.

Imagine it's the end of the 19th Century. Maxwell's equations are superbly accurate and succinct mathematical descriptions of the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, united via the constant c. Newton's laws do something similarly powerful for the dynamics of moving bodies, including the action of gravity. But then along come such things as the ultraviolet catastrophe and the photoelectric effect.

Could you imagine an alternative history in which Max Planck didn't propose, as a working kludge to get around the ultraviolet catastrophe, the photon concept? Or, if he did, one in which the photon concept wasn't then promoted from a working kludge to a thing that exists in the world?

In general, when do we decide to promote working kludges to things that exist in the world? Some people (Idealists) don't do it at all. They see the entire idea of an extra-mental world, existing independently of our perceptions of it, as a working kludge! Others pick some particular thing and decide that just that type of thing is real, and the rest is a working kludge. What's you position on this?