When considering the question of what is possible to learn in Physics, we are grappling with issues of what is known, what is unknown, and what is knowable. To an extent, this involves weeding out meaningless or misleading questions and nurturing those questions which will lead us to a greater understanding of what is happening in the universe. But often such a determination rests on finding a broad enough framework to accommodate known factors emerging from different disciplines. It is my belief that it is overly simplistic to seek ideas that reconcile Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in the form of a Quantum Gravity Theory, if what we really require is a broader framework. This paper offers thoughts on what shape that framework must have, and how we can pin down the details of its structure. Ultimately; this reveals something about the limits of what is knowable by studying Physics, and what we can learn from Science in general.
When considering the question of what is possible to learn in Physics, we are grappling with issues of what is known, what is unknown, and what is knowable. To an extent, this involves weeding out meaningless or misleading questions and nurturing those questions which will lead us to a greater understanding of what is happening in the universe. But often such a determination rests on finding a broad enough framework to accommodate known factors emerging from different disciplines. It is my belief that it is overly simplistic to seek ideas that reconcile Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in the form of a Quantum Gravity Theory, if what we really require is a broader framework. This paper offers thoughts on what shape that framework must have, and how we can pin down the details of its structure. Ultimately; this reveals something about the limits of what is knowable by studying Physics, and what we can learn from Science in general.
When metaphysicians pay attention to theories in fundamental physics, they are usually interested in their implications for fundamental metaphysics: they want to know what the theories imply or suggest concerning the ultimate structure of reality. This essay, by contrast, is concerned with the “derivative metaphysics” of quantum mechanics. I will be considering a certain hypothesis about the fundamental structure of reality, which I will call H. I am interested in H because it strikes me as embodying the most obvious, flat-footed way to read an account of the fundamental structure of reality off the mathematical apparatus of elementary quantum mechanics. But I won’t be defending this claim here, or trying to argue that the members of H are more plausible than other accounts of the fundamental structure of reality inspired by quantum mechanics. Instead, my question is: if H were true, could there be (non-fundamentally speaking, of course) such ordinary objects as plants, planets and people? More specifically: could there be such ordinary objects as ourselves and the things we are familiar with, having more or less the ordinary properties we take them to have? And more generally: given that the fundamental structure of a possible world is such as to make H true, what is its correct description in ordinary terms? Of course, I care about these questions in part because I want to explore the extent to which we might have good reason to believe H, or something akin to it. But even if H turned out to be consistent with our ordinary knowledge about the world of ordinary objects, it would obviously take a lot more work to show that it has any serious claim on our credence. At a minimum, one would have to say something about how likely we should regard our evidence as being, given H; one would want to make some sort of survey of alternative hypotheses; and one would want to take into account our specialised scientific knowledge as well as our ordinary knowledge, including the facts that make trouble for elementary quantum mechanics and force us to look beyond it to quantum field theory and ultimately towards some kind of theory of quantum gravity.
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the whole framework is built. In quantum physics, first in non-relativistic mechanics and later in quantum field theories, even familiar concepts of position, momentum, wave or particle, are derived constructs from the classical limit in which we live but not intrinsic to the underlying physics. Most crucially, the very idea of the individual, whether an object or an event, distinguished only in a mere label of identity from others identical to it in all the physics, exists only as an approximation, not an element of underlying reality. Failure to recognize this and seeking alternative explanations in many worlds or multiverses leads only to incoherent logic and incorrect physics. As an example, in a physical system such as an atom in a particular state, physics deals with the universal system of all such atoms but makes no meaningful prediction of the position of an electron or the time of decay of any specific atom. Those are incidental, entirely random among all possible positions and times, even while physics makes very precise predictions for the distribution of the outcomes in measurements on atoms in that state. Physics deals with the universal, not the individual.
The legacy of Post-Modernism is renewed attention to the issues of knowledge production. Now that post-modernism is out of fashion, the emphasis is no longer on the "cursed" questions formulated by its adepts. The main issue is no longer whether it is possible to attain knowledge which corresponds to reality. Rather, the new set of questions addresses the issue of how we attain such knowledge. The discourse on knowability has also broadened and now involves a variety of disciplines that span the traditionally separate domains of sciences and humanities. The article focuses on the problem of paradox as it relates to the broader issue of knowledge production and the process of construction in general. It examines paradoxes in contemporary physics as they relate to how knowledge is produced and sees the resolution of the problem of paradox in a better understanding of the construction of knowledge. Viewed from this perspective, paradoxes no longer appear as structural limitations of human capacity to know, but rather they become powerful tools which help to make knowledge production more efficient. Key words: paradox, Schrödinger's cat, locality, non-locality, self-organization
This paper examines the deep and enduring relationship between physics and philosophy, a connection that has shaped the trajectory of human inquiry from antiquity to the present. By tracing their shared historical roots, the paper emphasizes how early philosophical speculations laid the groundwork for scientific reasoning. Despite the modern institutional separation of these two disciplines, physics continues to grapple with questions that are fundamentally philosophical in nature, questions concerning the essence of time, space, causality, determinism, and the very nature of reality. The paper explores the epistemological structures that underpin scientific knowledge, such as the criteria for theory confirmation and falsifiability, and investigates the ontological assumptions embedded in classical and modern physics. Special attention is devoted to paradigm shifts in the history of science, including the contributions of figures such as Aristotle, Newton, Popper, and Kuhn, as well as the radical implications of quantum mechanics and general relativity. Through an analysis of contemporary debates, such as those surrounding interpretations of quantum mechanics, the multiverse, and the conceptual validity of string theory, the paper argues that philosophy remains indispensable for critically examining and contextualizing scientific thought. Far from being obsolete, philosophical reflection serves as a compass for navigating the conceptual challenges of physics. Ultimately, the dialogue between philosophy and physics is presented as a dynamic and reciprocal exchange, one that not only enriches both fields but is also necessary for advancing our understanding of the universe.
The road on the foundations of science in general consists in (a) making precise what the assumptions are one makes resulting from our measurements (b) holding a “good” balance between theoretical assumptions and genericity of predictions (c) saying as precisely as possible what you mean. Unfortunately, recent work where these three criteria are met is scarce and I often encounter situations where physicists talk about different things in the same words or the other way around, identify distinct concepts (even without being aware of it), or introduce unnecessary hypothesis based upon a too stringent mathematical interpretation of some observation. In this work, I will be as critical as possible and give away those objections against modern theories of physics which have become clear in my mind and therefore transcend mere intuition. All these objections result from the use of unclear language or too stringent assumptions on the nature of reality. Next, we weaken the assumptions and discuss what I call process physics; it will turn out that Bell’s concerns do find a natural solution within this framework.
The most dramatic developments in theoretical physics in the next millennium are likely to come when we make progress on so far unresolved foundational questions. In this essay I consider two of the deepest problems confronting us, the measurement problem in quantum theory and the problem of relating consciousness to the rest of physics. I survey some recent promising ideas on possible solutions to the measurement problem and explain what a proper physical understanding of consciousness would involve and why it would need new physics.