Quantum mechanics and the consilience of inductions

Abstract

I would like to explain the motivations behind this thesis, and to acknowledge some of the people who have helped me. My general attitude to philosophy and science owes much to Cliff Hooker; like him, I defend the philosophical position known as scientific realism. This position is opposed to various other theories that I will call "narrow" empiricist philosophies. I believe that the triumph of a cogent realist philosophy of science over these (and other) theories would have beneficial effects on philosophy, on science, and in broader areas of life. Cliff Hooker has influenced this belief - he emphasises the connection between people's philosophical presuppositions and their social practices, including their scientific, economic and political practices.\n\nThe particular philosophical theory I adopt in this work owes a great deal to Malcolm Forster. Forster's theory is a realist one, and while some realists renounce any form of empiricism, Forster defends a realist philosophy of science from within an empiricist framework. He does this by developing a broader conception of empiricism than the "narrow" empiricist theories I mentioned. I support this approach.\n\nForster's theory is laid out mainly in his March, 1988 paper. This paper, which I first read in draft form, struck me as containing 'the Truth', and I became keen to work on his theory myself. His theory can be labelled a 'bottom-up' one, showing how we can build up a scientific hypothesis from the data step by step, while concentrating on how new concepts are introduced by the hypothesis. Forster's theory is based around the idea of the 'consilience of inductions', a notion introduced by William Whewell, a philosopher of science in the 19th century. Forster applies his theory to Newtonian mechanics, whereas I apply it, or a close relation of it, to quantum mechanics. Hence the title of this work.\n\nI think that the promotion of this kind of 'bottom-up' philosophy could have many positive effects - I will mention one possibility. As a science student, the dominant approach to science that I was exposed to was 'top-down', or 'hypothetico-deductive', to use the philosophical term. In the teaching of science according to this approach, the formalism of a theory is presented, then applications are worked through, deducing the consequences of the formalism in each case. By working through many examples, a student gradually gets a feel for what the concepts of the theory mean.\n\nI feel that with a bottom-up presentation of a theory, which shows how the concepts can be motivated from the data, one obtains a more thorough understanding of the concepts, and one shares some of the insight of a conceptual discovery. I would like to think that the bottom-up approach could come to have enough influence within philosophy of science to reach scientists, and eventually the educators, so that the top-down 'application based' teaching style might be complemented by a bottom-up 'concept based' approach presented alongside.\n\nAs well as benefiting from my contacts with Malcolm Forster and Cliff Hooker, I have also had great help from my supervisor, Henry Krips, and John Bigelow, who provided a good deal of supervision as well. Others I would like to thank are John Clendinnen, Alan Hajek, Stephanie Moser, David Rathbone, Richard Staley, Bill Sutherland, Carolyn Tonkin, Alexandra Towers, and Bill Wignall. Thanks go as well to my teachers and colleagues at the School of Physics at The University of Melbourne, and the departments of Philosophy. University of Western Ontario, Philosophy, Newcastle University, History and Philosophy of Science, The University of Melbourne, and Philosophy, La Trobe University. I must also thank all those friends and relatives who have suffered while I have been working on this thesis.