Helping Physicists Off of Their High Horse

Armen Berenson

HST-401

Professor John Horgan

February 7, 2023


This image was created with the assistance of DALL·E 2                                           

Helping Physicists Off of Their High Horse

In 2010, world-renowned theoretical physicist, Steven Hawking, claimed publicly that scientists, rather than philosophers, “have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge,” and that “Philosophy is dead.” (Warman). This punch was neither the first nor the last to cross the barrier between these two great fields. In 2014, during an interview with HuffPost, public figure of the science community Neil deGrasse Tyson flagrantly belittled philosophy as a whole, calling it laughable, a “useless enterprise”, and serving only to delay progression (Pigliucci).  It hurts me to hear him say this as someone who grew up listening to Tyson’s scientific tv-shows over his Saturday morning cereal, and who has been deeply moved and enriched by the works of several philosophers. Though it’s impossible for me to draw a straight line between all scientific discoveries and preceding philosophical theories, I am sure that these schools of thought are more closely related than these two statements imply. By widening our view of the history of science, it will become abundantly clear that physics and philosophy, as dissimilar as they may seem, are two symbiotic sides of the same coin in the realm of scientific exploration, and thus by denouncing the latter, scientists and theoretical physicists especially do themselves a disservice.


Philosophy’s role in scientific discovery lies in the proof of concepts through both thought and observation, while physics deals with the solidification and mathematical encoding of these concepts. In a 2014 conference hosted by Nour Foundation, a humanist and multidisciplinary research foundation dedicated to all intellectual pursuits, Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy David Albert, Director of the Master of Arts Program in The Philosophical Foundations of Physics at Columbia University commented, “Everybody now acknowledges, for example, that if it hadn’t been for the Machian analysis of the role time plays in classical mechanics, Einstein never would have come up with the special theory of relativity. Einstein is very much upfront about this,” (NourFoundation). Professor David Albert’s field of specialization, The Philosophical Foundation of Physics, is quite fitting by name since physics was commonly referred to as natural philosophy up until the 19th century (Cahan). It’s apparent that these fields at odds are cut from the same branch.


Sean Carroll, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins, is a theoretical physicist and philosopher who laid out the landscape of this issue distinctly in his 2014 article entitled, Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy. According to Carroll, “Roughly speaking, physicists tend to have three different kinds of lazy critiques of philosophy: one that is totally dopey, one that is frustratingly annoying, and one that is deeply depressing. ‘Philosophy tries to understand the universe by pure thought, without collecting experimental data.’… ‘Philosophy is completely useless to the everyday job of a working physicist.’… ‘Philosophers care too much about deep-sounding meta-questions, instead of sticking to what can be observed and calculated.’,“ (Carroll). Professor Carroll makes solid arguments against these claims which show just how thoughtless they are. To summarize, he first contests that while most philosophers, not all, do not rely heavily on empirical evidence, good philosophers do take scientific data and new findings into account. He also concedes that while philosophers do tend to think a lot and the topics they consider are oftentimes some of the “deep-sounding meta-questions” that cannot be experimented upon or falsified, that is not a bad thing. Every field of science relies on some form of “pure thought”, and on the road to discovery simply “Shutting up and calculating isn’t good enough.”. Secondly, yes, physicists can probably get by just fine without the input of philosophers, but what kind of thing is that to say? Why would any intellectual want to deprive themselves of another perspective? Furthermore, theoretical physicists sometimes approach abstract and ambiguous unknowns such as the quantum measurement problem (whether the collapse from a superposition of states into a classical state is possible) and the arrow of time (whether time’s direction ever stands still or reverses in nature) (Carroll), and while these problems typically entrusted to theoretical physicists practicing pure (theoretical) mathematics these problems can’t be experimented upon or falsified unlike much of physics; rather, they rely on “pure thought” just like much of philosophy. There’s a clear overlap between theoretical physics and philosophy, as both rely heavily on “pure thought” and theory more than active experimentation.


The last perspective I want to bring into the mix is from a man well-versed and highly regarded for his understanding of the metaphysical beliefs of the Eastern world. Alan Watts was an English writer and speaker accredited for interpreting and popularizing Eastern philosophy to the West (Furlong). Speaking to a group of psychologists on the subject of metaphysics, Watts posits that “everybody, by virtue of being a human being, is a metaphysician.” (Borja). There’s no denying that the big questions of our existence have puzzled and troubled humanity from the dawn of consciousness. Scientists like Hawking and Tyson are not exempt from this; actually, they’ve demonstrated an elevated interest in the nature of reality, the workings of the natural world, and the pursuit of knowledge, so it’s only logical that they have sought out the hard-to-answer questions that they’ve dedicated their lives to. Their mistake was labeling philosophy as old news, intellectual child’s play, or dead weight on discovery’s tail. This couldn’t be further from the case, and an obvious demonstration of this is the striking relatedness between theoretical physics and philosophical metaphysics.


We live in a time characterized by both great discovery and restraining polarization on so many points of the intellectual spectrum. The last thing the scientific community needs is for two fields so similar and potentially beneficial to each other to disparage one another in an unproductive debate that can only serve to cut out a valuable perspective. Physicists don’t need to consult philosophers on everything they do, nobody was ever suggesting that, but for anyone to deny themselves the potential of receiving some wisdom or inspiration from another school of thought is downright arrogant and obnoxious! Our goal should be to adopt a more complete and holistic view of the natural world, and that begins with letting go of petty arguments such as this.


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Works Cited

Borja, Sabrina. “An Introduction To Metaphysics - Alan Watts.” Psychedelic, performance by Alan Watts, Anchor, 26 May 2020, https://anchor.fm/sabrina-borja/episodes/An-Introduction-To-Metaphysics---Alan-Watts-eek3sh. Accessed 5 Feb. 2023.


Cahan, David. From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences: Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century Science. University of Chicago Press, 2003.


Carroll, Sean. “Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy.” Preposterous Universe, 23 June 2014, https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/23/physicists-should-stop-saying-silly-things-about-philosophy/.


Furlong, Monica. “Introduction.” Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts, Skylight Paths Publ, Woodstock, VT, 2010.


NourFoundation, director. The Origins of the Universe: Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing? YouTube, YouTube, 4 Nov. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkSKq4B7hD0&list=PL3w8sPSQoP0JUf5Ie6_YeJozVFv8CNdEq&index=8. Accessed 3 Feb. 2023.


Pigliucci, Massimo. “Neil DeGrasse Tyson and the Value of Philosophy.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 16 July 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-value-of-philosophy_b_5330216.


Warman, Matt. “Stephen Hawking Tells Google 'Philosophy Is Dead'.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 17 May 2011, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8520033/Stephen-Hawking-tells-Google-philosophy-is-dead.html?goback=.nmp_%2A1_%2A1_%2A1_%2A1_%2A1_%2A1_%2A1_%2A1_%2A1.gmp_1851648.


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