After a very busy weekend filled with making plans for promoting my rower next year, including exploring possible speed record attempts that have me really excited, I thought I would comment on a life lesson that the weekend reminded me of.
Of words I've heard that seemed way off base when I first heard them, these--spoken at the end of a conversation with the patent examiner of my first application--stand out: "Next time..." The entire comment does not matter here. It is the two words, "Next time..." that matter most.
Having invested a year developing a product to the point that I had tested it enough to believe in it; having spent a year learning how to write a patent correctly; how to research and specify and make the claims effectively in an arcane and detailed form; having called on favors from friends and family to test and comment on and draw the rower for me; the thought of "Next time..." seemed ludicrous. I was just so pleased to be DONE.
Two realizations had not yet set in for me, which would transform my attitude toward those words. First, once begun, an area of experiment and investigation takes on a life of its own--assuming there is enough success for the idea to remain "live." And second, it is very difficult, having already put in tremendous time and effort in an area, not to continue that effort when a promising way forward presents itself. The psychological momentum is just tremendous. Apparently the patent examiner knew all this--as well as the fact that I was far from having perfected my idea.
There are two applications here, for the analysis of Stephen Hawking's and Leonard Mlodinow's view that Feynman's quantum theory obviates theological speculations about ultimate origins. The first is indirect--a background point. Before making an application for a patent, it is crucial that a careful and thorough job of researching the "prior art" has been carried out. Hawking and Mlodinow cite Augustine's ideas from Book Ten of the Confessions about the interface of time and eternity, but utterly fail to understand, let alone appreciate them. Put simply, Augustine's "prior art," with respect to THE GRAND DESIGN, undercuts the Hawking/Mlodinow point of view. I will not link to prior posts on Augustine's argument here, since I have improvements to it that I want to introduce on this blog in forthcoming posts.
More directly, the authors believe that they have finished the work of knocking the life out of philosophical theology. (The direct quote, you will recall, is "...philosophy is dead." (p. 5.)) Well, "next time" the authors take up the subject--and I take no joy in stating this--they will need to think through the implications of their science with more precision. Which is to say that a resurrection of the supposedly "dead" discipline is needed, if they are to clarify their thinking.
An example will help:
"Though it may sound like philosophy, the weak anthropic principle can be used to make scientific predictions. For example, how old is the universe?" (sic., p. 154.) That's a line that--I would have supposed--would be found in the likes of my favorite cartoon, non sequitur. In fact, the thought process--and I may go into this in more detail in a later post--for the authors is a deductive application of current scientific understanding (of the processes that had to be in place to arrive at a planet like ours that supports intelligent life) to the question of the earth's age. But the process of deduction as a means of "advancing" scientific understanding is Aristotelian!
Don't get me wrong. I intend to take Hawking's and Mlodinow's word in all areas of their scientific expertise. Thus, I intend to accept the deductions by which they extend their understanding of quantum theory as it appliers to the origin of our cosmos. So this won't be the latest version of the Flat Earth Society. What it will be is a sober analysis of whether THE GRAND DESIGN is the end of anything.
And as I prepare my thoughts about that I could not help but recall the words, "Next time..." directed my way when I had made the mistake of thinking I had brought a subject to its terminus.
This will be fun. But I hope not to be mean spirited or flippant: it is precisely because THE GRAND DESIGN tells us important new things about the state of scientific understanding with respect to philosophical theology that it is important and interesting. And if Hawking and Mlodinow made a few mistakes and left a few stones unturned that an amateur theologian can point out and pick up, well, it was nice of them to set me up!
Showing posts with label atheism science faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheism science faith. Show all posts
Monday, November 15, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Appraising Hawking's THE GRAND DESIGN--Introduction
With co-author, Leonard Mlodinow, Stephen Hawking begins THE GRAND DESIGN by telling the reader that "...philosophy is dead." ((Bantam, New York: 2010) p. 5.) Having just read the quote a few weeks ago when I had a chance to talk with a friend who teaches ethics through the philosophy department at the local university, I was treated with a little joke: "If philosophy is dead, then nothing is permitted!"
The grand claim, otiose though it certainly is when applied broadly to "philosophy," contains a core point that anyone who cares about the interface of science and theology will want to note. Hawking and Mlodinow employ an approach to quantum physics pioneered by Richard Feynman that obviates the version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God that most persons--who take an interest in the interface of science and theology--will be familiar with. William Lane Craig's simplified version of the cosmological argument summarizes the familiar line of argumentation well:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning. Therefore, the universe has a cause. ("The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe.")
Paul Davies' words, below, provide insight into why someone as bright as Hawking could arrive at such an immoderate appraisal of their own position.
This so-called cosmological argument has in one form or another often been used as evidence for the existence of God. Over the centuries it has been refined and debated by many theologians and philosophers, sometimes with great subtlety. The enigma of the cosmic origin is probably the one area where the atheistic scientist will feel uncomfortable. (THE MIND OF GOD (Touchstone, New York: 1992) p. 39.)
Clearly Hawking and Mlodinow were focused on "the one area" where a philosopher doing natural theology could still make an "atheistic scientist...feel uncomfortable." If they are correct that the cosmological argument is based on a "naive view of reality...not compatible with modern physics," (p. 7) it follows that the "one area" where philosophy (and theology) still had something of note to bring to a conversation with atheistic scientists has been lost--that is, assuming the informed point of view makes the old, naive philosophical point of view obsolete. In that sense, philosophy would be "dead." They are not correct. But at least we have marked the origin of their overweening claim.
What I like and appreciate about THE GRAND DESIGN is that it wastes no time in getting to the point: An informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself. That is their claim, and they stay on point from first to last, to their credit.
What I like and appreciate least about the book is that its reliance on "model-dependent realism" as the criterion of meaningfulness--pathetically--falsifies itself every time a more encompassing model is devised. In Thomas Kuhn's words,
In the sciences...if perceptual switches accompany paradigm changes, we may not expect scientists to attest to these changes directly. Looking at the moon, the convert to Copernicanism does not say, "I used to see a planet, but now I see a satellite." That locution would imply a sense in which the Ptolemaic system had once been correct. (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (The University of Chicago Press: 1979) p. 114-5.)
Of course, looking backward, it is not a problem that better new paradigms can falsify and obviate older inferior ones. So long as I am in possession of a never-to-be outstripped point of view, I can without fear of contradiction identify reality itself with my model of it. But this view is inconsistent with what a study of the history of science tells us about science itself. It used to be the black mark against positivism--sometimes called "scientism"--that it was a philosophical stance toward science that placed a philosophical stance toward science out of bounds (i.e., that science marked the boundary of the meaningful). This new scientism is inconsistent with the history of science. It places the supposed boundary of meaningful inquiry at the boundary of today's scientific models. One would hope for better from the likes of Hawking.
Nevertheless, the core point of the book is not affected by this almost incredibly ironic philosophical naivete, which will prove the book's downfall. That point, again, is that an informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself.
So it is important to note the philosophical naivete employed in the book, because it exposes the importance of examining the (rash) claims that Hawking and Mlodinow make in dismissing philosophical arguments, to their immediate discredit (and ultimate demise). But an account of the new quantum-based physics' challenge to traditional views of the relationship of natural theology to science is both interesting and important, and I want to voice my appreciation for the clear challenge THE GRAND DESIGN poses.
I hope to do a creditable job of depicting the core argument found in THE GRAND DESIGN in coming posts. Most of us can learn much from the Hawking/Mlodinow narrative--I have, at least. And in saying so I intend to express my trust in their depiction of the new quantum-based physics and how the model of the cosmos it provides affects an analysis of the cosmological argument--that supposed last stand for the philosophical theologian.
Next week we will look at an overview of the Hawking/Mlodinow argument.
[Note: I will not be enabling comments. However, I will pose any substantive question or challenge that I get via email: Tracy.Witham@gmail.com.]
The grand claim, otiose though it certainly is when applied broadly to "philosophy," contains a core point that anyone who cares about the interface of science and theology will want to note. Hawking and Mlodinow employ an approach to quantum physics pioneered by Richard Feynman that obviates the version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God that most persons--who take an interest in the interface of science and theology--will be familiar with. William Lane Craig's simplified version of the cosmological argument summarizes the familiar line of argumentation well:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning. Therefore, the universe has a cause. ("The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe.")
Paul Davies' words, below, provide insight into why someone as bright as Hawking could arrive at such an immoderate appraisal of their own position.
This so-called cosmological argument has in one form or another often been used as evidence for the existence of God. Over the centuries it has been refined and debated by many theologians and philosophers, sometimes with great subtlety. The enigma of the cosmic origin is probably the one area where the atheistic scientist will feel uncomfortable. (THE MIND OF GOD (Touchstone, New York: 1992) p. 39.)
Clearly Hawking and Mlodinow were focused on "the one area" where a philosopher doing natural theology could still make an "atheistic scientist...feel uncomfortable." If they are correct that the cosmological argument is based on a "naive view of reality...not compatible with modern physics," (p. 7) it follows that the "one area" where philosophy (and theology) still had something of note to bring to a conversation with atheistic scientists has been lost--that is, assuming the informed point of view makes the old, naive philosophical point of view obsolete. In that sense, philosophy would be "dead." They are not correct. But at least we have marked the origin of their overweening claim.
What I like and appreciate about THE GRAND DESIGN is that it wastes no time in getting to the point: An informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself. That is their claim, and they stay on point from first to last, to their credit.
What I like and appreciate least about the book is that its reliance on "model-dependent realism" as the criterion of meaningfulness--pathetically--falsifies itself every time a more encompassing model is devised. In Thomas Kuhn's words,
In the sciences...if perceptual switches accompany paradigm changes, we may not expect scientists to attest to these changes directly. Looking at the moon, the convert to Copernicanism does not say, "I used to see a planet, but now I see a satellite." That locution would imply a sense in which the Ptolemaic system had once been correct. (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (The University of Chicago Press: 1979) p. 114-5.)
Of course, looking backward, it is not a problem that better new paradigms can falsify and obviate older inferior ones. So long as I am in possession of a never-to-be outstripped point of view, I can without fear of contradiction identify reality itself with my model of it. But this view is inconsistent with what a study of the history of science tells us about science itself. It used to be the black mark against positivism--sometimes called "scientism"--that it was a philosophical stance toward science that placed a philosophical stance toward science out of bounds (i.e., that science marked the boundary of the meaningful). This new scientism is inconsistent with the history of science. It places the supposed boundary of meaningful inquiry at the boundary of today's scientific models. One would hope for better from the likes of Hawking.
Nevertheless, the core point of the book is not affected by this almost incredibly ironic philosophical naivete, which will prove the book's downfall. That point, again, is that an informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself.
So it is important to note the philosophical naivete employed in the book, because it exposes the importance of examining the (rash) claims that Hawking and Mlodinow make in dismissing philosophical arguments, to their immediate discredit (and ultimate demise). But an account of the new quantum-based physics' challenge to traditional views of the relationship of natural theology to science is both interesting and important, and I want to voice my appreciation for the clear challenge THE GRAND DESIGN poses.
I hope to do a creditable job of depicting the core argument found in THE GRAND DESIGN in coming posts. Most of us can learn much from the Hawking/Mlodinow narrative--I have, at least. And in saying so I intend to express my trust in their depiction of the new quantum-based physics and how the model of the cosmos it provides affects an analysis of the cosmological argument--that supposed last stand for the philosophical theologian.
Next week we will look at an overview of the Hawking/Mlodinow argument.
[Note: I will not be enabling comments. However, I will pose any substantive question or challenge that I get via email: Tracy.Witham@gmail.com.]
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