Review of Why Materialism is Baloney

[stuart rowlands]

I have read with great interest Why Materialism is Balony but found that there are major weaknesses in the book's account of the nature of science, the use of metaphor, what kind of evidence is required to establish that the mind can operate independently of the brain and its account of materialism. I am a hard-nosed materialist and have written a 5600 word review of the book, the link to which can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTMXnfNC9JQmOFOxLAHHdfvOF1zDBmlbOFAabQPRE2zSXlqBMbDPmKjtCHHGNWDoz8YHzFyyzRMWJJF/pub#ftnt16

Any criticism of the review is welcome.

[Eugene I]

Stuart, some comments:

The point is that the structure of science rests upon axioms that transcend what is given in experience. 

True, but axioms simply represent a formulation of mathematical models that is used to describe and make predictions of the empirically observable patterns. Even within the same scientific paradigm the set of axioms can be modified resulting in numerically equivalent but formally/axiomatically different theories (Poincare's conventionalism). During scientific revolutions the axiom sets get replaced by entirely new ones having little to do with previous ones. Classical, relativistic and quantum mechanics have very little in common regarding their axioms and fundamental ideas.  

The laws of motion are not summaries of what is given, they are not propositions that are structured according to physical states of affairs they are supposed to depict; instead they help us to build models that can eventually explain what is given.

Given the conventialistic nature and ever-changing status of axiomatic scientific theories, the claim that they can ever "explain what is given" is totally incoherent. How can there be a coherent/consistent "story" theory of the reality (what is given) if the story/theory/axiom-set completely changes all the time? Even at the current state of affairs in physics we know that SR/GR and QM are contradicting and incompatible with each other, so one of them or most likely even both are simply axiomatically wrong and mathematically inaccurate.  

The experiment is structured by the theory and let us illustrate this with another example, one that is fundamental to geometrical optics: The light-ray is a theoretical construction required by the theory and can be physically constructed by switching on a light-box. The light-ray goes from being a theoretical construction (the idea) to be realised (by manufacturing a light-box) for some experimental validation involving geometrical optics: Idea first, then observation that is structured by the realisation of the idea (see Toulmin, 1967). 

The ideas physicists use (rays, fields, etc) are indeed very useful practical mental constructs that help us to better navigate/understand the theories. They are "substitutes" for the abstract mathematics of axiomatic theories that are hard to digest and make use of for an average human. For example, when Maxwell derived the EM-field equations, he used a model of mechanical gears to represent the E and M fields, and that model helped him to make the breakthrough. But he never claimed that those gears represent any objective reality. Similarly, the "rays", "fields" and "forces" are useful practical ideas as tools, they help us to imagine and intuitively understand how the mathematical structures of the theories behave or evolve without solving the equations numerically, Surely, it is very tempting to "objectify" the mental scientific ideas as representations of what the reality actually is,  but to claim that those ideas represent any objective reality would be and ungrounded religion. Most physicists know that the light does not propagate as rays, or that Maxwell equations can be re-written so that there would be no EM filed in them, yet we physicists still use those ideas and analogies as useful practical tools.

The bottom-line is: science in principle can not apply to or explain what things are by their fundamental nature, it can only model what "thigs do" or how they behave with certain degree of accuracy.     

   

[stuart rowlands]

Thank you Eugene for your valuable comments; very prompt too (one hour and six minutes after my posting the review; very impressive).

There isn't much in your comments that I disagree with. For one thing, scientific paradigms are certainly incommensurable as you suggest but our 'bone of contention' seems to be my statement that a scientific theory can eventually explain 'what is given' and this, it seems, needs qualifying. Let us consider Eddington's 1919 observation that confirmed Einstein's prediction of the deflection of light by the Sun during a total solar eclipse. 'What is given' here (after predicting that this will be the case) is the deflection of light by the gravity of the sun which cannot be explained by Newton's law of gravity. GR in this instance could explain 'what is given' whereas Newton's law of gravity could not. My review stipulated that a theory can explain phenomenon but only at the end of a modelling process, which does suggest some kind of correspondence (that this is the case as suggested by the modelling process) - but that does not mean that the theory itself somehow maps onto reality as a one-to-one correspondence (which explains why some realists are non-representational realists). In celestial mechanics, for example, the cosmos can be modelled as a fluid, but this does not ontologically imply that the universe is a fluid, but if we assume that the cosmos is a fluid then we can explain certain aspects of it. Of course, a new paradigm could explain the same phenomenon but with a different set of axioms*.

I agree, physics makes no ontological claims about the fundamental nature of reality, only how reality behaves. As I stated in my review, force does not exist, it is a concept that explains the interaction between two objects (whereas the two objects and their changes in motion do exist). Gravity is best explained as a curvature in space-time rather than as a force. The concepts of science do 'represent' objective reality, but this is not an ungrounded religious claim because this 'representation' is not ontological.  

* For example, Ehrenfest's theorem is a direct rigorous proof of Newton's 2nd law (F = ma) for wave-packets from Schrodinger's equation, which for some physicists implies that the domain of Newtonian mechanics is embedded in QM. However, the logical framework of the two systems are entirely different such that the F in QM and the F in NM are equivalent (they can explain the same macroscopic phenomenon using the concept of force) but not identical (the F in QM has to do with the mean-value properties of the wave-packet).

All the best,

Stuart   

[Eugene I]

Gravity is best explained as a curvature in space-time rather than as a force. The concepts of science do 'represent' objective reality, but this is not an ungrounded religious claim because this 'representation' is not ontological.  

Stuart, if this representation is not ontological, then in which sense the math models represent the reality? For example, if the quantum foam turns out to be more accurate model of space-time, then in which sense the Riemann curved space-time model represent the reality if it has nothing to to with what space time is on the more fundamental level? The Riemann space-time is simply a mathematical construct used for the purpose of numerical approximation of the space-time behavior.

Let's take another analogy and suppose we want to describe the shape of a leaf with mathematical model. We can fit a cubic-spline to the shape of the leaf, but what the real leaf has to do with cubic-spline geometric curves? Nothing. This fit is only a math model that numerically approximates the shape of the leaf, there is nothing more to it. The cubic-spline coefficients by themselves have no correspondence with any reality whatsoever.     

 

[stuart rowlands]

My apologies for the delay in replying.

I don't disagree with your comments from the last email.

My comment on gravity and the ontology of scientific claims as quoted in your comment above is indeed obscure and in need of elaboration. In Newtonian mechanics there is a force of gravity and the laws of motion which can be shown to be true by experiment (for example, Cavendish calculated G, the universal constant for gravity, by 'observing' and measuring the effects of the the attraction of two steel balls) and by sending people to the moon. Although these laws are true (at the macroscopic level), this is not to imply the ontological claim that gravity is a force (and indeed, force does not exist, it is our way of representing the interaction of two bodies). Similarly with GR: Is gravity a bending of space-time instead? Maybe, although one day GM may be superseded by a different theory in which gravity is not a bending of space time. The point is, because of the incommensurability of different paradigms, no ontological claims by any paradigm can be substantiated. 

In public I am a hard-nosed materialist but in 'private' (so to speak) I am a non-representative realist purely because ontological claims cannot be made by scientific theory (although at the end of the modelling process can there be any talk of a correspondence between the model established and reality. The correspondence theory is fraught with difficulty so I am prepared to concede this point). I am in the 'closet' with regards realism because in order to understand science a distinction has to be made between appearance and reality (the wall of perception) even though that distinction, that wall, doesn't actually exist. In making that distinction science explains the other side of the wall. But since we are matter reflecting on itself we can only explain matter 'in our own terms' with reference to what lies beyond this 'wall' that doesn't exist. There is no correspondence between theory and reality prior to any final model; the theory is merely a way for us to get to grips with the reality 'beyond the wall'. Now this does seem like a form of instrumentalism, that scientific laws and the theoretical objects of science are merely tools in describing the world and have no correspondence to anything real. However, if science is merely a way to describe the world then the truth of science is limited to that description with nothing from the other side of the wall to show why the description is adequate (after all, the world is only known to us through each description - we cannot compare each competing description with the world itself). But that wall doesn't exist, so we can say that science is merely our way of describing or explaining the world in our terms. The realist element is purely the ontological claim that the universe exists beyond the wall (and for the materialist the universe exists without that wall), but that does not mean that the laws and associated theoretical objects of a paradigm have an ontology. 

This is a very complicated issue. If, like Mach, we regarded electrons as mere fictions, then what is it we experience when we stick a metal fork into an electric socket with our bare hands? My answer is what we term current (of electrons), which in a sense exists but not necessarily in the way we conceive them to be.

The centre of gravity of any body does not exist; it is a point where the force of gravity is imagined to act. However, the force of gravity acts on the whole object and not as a line acting at the centre of gravity. So even if we agree that force exists (personally I think it doesn't), then the concept of force has to be modified so as to apply the concept to bodies in order to calculate a result. In other words, if force exists it doesn't exist in the way theory uses it, so the ontological claim cannot really be substantiated. 

I hope that clears it but get back to me if it doesn't.

Best wishes,

Stuart       

[Eugene I]

But since we are matter reflecting on itself we can only explain matter 'in our own terms' with reference to what lies beyond this 'wall' that doesn't exist. 

Well, a non-realist would rephrase it as: "But IF we are matter reflecting on itself ..." :-) 

The realist element is purely the ontological claim that the universe exists beyond the wall (and for the materialist the universe exists without that wall), but that does not mean that the laws and associated theoretical objects of a paradigm have an ontology.  

Yep, I agree, except that I'm not a realist, while I'm still a physicist :-)

My favorite interpretations of QM is information-theoretic and relational: QM is describing only information or/and relations ("correlations without correlata"). These interpretations are ontologically agnostic and can connect well with any ontology - realism/physicalism, idealism, dualism etc, while most of other QM interpretations are based on the preferred ontology of realism/physicalism. IMO physics should be agnostic to the ontology, exactly for the reason you just mentioned: there is no way physics can ever break that wall.  

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the resent experiments and studies in the foundations of QM, specifically confirming (again and again) non-locality and refuting Bohmian type of interpretations (the common refuge to save locality). Basically, except for the many-world interpretation, there are no other QM interpretations coherent with local and causal matter. So if you are a physicalist-realist, your only choice is MWI (which I personally find nonsensical).