Visualization/Understanding or Obscurantist Elitism?

substantivalism

For awhile now I've been searching for a diagnosis of what the exact philosophical issue is that collectively Mainstream, Non-mainstream, and layman physicists have had regarding modern scientific practice.

The Mainstream is rather consistent in stressing empirical virtues such as falsifiability, empirical adequacy, and the mathematization of nature in general. However, such approaches are usually met with a disapproval at colloquial ideas of understanding, visualization, or explanation and in certain situations such notions are even seen as unscientific addons that in truly objective science. . . away from popular science articles, science fiction stories, or documentaries. . . can be eventually abandoned. Classical cases regarding this usually revolve around Special/General Relativity and Quantum mechanics/field theory where if any such colloquial understanding/explanation is found lacking they are directed not to 'better approaches' but to the mathematics simpliciter. Our language and our visualizations pail in comparison to the supreme abstract generalizer of mathematical/logical syntax.

Non-mainstream opponents, crackpots, and other assortments of fringe scientists seem to regard such 'shut and calculate mentalities' as a platonic obsession with mathematics that has clouded our intuitive judgements. A lack of philosophical work in general regarding a widespread acceptance of the notions of visualizability and intelligibility of scientific results or theorizing has allowed for, by their words, for incoherent reification of abstractions to take center role. However, in attempting to alleviate these concerns they usually then fall back on a rather narrow idea of visual analogue modeling which is no less dogmatic than their opponents.

It seems strange to advocate or better demand that science or physics in general be visualizable given the pop-cultural scientific mentality that nature is in some sense: Incoherent to our sensibilities, far stranger than anything we could think of, paradoxical, and esoteric in rather astoundingly unintuitive ways. We will fail if we try to view nature on our terms conceptually. . . so why even try. Better to abstract away far as possible from any specific notion.

Further, visualizability or an emphasis on analogical/metaphorical language as opposed to mathematical/axiomatic frameworks to understand scientific theorizing seem so antiquated. The usual responses I see regarding this say something along the lines of, "How can you know, prove, or convince me that the world really is such as your analogue models presents it as? This was high science a century ago but its been found lacking come the modern era." They object that, "Any approach that one could take to analogue model modern mathematical models are bound to fail." So while layman might need such subjective vices, objective science demands no such need.

There is something greatly misguided about these ten cent objections as if either science is supposed to be so abstracted and VAGUE that we may not even understand what it is that we've been theorizing about for decades.

That, or advocate for a strange scientific ESOTERICISM that regards talk of nature in incoherent or paradoxical fashions demanding no requirement of our own to attempt to make sense of what comes out of our mouths. Then celebrate this incoherency and un-intelligibility of our assertions rather than clarify them in some more intelligible fashion.

“I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” - Feynman
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Visualization of the sciences did briefly vanish at the outset of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory but as of late its been appearing more often usually in fluid analogues to understand interpretations of quantum mechanics or various analogue models in service of deciphering hawking radiation in a table top experimental apparatus.

Its not something that can go away and its saddening that logical positivists along with their ilk had buried it for so long under dense logical axiomatic formulations of theories (syntactic understanding of theorizing) or mathematical abstraction (semantic understanding of theories) in a sisyphean attempt to grasp natures objectivity by removing us along with understanding/explanation as well. I.E. the ten cent phrase that, "Science ONLY deals with description and not with explanation."

Part of this failure seems to be that if you are not able to showcase something as true/false, to present its potential falsifiability, or make some strong explicit choice among numerous options then its altogether pointless. . . therefore irrelevant to objective scientific practice. Contrary the Aether obsessed non-mainstream opponents and the anti-visualizibility advocates of modern scientific practice you don't prove/disprove visual analogue models but this does not make them pointless or dispensable.

They are useful beyond being mere tools to dumb it down to the level of those who are not as mathematical oriented.

Further, anti-realists and their numerous underdetermination arguments put forward to all of science in particular or subject specific (conventionality and realism in the philosophy of spacetime for example) would then doom the majority of scientific results to the waste bin as well given their holistic un-falsifiability. I would see it as tremendously dishonest/inconsistent if this were not done as well.

The somewhat ever present conventionality in the choice of the analogue model does not negate their objective usefulness in furthering our ability to make abstract connections or feel as if we've grasped nature beyond merely cataloguing it.

The inability or difficulty in constructing visual analogue models is not a bid against them and rather any such similar objections would seem to be advocating for laziness regarding any sense of creative advancement. In the modern age of extreme theoretical abstract modeling (string theory, alternative models of gravitation, quantum gravity, etc) it demands GREATER attention, which has been neglected, as to how we construct and use such modeling techniques so that they can be used as powerful heuristic tools to get past the current mainstream gridlock.

Here is a lecture given by Henk W. de Regt which showcases what I'm getting at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY1vySjRFdA \
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There is so much more work to be done here as in what sense to clarify understanding or explanation which aren't as strictly objective in an un-informative sense as certain approaches to scientific explanation are while retaining their pragmatic features which make them so malleable.

Further, what classes of visual models exist and how can we characterize them?

There are strictly mechanistic models which were popular mental inventions for centuries using strict analogues such as: Billiard balls, balls and springs, and other such solid rigid or soft body dynamics. All with sometimes rather clear objective rules for how they are meant to be constructed or used.

However, there is nothing stopping you from creating an analogy between phenomenon that themselves might still be rather mysterious. For example, treating atomic phenomenon as similar to our solar system giving rise to the solar system model of the atom or the Rutherford model. Such analogues wouldn't in a classical sense be seen as mechanistic but in the realm of analogy there is nothing stopping you from doing just this.

What implications does the relationship between the analogue models we construct/use have with regards to contemporary philosophical discussion?

Forms of reductivism which are so popular are easy to interpret as by-products of numerous approaches to visual models BUT perhaps the notion of STRONG EMERGENCE could be conceptually better understood by treating such language as having to do with some mental HIERACHY change of the models we use. This would require an analysis of how language as regards nature CHANGES model to model such as the change of heat from a qualitative property of things to being weakly emergent from things that themselves are not hot. Rather, heat is then redefined or thought of as the motion of microscopic bodies.

Static property --- by a re-interpretation via a certain analogue model ---> Dynamic property

In that analogue model if you froze the universe their wouldn't be heat as heat is a by-product of these microscopic bodies.

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I hope some fruitful discussion can be held here and await your responses. I do apologize for the great amount of text but I needed to get it down and out. I'm tired of this merely bouncing around in my head.

kudos

Further, visualizability or an emphasis on analogical/metaphorical language as opposed to mathematical/axiomatic frameworks to understand scientific theorizing seem so antiquated. The usual responses I see regarding this say something along the lines of, "How can you know, prove, or convince me that the world really is such as your analogue models presents it as? This was high science a century ago but its been found lacking come the modern era." They object that, "Any approach that one could take to analogue model modern mathematical models are bound to fail." So while layman might need such subjective vices, objective science demands no such need.

The image is the concern of the scientific understanding and is characterized by a certain distance from formal logic. This is not the same logic as the axioms and their application, boolean, or otherwise. It is so strange that nowadays we talk about 'models' as opposed to explanation, elaboration, or insights. The idea is of the subject as 'fake' (model of...) when we simultaneously make the case that the subject is 'real' (image, or likeness of...). That is, it seems caught in angst about a sort of impoverished bad scepticism, caught in a synthesis of real and representation.

There is something greatly misguided about these ten cent objections as if either science is supposed to be so abstracted and VAGUE that we may not even understand what it is that we've been theorizing about for decades.

What you talk of is only the idea of the truth of the object. That is, you see the idea in concrete form. What is lacking isn't in the content, but that we cease to see what is represented in its conceptual basis. The image is the viewpoint of the understanding as viewed from inside, and this inner dimension is how it is seen in concrete form. But the scientific method always seeks to explain externalities, and it thereby falls short in realizing truly philosophical scepticism. At best, it represents scepticism and uses the form to justify scientific rigour and absolute objectivity. We purposefully obscure the absurdity inherent in the absolute as viewed from inside in order to realize a superior science.

In general, STEM fixationalists justifiably steer away from philosophical investigation of their scepticism, because it is not part of the imaginary meaning in their will. Business works just fine without it, and as things go we ditch things that we can do without.

T Clark

Interesting. A lot going on here. Some thoughts.

The Mainstream is rather consistent in stressing empirical virtues such as falsifiability, empirical adequacy, and the mathematization of nature in general. However, such approaches are usually met with a disapproval at colloquial ideas of understanding, visualization, or explanation and in certain situations such notions are even seen as unscientific addons that in truly objective science. . . away from popular science articles, science fiction stories, or documentaries. . . can be eventually abandoned. Classical cases regarding this usually revolve around Special/General Relativity and Quantum mechanics/field theory where if any such colloquial understanding/explanation is found lacking they are directed not to 'better approaches' but to the mathematics simpliciter. Our language and our visualizations pail in comparison to the supreme abstract generalizer of mathematical/logical syntax... — substantivalism

This doesn't strike me as true at all. Special and general relativity are full of what you call "ideas of understanding, visualization, or explanation," e.g. space curved by mass. The only place I've heard a "shut up and calculate" approach is in relation to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Given all the interpretations of QM developed to help us picture what is really going on at the subatomic scale, this clearly is not a general prejudice in that area either.

It seems strange to advocate or better demand that science or physics in general be visualizable given the pop-cultural scientific mentality that nature is in some sense: Incoherent to our sensibilities, far stranger than anything we could think of, paradoxical, and esoteric in rather astoundingly unintuitive ways. We will fail if we try to view nature on our terms conceptually. . . so why even try. Better to abstract away far as possible from any specific notion. — substantivalism

I don't think science or even physics in general is seen as "incoherent to our sensibilities." People call QM weird, but as far as I understand it, it's just the way things are. Maybe dispensing with metaphysics, i.e. visualization and explanation, is the right way to approach it. Why should we have to expect that the behavior of the universe at that scale has to be comprehensible in the same terms as baseballs and toothbrushes.

Further, visualizability or an emphasis on analogical/metaphorical language as opposed to mathematical/axiomatic frameworks to understand scientific theorizing seem so antiquated. — substantivalism

Again, I don't understand the basis of this claim.

They object that, "Any approach that one could take to analogue model modern mathematical models are bound to fail." — substantivalism

Who are these "they?"

the ten cent phrase that, "Science ONLY deals with description and not with explanation." — substantivalism

I have never heard this. I have heard science only deals with how things work, not why. That's not the same as your phrase and it makes sense to me in most situations.

In the modern age of extreme theoretical abstract modeling (string theory, alternative models of gravitation, quantum gravity, etc) it demands GREATER attention, which has been neglected, as to how we construct and use such modeling techniques so that they can be used as powerful heuristic tools to get past the current mainstream gridlock. — substantivalism

As I noted, maybe at this scale it makes sense to dispense with metaphysics. Why kill ourselves trying to fit quantum gravity blocks in classical mechanical holes if they don't fit. I don't know. It's way out of my league.

Forms of reductivism which are so popular are easy to interpret as by-products of numerous approaches to visual models BUT perhaps the notion of STRONG EMERGENCE could be conceptually better understood by treating such language as having to do with some mental HIERACHY change of the models we use. — substantivalism

I'm not sure that this is an issue where the question of emergence is useful. We use different models of physical behavior at different size and energy scales all the time independent of whether they arise because of strong emergence, e.g. microscopic vs. macroscopic descriptions of the behavior of gasses.

substantivalism

This doesn't strike me as true at all. Special and general relativity are full of what you call "ideas of understanding, visualization, or explanation," e.g. space curved by mass. — T Clark

You are not wrong. There are many rather illustrative thought experiments that Einstein and others had or continue to construct which do serve a role in bringing about some sort of understanding through visualized mental experiments.

However, there is a lack of clarification about what exactly the references or type of understanding are being creating here. Are we understanding something about nature? Or merely the manner in which we mathematically model it? Are we referencing noumena or symbols on the black board?

Further, there is usually a lack of clarification about the metaphors being used. Space as a substance is a metaphor that treats a rather abstract concept of space by comparison to other substances. Space as a container is another such metaphor.

Such metaphors don't have to carry any ontological weight and perhaps they shouldn't. They are just manners of speaking which our mind has an obsession with partaking in despite the vexing frustration of physicists. They don't imply any grand philosophical consequences, they don't have to, but does that therefore mean they should be cast into the flames?

I don't think science or even physics in general is seen as "incoherent to our sensibilities." People call QM weird, but as far as I understand it, it's just the way things are. Maybe dispensing with metaphysics, i.e. visualization and explanation, is the right way to approach it. Why should we have to expect that the behavior of the universe at that scale has to be comprehensible in the same terms as baseballs and toothbrushes. — T Clark

Its actually completely irrelevant whether its comprehensible or not at those scales.

Whether we agree on how to determine this or not and what methods will achieve this.

We will continue to have a mind which treats it as meaningful. That nature can be understood on our terms and if that wasn't the case. . . then the majority of scientific practice is an insult to greater objective sensibility. A pathetic useless gesture in attempting to grasp a world that is un-graspable. A form of scientific mental nihilism.

You give a coherency to your understanding of something in whatever means possible NOT because nature is shown to be coherent but because being coherent is the only manner (through visualizations, analogies, metaphors, abstractions, etc) in which a rational person could understand it. I'm advocating then for a form of scientific existentialism perhaps. Except meaning in this comparison is replaced with explanatory approaches and the understanding they bring.

Further, the language of quantum mechanics are derivative of analogues, metaphors, and analogue modeling. The bias you hold about it as, 'just the way things are,' seems to forget where those philosophical certainties came from. . . the same place you just said you are dispensing with.

Where do you think quantum physicists got the language they are using to express its strangeness? Where did they abstract it from?

I have never heard this. I have heard science only deals with how things work, not why. That's not the same as your phrase and it makes sense to me in most situations. — T Clark

Descriptions serve this role of expressing how things take place because they do not go beyond observables or mathematical synonyms for said observables with logical connectives to link one to another. If you want to express or interpret it as 'how'/'why' instead of 'description'/'explanation' then go ahead.

Again, I don't understand the basis of this claim. — T Clark

Usually, examples of analogue models which are presented fall along the lines of billiard balls or old Aether vortices which have been forced out of the modern era by the great Einstein paradigm shift. They are seen as a part of the previous generation which we have passed and are 'long dead' figuratively speaking along with their progenitors who are literally dead.

Count Timothy von Icarus

If you are not aware of it already, you might be interested in the "received view" of scientific theories and some of the more mathematical responses to it. These seem to best represent what you are talking about in terms of a "shut up and calculate view."

On this view, a scientific theory should be thought of as a set of axioms or propositions (ideally expressed in formal logic), which is then divided into “empirical terms” related to observations” and strictly “theoretical terms,” which explain the observations. On such a view, theories are deductive systems where predictions about the world can be logically derived and then tested through observation and experimentation, but they are also purely formal, and avoid any "metaphysics" (i.e. discussions of what the world actually is).

Although this view has come under significant attack, many of the proposed alternatives are equally "anti-metaphysical." For instance, there are Bayesian models where all inquiry is reduced to statistical analysis, with observational data shuffled through models in order to maximize predictive power.

To be sure, scientists themselves often pay little attention to the “philosophy of science,” but we can see how this view of the sciences can bleed into the sciences themselves, and on into the popular imagination. For instance, there is the physicist Max Tegmark’s book, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, which proposes the “Mathematical Universe Hypothesis,” the idea that the universe just is a mathematical object (some computational patterns produce consciousness) and things just are the math that describes them in models. Tegmark’s book is perhaps and extreme example, but many other physicists authoring popular science titles have embraced pancomputationalism, which tends to look at causation and nature as whole as a sort of step-wise logical process.*

↪substantivalism

"Science ONLY deals with description and not with explanation."

By way of contrast, we could consider the earlier distinction between different types of demonstration.

A prompter quid demonstration shows why something is the case (not just that it is the case). It explains the "why," "because," or "in virtue of which" of things. It seems fair to say that in the natural sciences, these are generally the types of explanations we are (naively?) hoping for, particularly vis-a-vis the productive sciences (e.g. medicine, "why do deformed elastin fibers cause glaucoma?" - the "why" answer here will help us to develop treatments).

In the contemporary context, we might be inclined to say that the sciences only focus on efficient and material causation. Yet this isn't quite right. Even if many biologists exclude teleology, they have some need for "function" or "teleonomy," and this would seem to introduce a notion of final cause (albeit in some cases significantly modified). And at any rate, the social sciences do include an explicit notion of final cause when explaining phenomena such as market externalities. Likewise, formal cause seems to show up in many cases, interdisciplinary studies focusing on information theory might be a prime example since they abstract away the concrete particulars.

But, are such explanations truly possible? Should we seek them?

I'd argue that we have such demonstrations in well understood areas on inquiry, and that we consider them "well-understood" precisely because we have these sorts of explanations.

Second, we have a second sort of demonstration, quia demonstrations. These reason from effect to cause. For example:

Premise: When the moon is eclipsed, the earth is interposed between the sun and the moon
Observation: The moon is now being eclipsed
Conclusion: The earth is now interposed between the sun and the moo

In this example, the person knows that things are such-and-such, but they don't know why.

The more controversial question is if there is any way to distinguish between these in logic? The closest thing I have seen is work in AI which try to create algorithms for causal reasoning, but I figured someone else might know more.

For a bit of background:

Knowledge of the fact (quia demonstration) differs from knowledge of the reasoned fact (propter quid demonstrations). [...] You might prove as follows that the planets are near because they do not twinkle: let C be the planets, B not twinkling, A proximity. Then B is predicable of C; for the planets do not twinkle. But A is also predicable of B, since that which does not twinkle is near--we must take this truth as having been reached by induction or sense-perception. Therefore A is a necessary predicate of C; so that we have demonstrated that the planets are near. This syllogism, then, proves not the reasoned fact (propter quid) but only the fact (quia); since they are not near because they do not twinkle, but, because they are near, do not twinkle.

The major and middle of the proof, however, may be reversed, and then the demonstration will be of the reasoned fact (propter quid). Thus: let C be the planets, B proximity, A not twinkling. Then B is an attribute of C, and A-not twinkling-of B. Consequently A is predicable of C, and the syllogism proves the reasoned fact (propter quid), since its middle term is the proximate cause.

From Aristotle's Posterior Analytics I.13:

I answer that it must be said that demonstration is twofold: One which is through the cause, and is called demonstration "propter quid" [lit., 'on account of which'] and this is [to argue] from what is prior simply speaking (simpliciter). The other is through the effect, and is called a demonstration "quia" [lit., 'that']; this is [to argue] from what is prior relatively only to us (quoad nos). When an effect is better known to us than its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated, so long as its effects are better known to us (quoad nos); because since every effect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist.

From St. Thomas' Summa theologiae I.2.2c:

If anyone would like to go more in-depth on this, this is a good starting point: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/demonstration-medieval/#5

* Despite the critical framing here, I am a big fan of Tegmark's book. I disagree with the MUH and think the arguments for the multiverse from the Fine Tuning Problem are incredibly weak, but it's quite good otherwise. For other examples of pancomputationalism, there are the articles in Paul Davies’Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics To Metaphysics or Vlatko Vedral’s Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information.

For awhile now I've been searching for a diagnosis of what the exact philosophical issue is that collectively Mainstream, Non-mainstream, and layman physicists have had regarding modern scientific practice. — substantivalism

This is an interesting topic, but I had trouble following you in the ensuing paragraphs. Is it possible for you to offer a fairly short answer to the question you're posing, above? What is the best diagnosis, according to how you understand the issues? Or are there several candidate answers you could draw our attention to?

T Clark

However, there is a lack of clarification about what exactly the references or type of understanding are being creating here. Are we understanding something about nature? Or merely the manner in which we mathematically model it? Are we referencing noumena or symbols on the black board? — substantivalism

Isn't this the question of all metaphysics, or conceptualization, or envisioning, or whatever you want to call it. Our concepts are never the same thing as what they describe, explain, or denote.

They are just manners of speaking which our mind has an obsession with partaking in despite the vexing frustration of physicists. They don't imply any grand philosophical consequences, — substantivalism

Everything that can be put into words is a metaphor. That's all thinking really is - metaphors piled on metaphors piled on more metaphors. That's what reality is. But that seems to me to be a much broader question than the one you were asking in the OP. I thought we were talking conceptual models vs. shut up and calculate specifically in science and even more specifically in physics.

Its actually completely irrelevant whether its comprehensible or not at those scales. — substantivalism

I'm not sure about this. I've been thinking about it for a while. At human scale, the conceptual model, the narrative, the object; i.e. what you call "colloquial ideas of understanding, visualization, or explanation," came first. That's what we call "reality." Now, at sub-atomic scale, it is what you call "empirical virtues such as falsifiability, empirical adequacy, and the mathematization of nature" which came first. I think people just find that confusing, disorienting, and I'm not sure how big a deal it actually is.

the language of quantum mechanics are derivative of analogues, metaphors, and analogue modeling — substantivalism

As I noted, all of what we call reality is "derivative of analogues, metaphors, and analogue modeling."

They are seen as a part of the previous generation which we have passed and are 'long dead' figuratively speaking along with their progenitors who are literally dead. — substantivalism

You said this before and, as I noted then, I don't see that this is true.

substantivalism

↪T Clark

↪J

↪Count Timothy von Icarus

↪kudos

I apologize for the late reply. I've been struck between college, work, family affairs', and basic needs to even begin to sufficiently read into or collect any of the vast literature understanding/explanation has given rise to.

However, in thinking about what I could say I think I sort of spotted what it is that I have an issue with.

In this modern age of philosophy it seems as if people are going in a direction of some naturalized metaphysics, a form of metaphysical conventionalism, or quietism about these issues. They have taken not a physical or metaphysical but a meta-metaphysical turn as people have re-emerged in other clothing to say many of the same things that scientifically minded skeptics and logical positivists of the past have had say about the pointlessness of metaphysical investigation. This time around without any of the same baggage that these prior groups sort of immediately possessed or fell subject to in critique.

An example I found awhile ago was a form of Carnapian conventionalism about your philosophy of choice but re-interpreted in terms of metaphor rather than the analytic/synthetic split which may in some sense avoid textbook proclamations of its incoherency.

It's not difficult, impossible, or even uncommon to motivate such a quietist mindset. In the same sense that a person can play 'skeptic' and ask 'why' repeatedly to your frustration. However, it seems too easy to say one has 'fixed' these issues by mere changes of symbolism, of axioms, or even in changing the meaning of certain concepts. That or by saying its 'subjective' would seem to motivate a rather swift and easy handwaving of it away. I'm suspicious that such conceptual problems don't actually ever go away and rather will re-appear once again only to be met with someone who has neglected the conceptual tools that would allow them to deal with it.

In everyday speech we emphasize the distinction between things 'outside' our mind and 'inside'. It might be extremely difficult to define what that even means but in an intuitive manner it just seems so obvious. Scientific world views resurrect a similar split under the moniker of realism/anti-realism and philosophy in general despite supposedly being about notions beyond science in some cases have such great debates over a similarly named divide. Further, into meta-philosophy such a distinction arises AGAIN except now its about the choice one has between philosophical conceptual systems of thought and you get many of the SAME usual suspects: Deflationism, forms of realism, and conventionalism.

On the one hand, as I see it, you are left with a camp that tries its utmost best on every level imaginable (everyday, the scientific, the philosophical, the meta-philosophical) to try and create a desert conceptual landscape filled with only the most obvious or limited number of conceptual tools needed to complete some purpose. A descending pragmatic and metaphilosophically pragmatic supremacy with, at least in principle, un-yielding desire for conceptual simplicity.

In short: Why even consider that if I can't even make some tangible use of it? To the fires I shall cast it.

The other approach could be one filled with dogmatism and authoritarianism about the SPECIFIC terms of their ONE philosophical approach. Something desirable as anyone whose ever entered for the first time into scientific or philosophical speculation has had such a similar desire as well. Clearly such an approach is dead or dying and usually falls prey to forms of self-defeating obscurantism to motivate their objective understanding of the world amidst the critiques of skeptics in centuries past.

We could, however, attempt to follow in the foot steps of what Arthur Fine calls the Natural Ontological Attitude (NOA) and sort of attempt to dissolve this rapid obsession that philosophy has had regarding the realism/anti-realism debate. Which is strange because the person advocating for this position sees it as opposed to the conventionalism or deflationists that other meta-philosophers have brought to the table. Clearly, on practical matters, realists and anti-realists never really disagreed at all for that matter. What would seem to then motivate the distinction? Perhaps, at the end of the rainbow of centuries of philosophical debate about said issues its merely the realization that to be a realist is merely to say with a stomp of a foot, "It's REALLY real, though!"

To express what they meant to say all along was merely, "I entertained this idea because I considered it so informative and attractive to my sensibilities. I think it should serve you well to."

In short once again: Perhaps its a goal and practical desire itself to entertain what may seem as impractical notions/concepts/conceptual systems of thought if not just because they 'may' give practical results. . . they may remain impractical. . . but because its the only way in which we motivate choices between new ways of thinking. Choice among these conceptual systems is subjective, YES, but clearly whatever system you hold to has rather grand and vast ramifications even to practical affairs. So its a subjectivity of choice that isn't so irrelevant as one would want to make it out to be.

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The intelligibility, visualization, and form of language that we use to understand/explain/describe nature is merely another set of clothing for the above problem. Will any of such motivated approaches prove more practical in terms of technological development? Perhaps not.

Maybe they all provide easier traction for entrants into the discipline however. . . maybe such speculations allow for easy manipulations of abstract symbolisms or in making grand abstract connections which prove useful. . . are these all happy accidents and could be done without said tool? That could be. . . would you want to risk it for a few generations and only after a few centuries of spinning wheels go back to such fantasies because you were "wrong" on their generative practical "utility"?

Wayfarer

↪substantivalism

So - is your question basically ‘what does it all mean’?

substantivalism

So - is your question basically ‘what does it all mean’? — Wayfarer

Its not a question of meaningfulness but of even playing the game of making meaningful assertions which themselves don't give some immediate pragmatic results. Why play the game when no end goal is in sight?

If I had a machine that could pump out meaningful, experimentally under-determined, and intelligible philosophical statements/systems by the thousands is indulging in the debate or discussion around them a proper place of a rational individual, a modern philosopher, or a practicing physicist? Or should such speculation always be avoided with extreme prejudice?

Wayfarer

If I had a machine that could pump out meaningful, experimentally under-determined, and intelligible philosophical statements/systems by the thousands is indulging in the debate or discussion around them a proper place of a rational individual, a modern philosopher, or a practicing physicist? Or should such speculation always be avoided with extreme prejudice? — substantivalism

There is no such machine, because meaning comes from what matters, and nothing matters to a machine. It has no skin in the game, so to speak (only natural, as it has no actual skin).

Ever happened upon Sabine Hossenfelder's book Lost in Math? There might be some commonality between what you're asking and that book.

substantivalism

Ever happened upon Sabine Hossenfelder's book Lost in Math? There might be some commonality between what you're asking and that book. — Wayfarer

I'm not exactly sure because a cursory examination of said book and some of the reviews summing it up seem to paint her as someone who is more desiring for a callback to scientific advancement or achievements of the past. Wherein physicists astound us with how mixing two bland and boring chemicals gives an astounding show of colors. To use experimental results as guides to solve all our philosophical worries. If only it were testable!

Which is not exactly what I intend or desire to go back to nor do I think we can. The anti-realisms of scientific philosophy have killed that and laid it bear so we are left with a rather personal choice which CANNOT BE DECIDED with experimental results or reference to useful mathematical models.

A choice of whether we dare to make intelligible assertions, speak in obscurantist tongues, or cut out our tongue in general and scribble forever more abstract symbolisms that always escape any sense of intelligibility.

SophistiCat

Its not something that can go away and its saddening that logical positivists along with their ilk had buried it for so long under dense logical axiomatic formulations of theories (syntactic understanding of theorizing) or mathematical abstraction (semantic understanding of theories) in a sisyphean attempt to grasp natures objectivity by removing us along with understanding/explanation as well. I.E. the ten cent phrase that, "Science ONLY deals with description and not with explanation." — substantivalism

Struggles with interpreting new and unintuitive science are not that new. Neither is the retreat to the "shut up and calculate" quietist approach. Newton wrestled with the philosophical implications of his theory of gravitation all the way, and never reached a satisfactory conclusion. After the publication of his Principia, he wrote in a letter to Richard Bentle:

It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon, and affect other matter without mutual contact; as it must do, if gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it. And this is the reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the consideration of my readers.

In the Principia he hedges, saying that his theory is merely mathematical, cautioning even against treating it as physics:

I now go on to set forth the motion of bodies that attract one another, considering centripetal forces as attractions, although perhaps - if we speak in the language of physics - they might more truly be called impulses. For we are here concerned with mathematics; and therefore, putting aside any debates concerning physics, we are using familiar language so as to be more easily understood by mathematical readers.

Hitherto we have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of this power... I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy... To us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and acts according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.

(The latter passage, with its famous famous hypotheses non fingo, was added in the second edition.)

Newton did entertain a number of hypotheses (speculations), mostly towards the immaterial or divine, but he was too scrupulous to present them as scholarly conclusions (and he didn't miss a chance to contrast himself with some of his rivals in that respect - notably, Leibniz with his vortices).

SophistiCat

↪substantivalism

I think you overstate the limitations of our conceptual grasp. We are not locked into a fixed Kantian conceptual universe. Our minds have some flexibility and room for development, enabling us to comprehend formerly incomprehensible (or at least convince ourselves that we do so comprehend). Galilean principles of motion were once unthinkable, as it seemed obvious to everyone that motion must be sustained by a motive force, and there had to be a categorical difference between motion and rest. But we have learned to get over this conceptual hurdle (even though our folk physics is still more Aristotelian than Galilean). Newton's spooky action at a distance (setting aside further developments in General Relativity) also doesn't seem to be causing as much consternation as it did in his day. In general, people working in their fields, be it fundamental physics, genetics or linguistics, develop conceptual tools that enable them to apprehend even complex and unintuitive ideas, at least to some degree.

substantivalism

I think you overstate the limitations of our conceptual grasp. We are not locked into a fixed Kantian conceptual universe. Our minds have some flexibility and room for development, enabling us to comprehend formerly incomprehensible (or at least convince ourselves that we do so comprehend). — SophistiCat

Yeah, that is what the point and purpose of comparative thinking (metaphor/analogy) along with computational/concrete analogue models serve as their purpose. To bring understanding and serve as explanations.

However, this would then be at odds with neo-positivist inclinations which seem to paint themselves into a strange corner saying, "I can describe these things but despite that I don't understand anything here and cannot explain a single thing as well. Mostly, because I see any non-abstract or non-mathematical avenues of thought as mere pointless ventures leading us no where."

So which is it? Do we indulge in being a little speculatively comprehensible or throw it all in the garbage because its no unified objective mathematical field theory?

Struggles with interpreting new and unintuitive science are not that new. Neither is the retreat to the "shut up and calculate" quietist approach. — SophistiCat

I was just reading a book called Concepts of Force by Max Jammer which had a few passages talking about critical reflections on the notion of 'force'. A few by the renowned idealist Berkeley seem to be rather relevant here.

Force, gravity, attraction and similar terms are convenient for purposes of reasoning and for computations of motion and of moving bodies, but not for the understanding of the nature of motion itself.

Real efficient causes of the motion. . . of bodies do not in any way belong to the field of mechanics or of experimental science; nor can they throw any light on these.

. . . then all the famous theorems of mechanical philosophy which. . . make it possible to subject the world to human calculations, may be preserved; and at the same time,the study of the motion will be freed from a thousand pointless trivialities and subtleties, and from (meaningless) abstract ideas.

Despite the somewhat obscure notions that his idealist philosophy may throw in later; all of these statements would find themselves right at home, especially the last one, with the central doctrine of both positivists past as well as those who seek to resurrect it back to general acceptance.

The desire to 'do away with' all that 'abstract nonsense' and pointless speculation. The trend is astoundingly repetitive the farther back you go and the more numerous it becomes closer to the modern age.

Wayfarer

A few by the renowned idealist Berkeley seem to be rather relevant here. — substantivalism

Do you know that in addition to being described as idealist, Berkeley is overall categorised with the British Empiricists. Why? Like Locke and Hume, Berkeley rejected the notion of innate ideas and emphasizes that all knowledge ultimately comes from sensory experience. For Berkeley, our knowledge of the world is grounded in perceptions—ideas that come directly from sensory experience. He rejects the rationalist view that reason alone provides access to knowledge independent of experience. Even though he disagrees with Locke on the existence of a material substance, he still accepts Locke’s methodology of starting from sensory impressions rather than innate concepts or principles. He adopts a systematic, experience-based approach, where sensory data as the fundamental "stuff" of his philosophy, even if he arrives at different metaphysical conclusions than do Locke or Hume.

His arguments against material substance are essentially aimed at pushing empiricism to its logical conclusion: if knowledge depends entirely on sensory experience, then the notion of a material world that exists independently of perception is, he argues, meaningless. So, while Berkeley’s conclusion—that reality consists only of minds and ideas—diverges from Locke’s or Hume’s, his reliance on sensory experience as the foundation of knowledge places him within the empiricist tradition.

You can see how this is one source of what was to become positivism in subsequent periods.

SophistiCat

Yeah, that is what the point and purpose of comparative thinking (metaphor/analogy) along with computational/concrete analogue models serve as their purpose. To bring understanding and serve as explanations. — substantivalism

Metaphors and analogies may help - or mislead - but I don't think they are necessary for understanding. We are capable of understanding scientific concepts on their own terms.

However, this would then be at odds with neo-positivist inclinations which seem to paint themselves into a strange corner saying, "I can describe these things but despite that I don't understand anything here and cannot explain a single thing as well. Mostly, because I see any non-abstract or non-mathematical avenues of thought as mere pointless ventures leading us no where." — substantivalism

Who actually says that? Do you have examples (other than the overused Feynman quip)?

substantivalism

Metaphors and analogies may help - or mislead - but I don't think they are necessary for understanding. We are capable of understanding scientific concepts on their own terms. — SophistiCat

Note that none of these philosophers talking about understanding/explanation in the sciences denies that you can define understanding/explanation regarding scientific concepts without metaphor/analogy. In fact, its rather vague as to how this is meant to be intended as modern day anti-realists and neo-positivists understand lots of scientific concepts through operational definitions, theoretical definitions, or reference to instrumental practice.

Unless, you meant understanding different from those notions above.

Its the type, not the kind, of explanation/understanding at contention here I'd say if we aren't going to quibble entirely over mere definitions.

Who actually says that? — SophistiCat

No one, I was making a caricature. Course, the founders of quantum mechanics were notorious for either abandoning any attempt at the intelligibility of the atomic or grew rather pessimistic at said notion.

However, its the explicit dogma of neo-positivist to discount anything that isn't either descriptive/observable language or theoretical abstraction/modeling as mere window dressing to further observable/theoretical statements. That, or if its untranslatable to discount it as irrelevant to the sciences.

This includes realist proclamations such as, "There is an electron!" That then report it as having certain specific properties or relations. It would sooner be proclaimed that 'electron' is synonymous with operations used to detect it, some instrumental practice, or a symbol on the black board than anything else.

So, therefore, every statement literally devolves into something tautological. "I observed an electron by this detector and it had these properties," means nothing up and above what was already clear to us. That we were performing an experiment, that it made detections, and we modeled it mathematically. THAT'S IT and we already understood all that! Further, anything more is either metaphysical nonsense or TOO VAGUE to be meaningful of anything. Right?

Wayfarer

the founders of quantum mechanics were notorious for either abandoning any attempt at the intelligibility of the atomic or grew rather pessimistic at said notion. — substantivalism

I don't think that's in the least true. You know that Neils Bohr thought that his discovery of the principle of complimentarity was one of his greatest breakthroughs. And that when he was awarded Imperial Honours by the Danish Crown, he had a Coat of Arms designed that featured the Taoist Ying-Yang symbol. It might be the case that human knowledge is forever limited in some fundamental respects. It might be the case that what we understand as the physical domain is not exhaustive of reality as a whole. Then what are you going to do, as the entire thrust of Western thought since Galileo has been that it is.

And don't fall for the dogma that metaphysics is nonsense. It is meaningful within a domain of discourse, one that has endured for millenia and still has advocates and exponents to this day. The positivist aversion to metaphysics might have been very much a manifestation of the unconscious fear of religion, arising from the tortured history of religious politics in European affairs.

SophistiCat

No one, I was making a caricature. Course, the founders of quantum mechanics were notorious for either abandoning any attempt at the intelligibility of the atomic or grew rather pessimistic at said notion.

However, its the explicit dogma of neo-positivist to discount anything that isn't either descriptive/observable language or theoretical abstraction/modeling as mere window dressing to further observable/theoretical statements. That, or if its untranslatable to discount it as irrelevant to the sciences. — substantivalism

Who are these neo-positivist dogmatics? What are they actually saying?

Further, anything more is either metaphysical nonsense or TOO VAGUE to be meaningful of anything. Right? — substantivalism

Well, I don't know what kind of understanding you are after. Do you have a clear idea of what would satisfy you that you understand something?

substantivalism

Who are these neo-positivist dogmatics? What are they actually saying? — SophistiCat

I'll give a few quotes from that book Understanding Scientific Understanding by Henk W. de Regt.

As regards the discussion of intelligibility there are many names covering a variety of topics. One of which is gravitation and a particular author by the name of Philipp Frank within the book Philosophy of Science: The Link between Science and Philosophy makes a point of arguing that intelligibility is merely psychological by product of familiarity,

. . . to give us back the feeling that we can understand the general scientific principles other than and better than by their observable results.

Its merely a mirage though and purely psychological without any empirical or practical merit. A byproduct so to speak. As the author Henk Regt writes,

. . . he regards the appeal to intelligibility as superfluous from a scientific point of view. Its only function is to relate science and common sense, and thereby to provide a kind of psychological comfort.

In the text a more recent example given is that of J.D. Trout who also places such colloquial senses of understanding as even, ". . . hampering scientific progress. . ."

I happened to find this further article which attempts to give a 'metaphysics' of neo-positivism and there are names within which you can find references to including Chalmers or Ladyman who have espoused neo-positivist views however they differ slightly. They will at core agree on some meta-ontological anti-realism or 'anti-metaphysics'/conventionalism but I'm not sure on the degree of importance to scientific experimental import. For example, a quote from a work by Ladyman and Ross talking about a form of neo-positivism going like this:

[N]o hypothesis that the approximately consensual current scientific picture
declares to be beyond our capacity to investigate should be taken seriously.
Second, any metaphysical hypothesis that is to be taken seriously should have
some identifiable bearing on the relationship between at least two relatively
specific hypotheses that are either regarded as confirmed by institutionally
bona fide current science or are regarded as motivated and in principle
confirmable by such science. (2007, p. 29)

Various labels are used including quietist, sometimes pragmatism, scientific anti-realist, or someone who is favor of a 'naturalized metaphysics'. All of these classes of individuals will put greater import on scientific theorizing as it is currently and dissuade metaphysical speculation as detrimental at worst or symptomatic of our psychology at best. The only salvageable neo-positivist approaches which don't entirely gut what we've been doing for centuries is in admitting to some pragmatic worth of what classical positivists would have easily handwaved away.

I'm sorry for summing it up too briefly in a few snide remarks previously. The options here have a wide variety of reach and aren't so easily summarized although their are commonalities.

Well, I don't know what kind of understanding you are after. Do you have a clear idea of what would satisfy you that you understand something? — SophistiCat

If someone tried to explain what the second law of thermodynamics is and how that connects to the problem of the arrow of time I think I'd be at rather a loss if observables weren't referenced. However, I could see how pointing to certain phenomena could obscure what it is exactly we are getting at and the mathematics are too abstract to assist us here.

This is where analogue modeling can come in but to serve as an intuitive vehicle which, through idealization, singles in better into what the conflict here is. Say, to explain it to me, they used the examples of a billiard ball gas in a vacuum without a boundary/container and a ball/spring model of a solid. It doesn't matter that these are unrealistic nor do questions of realism have to appear but such simple visual models get across the notion of the increase of entropy, the settling over time of the vibrations in the solid, or the dispersion of a classical gas displaying a truly irreversible process.

Something so abstract or generalized needs to be given some sense of physicality to be able to feel one has in some sense understood it. In what better sense can one feel they've understood nature than by making references to nature itself in analogous manners? What else are we going to point to in nature than to say it behaves similar to that other part over there!

SophistiCat

↪substantivalism

Thanks for providing some context and examples. I am not familiar with Philipp Frank's book, but I did read Trout's Scientific explanation and the sense of understanding paper. In it he critiques "the role of a subjective sense of understanding in explanation." In particular, he draws on a number of studies that reliably demonstrate psychological biases that result in unjustified confidence given to explanations. He does not develop an alternative, though he notes that on his part, he would defend an objectivist conception of good explanation: "What makes an explanation good concerns a property that it has independent of the psychology of the explainers..."

I happened to find this further article which attempts to give a 'metaphysics' of neo-positivism — substantivalism

OK, that's interesting and I'll give it a read, but I am not sure how this relates to the topic.

If someone tried to explain what the second law of thermodynamics is and how that connects to the problem of the arrow of time I think I'd be at rather a loss if observables weren't referenced. However, I could see how pointing to certain phenomena could obscure what it is exactly we are getting at and the mathematics are too abstract to assist us here. — substantivalism

I think your concerns are more pedagogical than epistemological. In the present context, the former is concerned with accessing, internalizing and operationalizing established science (such as the Second Law of thermodynamics). The latter is concerned with establishing criteria for what constitutes a good scientific explanation. Trout above is concerned with epistemology and has little to say about pedagogy, other than that the two should not be mixed up.

substantivalism

Thanks for providing some context and examples. I am not familiar with Philipp Frank's book, but I did read Trout's Scientific explanation and the sense of understanding paper. In it he critiques "the role of a subjective sense of understanding in explanation." In particular, he draws on a number of studies that reliably demonstrate psychological biases that result in unjustified confidence given to explanations. He does not develop an alternative, though he notes that on his part, he would defend an objectivist conception of good explanation: "What makes an explanation good concerns a property that it has independent of the psychology of the explainers..." — SophistiCat

I think your concerns are more pedagogical than epistemological. In the present context, the former is concerned with accessing, internalizing and operationalizing established science (such as the Second Law of thermodynamics). The latter is concerned with establishing criteria for what constitutes a good scientific explanation. Trout above is concerned with epistemology and has little to say about pedagogy, other than that the two should not be mixed up. — SophistiCat

Let me phrase it this way. If we are talking about things we regard as fictions and are only to be taken as fictions does it make intelligible sense to talk about a made up thing which is itself unimaginable? Should such a notion be used in intelligible presentations of our understanding of other notions or concepts?

Explanations usually are seen as some end result of a big dissertation and a sense of understanding can arise from this as a rather subjective but personal 'A Ha' sort of notion. To even have an explanation get off the ground and yield some sense of understanding to someone else of what it is that you are even talking about it needs to at least be. . . intelligible or conceivable.

My brief reading seems to take me this far in seeing explanation as some external presentable media, understanding as something tied to the psychological perspective of the viewer, and intelligibility forming the core psychological base here that allows for this. The Human mind DOES have a bias to certain ways of thinking about the world. . . some of those, however, could be core parts of how we present the world to ourselves regardless of any 'unjustifiability' and so it would be foolish to abandon WHOLE PARTS of our psychology.

You can call these psychologically fundamental parts of our brain make up that we are stuck with or a prior notions but then its probably just semantics at that point.

Inconceivability or intelligibility should hopefully be as a general a series of notions to discuss which transcend discussions related to realist/antirealism, knowledge/mere-belief, or truth-making/falsity. Perhaps these are more core notions to my quandary as Henk's book linked in the OP does present a section talking about the numerous disagreements early quantum physicists had about not so much the truthfulness but the 'intelligibility' of quantum theory.

So what makes an intelligible fiction? Should fictions be allowed into the conceptual machinery of scientific theorizing or explanation?

OK, that's interesting and I'll give it a read, but I am not sure how this relates to the topic. — SophistiCat

You mentioned something about giving neo-positivist names.

SophistiCat

Let me phrase it this way. If we are talking about things we regard as fictions and are only to be taken as fictions does it make intelligible sense to talk about a made up thing which is itself unimaginable? — substantivalism

I am not sure what you mean by fiction here. Scientific theories? Metaphysical interpretations? Illustrations, analogies, simplifications and other narratives used for pedagogical purposes?

Visualization/Understanding or Obscurantist Elitism?

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