Self-floating books

Let's imagine there's a stack of books floating in mid-air. There appears to be no reason for it. 

But suppose someone says we can explain why the top book is there. It's being supported by the book beneath it. The 2nd top book, that is, is exerting a force on the top book keeping it where it is.

Likewise we can explain why the 2nd top book is there -- it's being supported by the 3rd top book. And so on.

But what about the bottom book? Perhaps we can say there's no explanation for that. It's just a brute fact that it can float there mid-air!

But if that is the case have we actually provided an explanation for why any of the other books are there in mid-air? Surely not, we've simply kicked the explanatory can down the road, so to speak.

A similar situation exists in physics.  We observe the regularities of the world and say the reason why there are such regularities is ultimately due to fundamental physical laws and/or due to innate forces as revealed by physics.  Why do these fundamental physical laws or forces exist?  We don’t know, they are just a brute fact about the world with no further explanation.  But given that these physical laws/forces exist, we can explain how they give rise to certain phenomena.

It seems to me though that this is the same type of "explanation" as our floating stack of books. 

Going back to the stack of books.  I said that it might be suggested by someone that the top book remains where it is due to resting on the book beneath it, which exerts an upward force keeping the top book in its place.  But why can’t each book simply be self-floating?  The bottom book appears to have the capacity to be self-floating, so if no further explanation is required here, then why would any of the other books be different?

We imagine that forces exist out there in the world.  But, strictly speaking, we always just see events following each other.  We project forces into the world because we like explanations.  But, especially when we consider such forces do not provide a true explanation, do we have any reasons to suppose that such forces literally exist at all?

Consider computer games.  Our character that we control performs various actions in that game – our character perhaps presses a button in that game environment and a building in that game explodes.  But there are no actual forces here, the game does what it does due to following the rules the computer programmer has implemented.  

Do we have any compelling reasons, or indeed any reasons at all, to suppose our reality is different?  Even if there is no analogical equivalent to a computer programmer or "God", perhaps reality simply exhibits patterns that our physics describes?  But physics doesn't tell us why reality is like it is, it doesn't provide any true explanations any more than it does with our floating stack of books.

Related: 

What physicists claim exists can be doubted

The difference between science and metaphysics

Do scientific explanations actually explain?

The Limits of Science

Education and Scientism

It is generally thought that education is an unadulterated good thing.  However, I have reservations.  It seems to me that one of the detractions of education, and specifically a scientific education, is that it indoctrinates people into passively accepting certain ideas about the world. Ideas that, strictly speaking, are philosophical rather than something science entails.  For example, that we are sophisticated biological robots with no free will. That colours, sounds and smells don't literally exist out there.  That psi, an afterlife, rain-dancing, magic spells, dowsing are all hooey etc (it's possible the last 3 are hooey, I have no idea).

Even if we are to suppose that they are correct on all these issues, I find it interesting that people can never argue to justify their certainty on any of them.  When I ask people the origin of their convictions they often content themselves with asserting that I only think such things are possible because I want them to be true  Of course, here they are assuming that their own beliefs are highly likely to be correct and the reason I do not consent to their beliefs is because my yearning for such things overrides my reason.  They do not take a blind bit of notice of my actual arguments.

I also often hear the mantra, "where's the evidence". By "evidence" it transpires they mean something repeatable in a lab and that anyone, even skeptics, can unerringly replicate. There appears to be no room in their worldview for spontaneous or capricious phenomena, nor where a certain psychological state is a crucial ingredient for the manifestation of the phenomenon of interest. 

The fundamental point is this, if people assert something doesn't exist, they need to provide reasons for their belief.  Not simply be content to say "prove me wrong".  But I do not think it is an exaggeration to say I never actually hear any valid arguments.  At best I am told that such phenomena, if they exist, are simply impossible, that it would break the laws of physics and even render the whole scientific enterprise as fundamentally wrong.  But, we need to understand that the so-called "laws" of physics are simply a mathematical description of the patterns we find in the world. What these people are doing is reifying such a description and demanding that reality dances to its tune. In other words, they're putting the cart before the horse. However, reality has no obligation to conform to what we regard as "physical laws". Physical laws are general -- we lack compelling reasons to believe our current "laws" describe reality in its totality. In particular, they leave out consciousness in their description of reality. (I cover this issue in greater depth here, here, here and here.)

I think it's the power of our culture imposing its belief system on educated people. People just soak up the beliefs of their culture and their peers.  We live in a scientism infatuated culture that fosters the view that physics provides a literal depiction of the ultimate nature of reality.  Hence, all the qualitative features of reality -- that is, colours, smells, sounds and of course conscious experience itself -- are relegated to either being illusory, or are deemed to be translatable, without remainder, into the interactions of the ultimate entities that physics describes.

This is unfortunate.  Ideally education should make people think. To question prevailing beliefs and "wisdom". Indeed, to be a sceptic in the original meaning of that word. There's precious few people who are rational intelligent independent thinkers. And I can't see that ever changing.

The Limits of Science

Why can't science tell us why the Universe exists and why physical laws take on the form they do?

Here's an analogy.

Consider the game of chess. Let's suppose one knows nothing about how to play the game. By playing against a chess computer one can gradually discover the rules of chess by trying various moves and seeing which moves the computer will permit you to make. But, discovering the rules of chess tells us nothing about why the pieces are allowed to move the way they do, least of all of who invented the game of chess and why. Nor do we know how the computer works. Why and how does it register certain moves as illegal?

Likewise, discovering the physical laws that describe or govern our physical reality tells us nothing about why physical laws are as they are. Nor can it tell us why there is a Universe at all. Such questions simply do not reside within the scope of science.

(The above is a slightly simpler version of my What philosophical questions does science answer?)

Underdetermination of Scientific Theory

How do we make sense of change in the world? We need to dream up a theory that explains what we see. We can understand why the black dots move in the way they do if we hypothesize that the dots reside on the apexes of invisible moving equilateral triangles. We might not be able to perceive the triangles, perhaps not even in principle, but we can confidently infer their existence.

But wait!

The movement of the black dots is equally explicable if we imagine the dots reside at the apexes of invisible moving squares. Or, if they are moving along the lines constituting a star shape. If we are unable, perhaps even in principle, of perceiving any of these shapes, then how could we know which theory is correct? Indeed, perhaps none of them are?


Likewise, change in our world is accounted for by the existence and interactions of subatomic particles. We cannot see these particles, not even in principle, but we can infer their existence, just as we can infer triangles for the movement of the black dots. So, does this mean that what we see with our naked eyes could appeal to quite different entities to explain what we see? I think so.


This is a problem in science since all possible evidence we could have radically underdetermines which theory is the correct one. This is called the underdetermination of scientific theory by evidence. It also invites the question of whether our theories that utilize entities that can never be directly observed, actually depict a literal state of affairs.

What philosophical questions does science answer?

Just reading the following recently published article:

Mind, Matter And Materialism


Near the beginning the author says:

"Questions that once lay firmly in philosophy's domain have now fully entered the realm of science".

This is something I hear from people frequently. Unfortunately they never seem to specify what philosophical questions science has answered or shed light upon. I'm not necessarily saying that science doesn't, it depends what they have in mind.

But at first blush it seems to me the domains of science and philosophy are distinct. First of all we need to understand that science doesn't provide explanations as such, but mere descriptions. Consider playing a computer game. You need to know how the computer game environment will react when your character performs certain actions. You could be really excellent at the game and have a comprehensive knowledge of exactly how the game environment changes with specific actions. However, that furnishes you with no understanding of how the game is possible and why the game has the rules it does, or even why the game exists at all. The player might know nothing about the underling computer architecture or software in other words.

How the game environment reacts seems to me to be analogically akin to what science is attempting with its description of our physical reality. How the game is possible, why the game exists, why the game has the rules it has, seems to me to be analogically akin to asking how and why the world exists and why it has the attributes it does. Questions that belong exclusively to the domain of philosophy.

How can knowing how the game environment changes, or physical reality changes with particular actions, help with any philosophical questions?

Update 1/10/2019   I have just written a simpler version of this above argument here.

Do scientific explanations actually explain?

To provide a scientific explanation of a given phenomenon is to show how it is ultimately derived from physical laws. Sometimes physical laws governing some aspect of physical reality can be shown to be derived from more fundamental physical laws.  But these more fundamental physical laws appear to be simply a brute fact.  In other words certain physical laws appear to govern the Universe and no one has any idea why such physical laws assume the form they do.  Moreover, by necessity, an answer to this question could not come under the province of science since science assumes such physical laws at the outset.

But then scientific explanations are not in fact explanations in the fullest sense of this word.  It is of little avail to say we can explain the existence of X in terms of Y, if Y itself has no explanation and is simply a brute fact. This is why, contrary to what most people believe, science doesn't strictly speaking provide explanations, but rather mere descriptions. Yes we can explain how a phenomenon is deduced or derived from physical laws, but this fails to provide any ultimate explanation if we don't know why physical laws assume the form they do. Indeed since physical laws are simply a brute fact without any explanation, then in providing a scientific explanation we are only ever engaging in discerning specific patterns (some phenomenon) deduced from more general patterns (physical laws).


28 Dec 2015 Update:

A rather excellent article on the same topic by Dr. Bernardo Kastrup which I'm in full agreement with.  He employs a splendid analogy which is worth quoting:

[O]ne needs to know nothing about computer architecture or software in order to play a computer game well and even win; just watch a five-year-old kid. Playing a computer game only requires an ability to understand and predict how the elements of the game behave relative to one another: if your character shoots that spot, it scores points; if your character touches that wall, it dies; etc. It requires no understanding whatsoever of the underlying machine and code upon which the game runs. You can be a champion player without having a clue about Central Processing Units (CPU), Random-Access Memories (RAM), Universal Serial Buses (USB), or any of the esoteric computer engineering that makes the game possible. All this engineering transcends the “reality” accessible empirically from within the game. Yet, the scientific method limits itself to what is empirically and ordinarily observed from within the “game” of reality. Scientific modelling requires little or no understanding of the underlying nature of reality in exactly the same way that a gamer needs little or no understanding of the computer’s underlying architecture in order to win the game. It only requires an understanding of how the elements of the “game,” accessed empirically from within the “game” itself, unfold relative to one another.

On the other hand, to infer things about what underlies the “game” – in other words, to construct a metaphysics about the fundamental nature of reality – demands more than the empirical methods of science. Indeed, it demands a kind of disciplined introspection that critically assesses not only the elements observed, but also the observer, the process of observation, and the interplay between the three in a holistic manner; an introspection that, as such, seeks to see through the “game.”

Why Philosophy is important

If an individual never thinks philosophically, never questions his existence, what the world is about, what justifies certain moral stances and other philosophical questions, then what will determine his beliefs in such things? Presumably the prevailing beliefs of his culture. He will trust what he considers to be the most intelligent peoples' stance on such issues. These are likely to be people in the higher echelons of academia and especially what scientists say.

Hence, for example, he is likely to accept that he is merely a sophisticated biological robot with no free will, that science can in principle tell us everything about the world and indeed everything else. He might even accept that there are no objective morals -- that they are merely an expression of emotions, or they merely reflect psychological truths about the way human beings happen to be.

In that case, by not thinking for himself, he is merely absorbing the common wisdom of his culture. This is highly undesirable for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that those who rise to the top in the academic community are liable to express views consonant with the prevailing orthodoxy -- for if they do not then they will be less likely to have risen to such a position in the first place. So certain beliefs about the world tend to be perpetuated, not necessarily because of their underlying merits, but because there are influences actively discouraging the expression of views which are at variance with generally accepted beliefs. Since the prevailing common wisdom is both rather bleak and also, it seems to me, profoundly wrong, this surely cannot be desirable.

Secondly it is of benefit to be able to understand underlying philosophical issues in and of its own sake. This has the benefit not only of hopefully obtaining a greater understanding of our underlying beliefs about ourselves and the world and other philosophical issues, it also is helpful in developing our critical thinking skills which can be applied in many other aspects of our lives.

And a final brief word on the benefits of philosophy to science. It was Richard Feynman who is alleged to have said: “Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.” I agree that this will be true for the average scientist, certainly. But the truly great scientist who hopes to revolutionalize the way we view reality, must break out of orthodox ways of thinking and truly understand all the philosophical ramifications of competing revolutionary scientific hypotheses. With that in mind perhaps it might be more accurate to say philosophy of science is about as useful to the average scientist as knowing about how the engine works is to the average car driver. But what if your car keeps breaking down? What if the car accelerates when you hit the brakes? Or turns right when you steer left?

 
Update 26/12/14

I found this link.  The video there can also be found on youtube here.  An excellent video which I'm in entire agreement with.  In the event the links become broken in the future, here is the transcript of the video:

"From a distance, philosophy seems weird, irrelevant, boring — and yet, also, a just a little intriguing. But what are philosophers really for?

The answer is, handily, already contained in the word philosophy itself.

In Ancient Greek, philo means “love” and sophia means “wisdom” — philosophers are people devoted to wisdom. Being wise means attempting to live and die well.

In their pursuit of wisdom, philosophers have developed a very specific skill set — they have, over the centuries, become experts at many of the things that made people not very wise. Five stand out.


1. WE DON’T ASK BIG QUESTIONS

There are lots of big questions: What’s the meaning of life? What’s a job for? How should society be arranged? Most of us entertain them every now and then, but we despair at trying to answer them. They are the status of almost a joke — we call them “pretentious” — but they matter deeply, because only with sound answers to them can we direct our energies meaningfully. They have, over the centuries, asked the very largest. They realize that these questions can always be broken down into more manageable chunks, and that the only really “pretentious” thing is to think one’s above raising naive-sounding inquiries.

 2. WE ARE VULNERABLE TO ERRORS OF COMMON SENSE

Public opinion, or what gets called “common sense,” is sensible and reasonable in countless areas. It’s what you hear about from friends and neighbors — the stuff you take in without even thinking about it. But common sense is often also full of daftness and error. Philosophy gets us to admit all aspects of common sense to reason. It wants us to think for ourselves. Is it really true what people say about love, money, children, travel, work? Philosophers are interested in asking whether an idea is logical, rather than assuming it must be right because it’s popular and long established.

3. WE ARE MENTALLY CONFUSED

We are not very good at knowing what goes on in our own minds. Someone we meet is very annoying but we can’t pin down what the issue is; we lose our temper but we can’t readily tell what we’re so cross about — we lack insights into our own satisfactions and dislikes. That’s why we need to examine our own minds. Philosophy is committed to self-knowledge and its central precept, articulated by the earliest, greatest philosopher Socrates, is just two words long: “Know yourself.” 

4. WE HAVE MUDDLED IDEAS ABOUT WHAT MAKES US HAPPY

We’re not very good at making ourselves happy. We overrate the power of some things to improve our lives and underrate others — we make the wrong choices because, guided by advertising and false glamor, we keep on imagining that a particular kind of holiday or car or computer will make a bigger difference than it can. At the same time, we underestimate the contribution of other things, like going for a walk, which may have little prestige but which can contribute deeply to the character of existence. Philosophers seek to be wise by getting more precise about the activities and attitudes that really can help our lives to go better.

5. WE PANIC AND LOSE PERSPECTIVE Philosophers are good at keeping a sense of what really matters and what doesn’t. On hearing the news that he’d lost all his possessions to a shipwreck, the Stoic philosopher Zeno simple said, “fortune commands me to be a less encumbered philosopher.” It’s responses like these that have made the very term “philosophical” a byword for calm, long-term thinking and strength of mind. In short, for perspective. The wisdom of philosophy is in modern times mostly delivered in the form of books. But, in the past, philosophers sat in market squares and discussed their ideas with shopkeepers or went into government offices and palaces to give advice. It wasn’t abnormal to have a philosopher on your payroll. Philosophy was thought of as a normal, basic activity, rather than as an esoteric, optional extra. Nowadays, it’s not so much that we overtly deny this thought, but we just don’t have the right institutions set up to promulgate wisdom coherently in the world. In the future, though, when the value of philosophy is a little clearer, we can expect to meet more philosophers in daily life. They won’t be locked up, living mainly in university departments — because the points at which our unwisdom bites and messes up our lives are multiple and urgently need attention, right now".