Submitted by ADefiniteDescription t3_xyumwc in philosophy
Devout--Atheist t1_irjjn2g wrote
I don't come to this sub much but the overly dismissive comments here are really bizarre.
Scientists won a Nobel prize literally just this year for experimentally proving spooky action at a distance.
ngroot t1_irk0s2y wrote
I at least hate articles like this because they get latched onto by people who know nothing about physics and then spun into quantum woo to pitch to the gullible (e.g. Deepak Chopra).
Action at a distance is "spooky" because the measurement of a property of one thing affects the likelihood of measurement results on another thing even outside of its light cone. It can't actually send information, though.
Bohr and Einstein weren't arguing about whether the universe exists when you don't look at it, despite how this article makes it sound.
This mostly boils down to "there are no hidden local variables" which /is/ deeply unintuitive, but it doesn't let you make water into weird shapes by being angry or any woo-woo shit.
JoTheRenunciant t1_irjm4is wrote
It's a genuinely interesting phenomenon, and I've wondered about it for a while. Every time I see any type of post that mentions physics in any capacity on this sub, I almost inevitably see a bunch of short comments saying things like "bullshit," "_____ Deepak Chopra ____," etc. My take is that there's either:
- Some type of ego stroking or defense going on ("I have a STEM degree, this person only has a philosophy degree, thus I can feel good about myself by demonstrating how much more knowledgeable I am than them.").
- A fear of an unknown reality that stokes strong feelings against anything that could fundamentally change our view of reality. Sort of like the driver behind conspiratorial thinking.
- People that are so anti-religion that they'll decry anything that has even remotely mystical undertones or could in some way lend itself to a mystical interpretation, even if that interpretation is ultimately based in physicalism.
- Simply being unable to understand the material.
I say this not to rag on anyone here but because it's a genuinely interesting and important social phenomenon. This is essentially the same mechanism that Thomas Kuhn wrote about in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions — when new science comes out, people think of it as nonsense because it goes against the current paradigm. Of course, some things that go against the current paradigm are nonsense. But when you extrapolate the comments here to an academic setting, it kind of serves as an interesting example of the broader social mechanisms that can hinder fruitful discussion and progress.
EDIT: Reading through more comments, I think 3 is the most likely cause. People don't take articles like this at face value because it's possible to use them for woo, so they're preemptively shot down. That ends up meaning that anything that isn't a blatantly pro-physicalism argument gets these types of comments because anything else leaves room for other possibilities and can be used to support woo.
Devout--Atheist t1_irjp3qa wrote
>1. Some type of ego stroking or defense going on ("I have a STEM degree, this person only has a philosophy degree
Did you mean the reverse? Any physics major with quantum mechanics coursework should be well aware of entanglement, it's arguably the most important feature.
JoTheRenunciant t1_irjqinv wrote
I mean that even if they're aware of something, they'll find some way to say that the other person is wrong about it, which can end up making them wrong about basic things. Take the top comment about the speed of light being "wrong" as an example: the author said "around 300," meaning it's rounded, and rounding 299 to 300 is correct rounding, yet people say he's wrong, which ironically makes them wrong.
It doesn't necessarily have to be connected with a philosophy degree, but I think philosophy is an easy target since it talks about scientific fields, and it's especially easy to say "ha! This is all wrong — such an inaccurate philosopher's take!"
EDIT: Just saw that the commenter I referenced said it was just a simple mistake, so this wasn't a great example.
bildramer t1_irnuucr wrote
I, as one of those people, think it's that others often misunderstand the balance of evidence. Most often it's not "A, but it could be B, let's discuss" - it's "A, and unless multiple miracles in a row have happened everywhere every millisecond to explain why in all of human history we've seen A when B was actually the case, B is excluded". Or sometimes it's "A and B are both different wordings describing the exact same predictions". Laymen confuse things so much it's often difficult to determine which one it is. That's all once you have discussed things a bit and clarified - to begin with, most of the time it's just "A and B are both fanciful ideas journalists made up and actual professional philosophers somehow confused for real physics". It gets annoying.
In this case, regarding "spooky action at a distance" etc.: nothing about it is new science, nothing is "interesting" (something you'd see in the frontiers), nothing is controversial or unexplained or even hard to communicate - it's all undergrad stuff taught to undergrads for over half a century now. Anyone with actual knowledge is not eager to demonstrate having it, they're just sick of it by now.
JoTheRenunciant t1_isd1ao2 wrote
>nothing is "interesting" (something you'd see in the frontiers)
Sure, but this is philosophy, not physics. Judging philosophy that is looking for new interpretations of physics by the standards of physics itself is missing the point.
>nothing is controversial
There's controversy regarding even more "basic" features of reality, like whether a chair that's disassembled and put back together is the same chair.
What it really sounds like to me is that you just don't like philosophy. Philosophy is largely about taking "common knowledge" and trying to find new ways to look at it. In other words, to create controversy and interest when there normally wouldn't be any.
So, yes, in that mode of thinking, I completely agree. There may very well be nothing interesting or controversial about any of this in the realm of physics itself, just like there isn't anything interesting or controversial about chairs within the realm of general, practical thinking. But the point of philosophy is to challenge those modes of thinking, and it very much sounds to me like the issue you have is with that process itself.
I think, to some extent, this wraps around to this point:
>most of the time it's just "A and B are both fanciful ideas journalists made up and actual professional philosophers somehow confused for real physics". It gets annoying.
I can't speak to this without knowing a specific example, but it's quite possible that in these circumstances the physicists and philosophers are simply talking past each other. They're two different fields with some things in common, and that means that physicists can sometimes disagree with a philosopher and call them wrong simply because they're talking about it in a different way. Physicists do disagree amongst themselves, so saying that someone got the physics wrong because they're an ignorant philosopher instead of a physicist is a particularly convenient way of dismissing a conflicting view that isn't available when debating with another physicist. I personally have had discussions where a non-philosopher said that one thing isn't real physics, it's just a misunderstanding by philosophers...only for me to find that the idea in question was actually a physicist's interpretation, not a philosopher's.
But ultimately, I see this attitude even when none of your points apply. Someone simply says "consciousness" or "quantum" and people will storm in saying it's BS.
DarkSkyKnight t1_irkncx6 wrote
I think true incommensurability is in practice a milder factor (not that it isn't important) than what may be implied by the examples in Kuhn or found in other examples like Boyle and Hobbes. IMO it isn't simply a difference in world view. Often there are real economic concerns that lead to disagreements or outright hostility. A massive scientific revolution doesn't just demand a change in worldview but also has the potential of sinking your years of training and requiring you to train for years to get up to speed once again. It might even cost you your career. There's also the sheer laziness factor in that it's convenient to stick to the paradigm that everyone is familiar with.
I have found that many scientists actually understand different worldviews and see where others are coming from. But it's usually more convenient to stick to the paradigm. Also this sub isn't indicative of what scientists think.
JoTheRenunciant t1_irkztef wrote
Yeah, I kind of tacked that part about Thomas Kuhn on without going deep enough into it, but I agree. In the cases we're talking about on this sub, there isn't even any incommensurability at all, and there's still polemic. It seems that when something hints at potential future incommensurability, people react strongly, and that's probably to protect those economic factors and the ego as well.
>Also this sub isn't indicative of what scientists think.
Definitely, I just meant that you can start to see the seeds of it. But I have seen far too many scientists that ultimately try to push away anything that doesn't fit their current model by saying it's BS, doesn't fit with common sense, etc. The strange thing is that some of these points can very well fit in with the current paradigm, it's just that they aren't explicitly contained within it, but somehow that's enough to trigger these sorts of responses.
paraffin t1_irk72x3 wrote
IMO it’s mostly because the article doesn’t explain anything to anyone. It’s devoid of any informative content, as far as I can tell, that would teach a layman something they didn’t already know, or convince an expert to change their mind on anything.
TMax01 t1_irmszxd wrote
Proving and explaining are only the same thing in a paper or a laboratory; the real world we live in and philosophize about is much more complicated than the scientific field of physics. In this way, the discussion here is very much a microcosm of the issue being discussed, and it is worth noting that your comment is, in a very real way you might not have been aware of when you wrote it, "overly dismissive". 😉
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
Devout--Atheist t1_irnrd4l wrote
Well, when I first posted the top comment was inaccurately claiming that the speed of light in the article is wrong. The other top comment was a one sentence dismissal that clearly didn't even read the article, and it has since been removed for this reason.
So yes, I do think my initial assessment was accurate. And no, your comment isn't helpful, simply pointing out an overly dismissive comment is, in fact, overly dismissive, is not in itself being overly dismissive. Some people simply don't want to contribute meaningfully to the discussion, or are flat out dishonest, and there's nothing dismissive about pointing that out.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments