mburns's Journal: Seven Points on Philosophy of Physics

Special motivation is needed by humans to do science and physics. Ordinary motivation and the usual human organizations are not sufficient for the task. Instead, the storm-the-Bastille intensity inherited by gifted individuals is the natural provision for this necessity. This is naturally provided by selection acting on human tribes, I might mention.

Not only are ordinary individuals and organizations insufficiently motivated, but they are also actively barred from the discipline by the occurrence of the cultural neurosis, as defined by French psychoanalysts. A mother complex is the source of anti-intellectual mysticism. And a father complex is the major source of taboo (whether holy, repugnant or unmentionable), dogma, loyalty testing, censorship, silence and ostracism. Symbols of sphincter psychology also apply. The overuse of vectors by physicists seems to me to be related to the phallic value that is so obvious in them.

The positive principle of science is mathematical realism. A person is not really doing science when they are not striving to to completely vindicate the reality of a mathematical system out there. Metaphor is not science, Professor Lakoff to the contrary. Falsification does not really apply to physics. Falsifiable or inconsistent mathematical systems are not reasonable candidates for physics, as I discuss next.

Another positive point for philosophy of physics is an axiom for which Spinoza and Leibnitz seem to have held a meeting in order to discuss it and come to an agreement. They agree that there is no reasonable possibility of either a cosmic enforcer in favor of any particular set of mathematical systems, nor is there a possibility of a cosmic censor to suppress any mathematical system that is a strong candidate for reality on a priori grounds. A mathematical system which is obviously falsifiable would intrinsically require the services of a cosmic censor and enforcer for existence over against its naturally more workable competition. Note that censorship and enforcement are causal activities, which are not available outside of the context of some classical form of physics. And this principle of possibility necessarily allows for the existence of unresolved contradictions or nonmathematics in the realm of metaphysics. But these are not seen in any classical system of physics, not until there is a physics of symbolism or the like.

Hybrid mathematical systems, or indeed their opposite - undifferentiated combinations, are not successful "competitors" for a priori existence. Elegantly simple logical structure is required in a "competition" for the attention of an observer. Coincidences are rare. No mathematical system is capable of universal metaphysical presence without contradiction, but the simple fare better. The single premise of spacetime is an example - it only depends on the ability of observers to agree on a metric.

Some mathematical systems have theorems of causality and observer lock-in. Observers acting within them might not see instances of nonexistence of the system. They might even have trouble seeing "competing" mathematical systems even when they have compatible effects on the first. Obviously, spacetime has this property of causality and observer lock-in as a theorem.

Godel's proof demands that alternative mathematical systems exist - logically distinct and possibly in disagreement with the spacetime system. But Godel's proof does not impinge at all, in the first instance, on the integrity of spacetime. Nor does it serve as any disproof of mathematics in general. After all spacetime is not, in the first instance, a symbolically self-referential system.

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Michael J. Burns