Can modern quantitative science tell us anything about reality?

[SaintLouis]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here–although I have been reading parts of the forums for some time. I am starting this topic because I am currently mentally stuck on the issue of natural science. I am confused about the issue of whether the scientific theories that natural science develops are true or simply instruments for saving the phenomena that may be true. For example, I, as many prominent 20th century philosophers of science have argued, believe that many mathematical explanations can be given for the same set of data and so the particular theory chosen by the scientific community is chosen because it fits their metaphysical notions rather than because the data directly leads to it. Mathematics can lead to a variety of conflicting solutions and only common sense can choose between them. For example the solution of the square root of 16 can be both 4 and -4. In real life we choose number 4 for common sense reasons. So, I am starting to believe that many of the predominant scientific theories today may certainly save the phenomena and have a degree of empirical adequacy but they are not necessarily true because they are one among many possible explanations and because they are often against common sense and the true faith (which both go together because common sense is believing in the true faith). However, I only partially agree with the past few statements-- which is a view called “instrumentalism.” I grant that what I have said in the past few statements is reasonable to some degree but I still believe as did Aristotle and others that we can indeed progress in knowledge of a scientific nature. However, modern science seems to be doing this wrong by calling its hypotheses “facts.” In the scale of order true philosophy and common sense are above the quantitative sciences which are merely called “scientiae mediae” because they are between science and math. Consequently, common sense and practical experiment should always be above mathematical theorizing. Indeed if a quantitative mathematical theory is against common sense and true philosophy then is most likely false simply because true philosophy and theology too have preeminence. Additionally, above the quantitative sciences is true science which should progress by common sense, theology, and practical experiment. This kind of science is what I think of as having the purpose of organizing and understanding the nature of being in the hierarchy of the universe. The muslim Seyyed Hossein Nasr describes this well in his books about Islamic science–which was very close to traditional Scholastic and Aristotelian science. So my final position: the natural sciences can save the phenomena well but they are not necessarily true, they are true only if they are rigorously tested by experiment (and they could still be false in this case because another explanation can come up), agree with theology and common sense. The non qualitative traditional sciences are generally true because they do not tend to make fanciful models based on mathematics and because they pay attention to revealed truth as well as to common sense and practical experiment. Please do not think this is some kind of modernist, positivist view: prominent realist catholic philosophers (and other sane people) have supported it. Consider St Robert Bellarmine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pierre Duhem (a renowned Catholic physicist), Plato, Ptolemy, Rene Guneon (not sure if you consider him respectable because he did hold some strange ideas but anyway he has written an excellent and profound critique of the modern age), Andreas Osiander (not a catholic, but he wrote the preface to Copernicus’s book). What do you all think of this idea about science? I’m not sure if its right because I may be too harsh on the natural sciences–perhaps if rigorously tested they may provide some truth–I’m not sure though–perhaps if a quantitative theory is commonsensical (a rarity) and if it is highly verified it could be true? I’m simply not sure and this issue has been obsessing me. Then again, these general laws of natures seem to me to be rather arbitrary and deterministic, they seem to reduce the full beauty of things to abstract formula and in the process arbitrarily unite different and unique processes. So, even if, modern science is not necessarily contradictory to the faith (as the research of the physicist Wolfgang Smith suggests with his great Thomistic explanation of quantum mechanics ) it would seem that the findings of modern quantitative science are by their very nature ethereal, changing, uncertain, and speculative. So I would have to take a quasi instrumentalist view about the quantitative sciences insofar as they disagree with common sense–I suppose they could be of use if they build on the truth of the metaphysical science through more observation but these quantitative science cannot function by themselves. Any thoughts–keep in mind that I do not have any expertise in these matters but have tried to make sense of the many articles I’ve read and quote’s I’ve heard on this subject. God Bless.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

True mathematics should leads us to true science. False philosophy will lead neither to true mathematics nor to true science.

Einstein found this out when he fudged the math in his theory of relativity because the alternative correct math would have denied the eternity of the universe. He called this the greatest blunder of his career because it stopped him from directly getting credit for the Big Bang theory … credit which went instead to George LeMaitre, a young Catholic priest and mathematician who recognized the error in Einstein’s math. As you say, true science should agree with theology rather than contradict it. LeMaitre showed that the universe was created, which is consistent with Genesis 1.

 

[SaintLouis]

Thank you for the comment, I agree with you that many modern developments in quantitative science seem to be confirming certain aspects of the faith but it seems to me that, because quantitative science is cut off from higher metaphysical truths and common sense by its very method of methodological naturalism, that is it is ethereal, transitory, and constantly changing in paradigm shifts in order to “save the phenomena.” What some hold to be true today may not only be entirely considered false tomorrow but may be replaced entirely. I think that just because science can save the phenomena by a mathematical explanation this does not mean that there could be numerous other possible explanations and even if the particular theory is confirmed in an experiment who is to say that there is another theory that could be equally confirmed by experiment–I feel as if for great magnitudes high and above and long ago we simply cannot be certain and multiple explanations are possible. Consequently, many theories are held to be true but they may turn out to be entirely false–they were only useful for practical developments in technology because they may have to some degree resembled the actual truth–a truth which the methods of quantitative science cannot discover. However, if this is so, it seems that the only way to truly understand things is to start with a metaphysical basis and common sense and then explain things qualitatively to see how they fit at doing their roles in the universe. This approach was followed in the Scholastic, Aristotelian, and Islamic traditions until the scientific revolution took place. It seems that this kind of science, a kind of science where metaphysics precedes speculative quantitative theories and where, if there is a kind of quantitative theory, it is grounded in metaphysics and common sense rather than mathematical speculation, is far more beautiful and able of telling the truth. I am not really sure about this but I do recognize that many modern scientific developments are apparently conciliatory to the faith but, even so, quantitative science in general seems to be ethereal speculation.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Hello everyone, … So, even if, modern science is not necessarily contradictory to the faith (as the research of the physicist Wolfgang Smith suggests with his great Thomistic explanation of quantum mechanics ) it would seem that the findings of modern quantitative science are by their very nature ethereal, changing, uncertain, and speculative. So I would have to take a quasi instrumentalist view about the quantitative sciences insofar as they disagree with common sense–I suppose they could be of use if they build on the truth of the metaphysical science through more observation but these quantitative science cannot function by themselves. Any thoughts–keep in mind that I do not have any expertise in these matters but have tried to make sense of the many articles I’ve read and quote’s I’ve heard on this subject. God Bless.

In my opinion there are levels of truth. There is Divine truth, Philosophical Truth ( St. Thomas et al ), Scientific Truth, and Common Sense Truth. Each is valid when dealing with its own proper objects.

Lnus2nd

 

[SaintLouis]

This is a great point. However, I would like to point out that there is also a hierarchy of truth. Theology and metaphysics are above quantitative science which St Thomas calls a part of mathematics dealing with physical reality. So this is the problem I am struggling with: to what degree is what modern science tells us is true or is it all just speculative mathematics about things which we can never possibly know the true answer with certainty unless thought by God? I seem to have come with a solution based on what the fathers and others have said. I think that because philosophy and metaphysics are above quantitative science, which cannot even deal with the essences of things insofar as it is only focused on measurement, then whenever quantitative science is in disagreement to common sense, true Aristotelian-Platonist metaphysics, and revealed truth it is necessarily in error insofar as quantitative science is necessarily dependent on the higher orders of knowledge and fails in its own arrogance if it is cut off from the truth. So, it seems that most modern scientific theories are simply for “saving the phenomena” rather than providing us with truth and that to look for truth we need to look at metaphysics and revealed truth as well as true qualitative science as described by Aristotle and then use quantitative models only if they agree exactly with the higher levels of knowledge. For example many quantitative scientific theories instead of acting as mathematical tools for the higher sciences do the opposite: they form arbitrary laws which claim to unite phenomena and which instead merely reduce the natural distinctions betwee things unneccesarily-- I say unneccesarily because there could be countless other arbitrary laws connecting other phenomena and there is no one law which is necessary. I particularly like the criticisms of modern science by Rene Guenon and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. I think the physicist Wolfgang Smith is far too much of a realist on scientific matters though. Also, it seems like many church fathers were of a similar opinion. Consider St. Thomas Aquinas: “It is not necessary that the suppositions which they [the astronomers] hit upon to be true. For although these suppositions save the appearances, we are nevertheless not forced to say these suppositions are true, perhaps there is some other way men have not yet discovered by which the appearance of things may be saved concerning the stars.” St Robert Bellarmine when commenting on the heliocentric debate says this: "It is not the same thing to show that the appearances are saved by assuming that the sun really is in the center and the earth in the heavens. " What he means is that just because a theory can explain things better and be of greater practical use does not make it true. Finally (although there are many others) here is Pierre Duhem, a French physicist who in his own time in the early 20th century was considered the world’s greatest authority on thermodynamics (or was it chemical thermodynamics…I don’t remember ) : "What is a physical theory? A group of mathematical propositions whose consequences are to represent the data of experiment; the validity of a theory is measured by the number of experimental laws it represents and by the degree of precision with which it represents them; if two different theories represent the same facts with the same degree of approximation, physical method considers them as having absolutely the same validity; it does not have the right to dictate our choice between these two equivalent theories and is bound to leave us free. No doubt the physicist will choose between these logically equivalent theories, but the motives which will dictate his choice will be considerations of elegance, simplicity, and convenience, and grounds of suitability which are essentially subjective, contingent, and variable with time, with schools, and with persons; as serious as these motives may be in certain cases, they will never be of a nature that necessitates adhering to one of the two theories and rejecting the other, for only the discovery of a fact that would be represented by one of the theories, and not by the other, would result in a forced option.

Thus the law of attraction in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance, proposed by Newton, represents with admirable precision all the heavenly motion we can observe. However, for the inverse square of the distance we could substitute some other function of the distance in an infinity of ways so that some new celestial mechanics represented all our astronomical observations with the same precision as the old one. The principles of experimental method would compel us to attribute exactly the same logical validity to both these different celestial mechanics. This does not mean that astronomers would not keep the Newtonian law of attraction in preference to the new law, but they would keep it on account of the exceptional mathematical properties offered by the inverse square of the distance in favor of the simplicity and elegance that these properties introduced into their calculations. Of course, these motives would be good to follow; yet they would constitute nothing decisive or definitive, and would be of no weight the day when a phenomenon would be discovered which the Newtonian law of attraction would be inept to represent and of which another celestial mechanics would give a satisfactory representation; on that day astronomers would be bound to prefer the new theory to the old one. "