Transcript Quirks, Quarks and other Quantaconfabulations!

Revisioning of Science
My Main Thesis...
• Despite the apparent “excess” of some
postmodernist positions vis a vis faith and
knowledge, it helps us see that the modernist
programme is not an option for Christians (or
other theists). Modern Science appears to fit
naturally within the modernist framework
only to the extent that it is articulated within a
scientific-materialist world view by some
groups of scientists.
Quick Overview...
• Galileo and Newton: end of the Medieval and the
birth of Modernity
• The unfortunate settlement between Theology and
Newton and the rise of a-theism
• Cracks in the Foundations - scientific and social
upheavals
• Quantum “madness” - strange but true!
• Parting of Ways - where modernity leads us and why
we can’t go there
• Science in a post-modern era
Galileo and the Mathematization of WorldView
Philosophy [nature] is written in that
great book which ever lies open
before our eyes - I mean the universe
- but we cannot understand it if we do
not first learn the language and grasp
the symbols in which it is written.
The book is written in the
mathematical language, and the
symbols are triangles, circles and
other geometric figures, without
whose help it is impossible to
comprehend a single word of it;
without which one wanders in vain
through a dark labyrinth.
(Galileo Galilei, Letter to Dowager Duchess Christina)
By What Standard do we Find
Truth?
• Rediscovery of Greek
thought
• turmoil of
Reformation/CounterReformation
• Introduction of new sets
of questions and
categories
Newton...
Nature and Nature's Laws
lay hid in night:
God said: "Let Newton be!
and all was light.
What Does Newton’s World
Look Like?
• The world METAPHOR changes
during the time of Newton
• Kingdom gives way to Clock!
• Theologians (“pulpeteers”) latch on to
Newton
• Newton ushers in an era of
unprecedented mathematical precision
as a way to describe nature
Newton’s successors and a
radically changing vision...
theism
deism
atheism
Cracks in the
Foundations
• Success after success (Dalton, Darwin,
Maxwell, etc) but…
• 3-body problem
• two “dark clouds”
The Great Heresy!
• A wave “is a particle”
• A particle “is a wave”
a fundamental blurring of the universe
Some Questions ...
• QM - regardless of the interpretation that you
choose - radically alters our conception of
what "physical reality" entails. If you adopt
the stance that Theology also speaks about
reality (including the physical) does QM pose
any challenges for Theology?
• if the world is indeterministic (or has that built in at
some level) does this constrain "god" - does this
"push" in the direction of Process Theology?
The Necessary Parting of Ways...
• The modernist world view and science
founded in this view leads to bleak
prospects for humans!
• We strive for an objectivity that
ultimately must exclude us!
• This ultimately leads to a skewed sense
of value and meaning...
Quotables ...
“We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly
programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as
genes.”
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
“I think ... that faith is one of the world’s great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.
Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the
principal vice of any religion.”
Richard Dawkins, Humanist in Canada, Winter 1999
“Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s
unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by
chance”
Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity
Worldviews in Collision
“Science and Religion are diametrically opposed at
their deepest philosophical levels. And because
the two worldviews make claims to the same
intellectual territory - that of the origin of the
universe and humankind’s relationship to it conflict is inevitable”
The Humanist, (May-June, 1986),. 26.
Scientific Materialism
• science is the only reliable path to objective,
timeless, value-neutral knowledge
• matter and energy are the fundamental
entities of the universe.
Science in a Postmodern Age
• Science, appropriately bracketed, is a
powerful means to a type of knowledge
about the physical world
• Science needs to acknowledge other ways
of knowing and it must understand its own
meta-narrative(s) or that it is rooted in a
meta-narrative(s)
• The notion of truth itself must be broadened
Living in a World Without Certainty
•
•
•
How can I know that the findings of science are true? How can I know that my
belief in Christ is true and not a delusion? How can I know that Christ is who he
claims to be? How can ....
It would seem to heresy for me to say to you that I am not certain at least that
God is the one true God, that Christ is the Word made Flesh and so on. In order
to be a Christian (or a Moslem, Jew, ...) surely some of this must be known with
certainty!
I must be certain that the earth goes around the sun, the the basic theory of
stellar evolution is true, that U Cep is really eclipsing and the data that I get is
reliable. How could I doubt this and call myself an astronomer?
To all of the above I would answer that I hold those statements to be true!
But my truth claim does not imply indubitability. I would go on to
maintain that no knowledge can be held without admitting that I could
be wrong.
Why would we accept Descartes conception of knowledge? Is it possible to
know anything (aside perhaps your existence) indubitably? Augustine
anticipated this problem and replied "I believe in order to know". The
way out of the downward spiral into nihilism is, I think, to radically
reshape our understanding of knowledge itself.
Two Influential Books...
Personal Knowledge
Michael Polanyi was a Hungarian born chemist who, in mid life, left chemistry
to become a philosopher. His greatest book Personal Knowledge (1958) is an
attempt to refashion our understanding of what it means to know.
Polanyi began with a number of central understandings of science as it is lived
and practiced.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Science is always done within a tradition. One learns science especially a practitioner of science - through a process essentially
the same as apprenticeship into that science.
Scientists "indwell" the tradition in which they operate. They operate
from within a matrix or web of theories, questions, conjectures etc.
that focus and direct their thinking.
We know bodily. The mind/body dualism is false. We cannot know
independent of ourselves in some abstracted way. Knowing is not a
passive act.
To know something is to assert that that thing is true and this always
entails risk - the risk that we may be wrong.
There is always a tacit dimension to our knowing. We cannot
exhaustively unpack all that we know and in many cases we know
far more than we think we know.
So nothing really is "true" then? ...
Wrong! Polanyi would (and I agree) say that a statement in science can be considered true
providing:
1. the claim is made with universal intent - it is not true only for me but I state it as
though I expect it to be true for you as well. This entails that I acquire the skills
and understandings of my craft and that I operate with integrity. I must sincerely
- passionately - believe that which I assert.
2. the claim has an "appeal" to rationality. Polanyi's critical realist understanding
comes through here. In doing science we make contact with reality. Our act of
indwelling and the tacit dimension of our knowing convict us of the truthfulness
of our claim. Further, this claim must be fruitful, leading to as yet unknown
understandings.
Together, these characterize that which Polanyi labeled "personal knowledge". Gone is radical
objective/subjective split and the idea of the dispassionate knower.
•
•
Let me try to illustrate this with a few examples that Polanyi used from science:
The Copernican Revolution
Michelson Morely Experiment
Challenges ...
• Facing the relativist claim that science is
just a social construction
• Re-visioning of science in the absence of
timeless, absolute truth claims
• Recognising the necessity (and
unavailability) of making meta-scientific
claims
Some Examples... Theories of origins
(cosmological, biological, sociological)
...
– what parts point toward a world that is not
solely a social constuct?
– what parts are bound-up in one’s own sets
of stories?
Theories of structure (cosmological,
biological, sociological)
– what parts point toward a world that is not
solely a social construct?
– what parts are bound-up in one’s own sets
of stories?
Theories of application
(cosmological, biological,
sociological)
– what parts point toward a world that is not
solely a social construct?
– what parts are bound-up in one’s own sets
of stories?
Science within the JudeoChristian Narrative
• Conveys deep truths about the cosmos and
humanity…
• Sees truth in a multi-faceted way and
fundamentally understands truth in a
relational sense
• Despite our seeming insignificance we
nonetheless bear the imprint of the DIVINE
• We have significance through our
relationship with the God of the Cosmos