Friday, July 12, 2013

Can I, a non-scientist, be justified in rejecting a scientific theory that has a strong majority support?

Some physicists, like Lawrence Krauss, make sweeping claims about how we cannot trust the laws of logic.  What folks like Krauss have in mind are paradoxes, such as Schrodinger's Cat.  It should be noted, first of all, that only the law of excluded middle (that p is either true or false) is called into question, and this is only done at the quantum level.  The law of excluded middle, along with the rest of the laws of logic, would still have to be trustworthy on the macro level.  Otherwise, anything Krauss claims can be dismissed on non-logical grounds.

However, let's dig into this a bit deeper.  The law of excluded middle is only called into question within the domain of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.  Assuming the law of excluded middle truly is incompatible with this interpretation, which the majority of physicists accept for the time being, should the philosopher simply concede that the law of excluded middle is inapplicable on the quantum level?  I suggest that the philosopher ought to give himself more credit and not view himself as inferior to the physicist.  If any scientific theory, or interpretation of that theory, undermines any of the laws of logic, including the law of excluded middle, maybe it's time for scientists to abandon that theory or interpretation.  The argument may be summarized as follows:

1. The law of excluded middle is inconsistent with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. (Premise)

2. One should not adopt inconsistent positions. (Premise)

3. Therefore, one should either abandon the law of excluded middle or the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. (From 1 and 2)

Given the overwhelming support in favor of the law of excluded middle, it seems to me that if there is any inconsistency, then the Copenhagen interpretation ought to be abandoned.  I don't think I'm any more out of line rejecting some scientific theory than a scientist is by making the absurd claim that philosophy is useless.  After all, science presupposes various philosophical concepts: the laws of logic and mathematics, the principle of induction, and the uniformity of nature.  These concepts are not observed by the scientist, but are presupposed by the scientist in order to allow his observations to be intelligible.

5 comments:

  1. I'm curious to know what you think the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics is, then. It seems the only alternatives are the many-worlds interpretation (which is unmeasurably offensive to parsimony) and a deterministic "hidden variables" interpretation (which, to my understanding, is incredibly unlikely to be true considering what we currently know).

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  2. Since I'm not a physicist, my opinion won't be worth much. There's the deterministic interpretation of David Bohm, but I don't know enough about it beyond some very elementary things. However, what's important here is that the philosopher doesn't have to provide the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics in order to justifiably say that another is incorrect or otherwise undermined. It would be a lot like if some scientific theory required that 2+2=5. I think we would be justified in rejecting that theory even if we don't know which one is correct.

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  3. Okay, that makes sense then.

    Personally, I see no contradiction in the Copenhagen interpretation: I think what's happening is that the "cat is both alive and dead at the same time" scenario is being misdescribed in such a way that it appears to be a contradiction but in reality is not. I think that if we think of it as there being no fact of the matter regarding the status of the cat (ignoring for the moment the fact that the cat presumably has its own point of view) until a conscious observer decides to look, the contradiction disappears.

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  4. Put it this way -- "Can I, a non-scientist, be justified in *accepting* a scientific theory that has a strong majority support?"

    If you have no right to the former, how do you have the right to the later?

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  5. ingx24, you're probably right about that. I just think if we assume for the sake of argument that we have to choose between any scientific theory and the laws of logic, then we should choose the laws of logic. I've only studied Schrodinger's Cat is some detail, and it may be the case that those physicists who think it contradicts the law of excluded middle are mistaken.

    Ilion, that's a good point. Our mental assent to scientific consensus should not be a one-way street.

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