Brilliant as it is, Richard Feynman's limits are on full display near the end of this segment. After reeling off long passages of philosophy, on the basis of his own misunderstanding of C.P. Snow's "two cultures" theory, essentially a critique of the British educational system, he dissed philosophers as math-deficient ignoramuses. Apparently Feynman never bothered to notice that a number of the most eminent mathematicians of his day and, perhaps more so, the preceding generation, were also eminent philosophers as were a number of the most accomplished physical scientists. Not to mention a number of philosophers had been and still, to some extent are, quite conversant with, not only mathematics, but, also, physics. Once you introduce the word "philosophy" into the discussion, Feynman was quite able to act like an ignorant yahoo.
That said, notice that he expresses, rather brilliantly, the same idea that George Ellis did, that the relationship between mathematics and the physical world is, essentially, a total mystery. He, like Ellis, has the faith that mathematics is an expression of the deep structure of the universe, but the actual relationship remains unknown. He goes so far, as a physicist, as to speculate that eventually physics will get to a direct description of the actual physical basis of the universe without resort to mathematics, but that's, as he says, his preferred belief.
I think his point that comprehensively describing even the tiniest area of space-time would require a, literally, infinite number of calculations (done by a machine, since no person could do that) has other implications than his preferred one that the truly deep structure would rest on a description of physics. One, of course, is that mathematics is a human activity and as subtle as it is, it cannot comprehensively grasp even the tiniest object or spec of space-time. But physics is no less a human activity and to think it will have more of an ability to comprehend what mathematics can't is likely no more rational than the belief of mathematicians at the start of the 20th century that they might be able to come up with a complete system based solidly on logic. I'd think that there is probably less reason to believe that about physics than math.
Of course, the very problem he posed in that regard impeaches the idea that the deep structure of the universe is, at a foundational level, expressible in any mathematics that human beings will ever know. It could be that mathematics says as much about our minds as it does about the universe that we use both to see. Both our minds and our mathematics.
"Apparently Feynman never bothered to notice that a number of the most eminent mathematicians of his day and, perhaps more so, the preceding generation, were also eminent philosophers as were a number of the most accomplished physical scientists. "
ReplyDeleteBertrand Russell. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Alfred North Whitehead. Just to name three. There are many others in the Anglo-American school, too many to count. And then there were all the great German physicists associated with quantum mechanics, all very well versed in philosophy.
Feynman betrays his American education, where philosophy is an academic exercise confined to highly specialized humanities students who are considered useless geeks even by the humanities dept., much less by the science schools (where, as we know, the only real knowledge is conveyed, all other knowledge being puerile and useless).
Feh. Ignorance is bliss, because you never see how much you don't really know.
As for physics solving all the mysteries of the universe, they stole that goal away from Christianity (which never should have had it, and even then it was actually just a pursuit of power, not of God) and pursue it only to replace what they think religion once controlled (another error, but I digress). And still, just like the religious natural philosophers who insisted the world worked by God's design (or Aristotle's; same difference), they continue to look for answers under the streetlamp, because the light is so much better there.
Where the keys are, or if there even are keys, is just an unfounded assumption. Oh, don't get me started. People who dismiss philosophy so idly are as credible to me as people who dismiss quantum mechanics because they don't understand it.