Steven Hawking vs. Ludwig Wittgenstein

[Cypress]

Steven Hawking - the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing according to the laws of physics, rendering the need for any deity or religion utterly meaningless.

Ludwig Wittgenstein - science does not try to know the ultimate underlying entities which cause observable phenomena, but merely creates mathematical models for predicting observable phenomena. Religion is irrational, but not ultimately meaningless.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.liv...ys-no-god.html

Legions of biologists have invested enormous effort describing the functions of DNA, RNA, ribosomes, proteins in cellular biology. It is very mechanistic.

But there are never any clear answers, no underlying first principles, on how this infinitely complex, choreographed dance came to be manifested and organized in cellular life.

My two cents: Biology is just so much more complex than physics, that the life sciences cannot really work out underlying, first principles. They have their work cut out just describing how things work at a mechanistic level

[Cypress]

Steven Hawking - the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing according to the laws of physics, rendering the need for any deity or religion utterly meaningless.

Ludwig Wittgenstein - science does not try to know the ultimate underlying entities which cause observable phenomena, but merely creates mathematical models for predicting observable phenomena. Religion is irrational, but not ultimately meaningless.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.liv...ys-no-god.html

I think Hawking comes at it from the perspective of scientific realism; that scientific theories can and do offer an accurate approximation or reality, both observable and non-observsble.


I do not think the vast majority of scientists dwell on the metaphysics behind the assumptions they are employing, except perhaps among the elite theoretical physicists of the world.

[BidenPresident]

6.371
The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the
explanations of natural phenomena.

6.372

Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating
them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were
treated in past ages.
And in fact both are right and both wrong: though
the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a
clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern
system tries to make it look as if everything were
explained.

https://danielwharris.com/teaching/3...nTractatus.pdf

[Cypress]

6.371
The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the
explanations of natural phenomena.

6.372

Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating
them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were
treated in past ages.
And in fact both are right and both wrong: though
the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a
clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern
system tries to make it look as if everything were
explained.

https://danielwharris.com/teaching/3...nTractatus.pdf

When science and natural philosophy made the transition from Aristotle to Newton, any consideration of teleology was stripped out and it was reduced to a mechanistic consideration of cause and effect.

Not saying that is either good or bad, but I don't think many people think about this limitation.

[BidenPresident]

When science and natural philosophy made the transition from Aristotle to Newton, any consideration of teleology was stripped out and it was reduced to a mechanistic consideration of cause and effect.

Not saying that is either good or bad, but I don't think many people think about this limitation.

Wittgenstein thinks about it. One of the leading figures of analytic philosophy.

[Cypress]

Wittgenstein thinks about it. One of the leading figures of analytic philosophy.

That's why I appreciate his insights here.

[BidenPresident]

That's why I appreciate his insights here.

Very good. Wittgenstein is one of my favorite philosophers. Ironically, considered a founder of positivism who was critical of worshipping science.

[Cypress]

Very good. Wittgenstein is one of my favorite philosophers. Ironically, considered a founder of positivism who was critical of worshipping science.

I think kind of a myth has grown up around science, because of it's extraordinary success in improving technology, and the undeniable effectiveness of the inductive approach to acquiring knowledge.

The myth that germinated from this success is that the scientific method can, does, or will, ultimately empirically explain everything about reality and the human experience.

[BidenPresident]

I think kind of a myth has grown up around science, because of it's extraordinary success in improving technology, and the undeniable effectiveness of the inductive approach to acquiring knowledge.

The myth that germinated from this success is that the scientific method can, does, or will, ultimately empirically explain everything about reality and the human experience.

Wittgenstein said somewhere, that even if science answers all of its questions we still have learned nothing about human experience.

[BidenPresident]

I think kind of a myth has grown up around science, because of it's extraordinary success in improving technology, and the undeniable effectiveness of the inductive approach to acquiring knowledge.

The myth that germinated from this success is that the scientific method can, does, or will, ultimately empirically explain everything about reality and the human experience.

6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been
answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.

https://archive.org/stream/tractatus...ut/tloph10.txt