Disarming the Ultimate Historical Challenge to Scientific Realism

The British Journal for the History of Science, 2011

2011

Synthese, 2016

The debate between scientific realists and anti-realist empiricists is often treated as a question about whose position is true, or rationally preferable per se. This debate is widely considered to have been argued to a stalemate. I suggest we accept this stalemate and instead investigate when and whether scientific realism or anti-realist empiricism is more useful, and thereby rationally preferable, for certain individuals. I develop a methodological framework for doing this, then put it to use by investigating the practical benefits for working scientists of adopting one view over the other. This investigation is historical rather than philosophical, and therefore empirical rather than theoretical, focused around a case study of the way philosophical commitments influenced the scientific practice of late 19 th c. electrodynamics researchers in positive and negative ways. Papa, my Nana, my Opa, and especially my Oma, my greatest inspiration. The few virtues I have, I owe to them. My strongest thanks to Anjan Chakravartty for years of candid comments, criticism, and encouragement. It's metaphysically impossible for me to ever thank him enough, but he has my eternal gratitude. My supervisor James Robert Brown deserves special thanks for responding to many of my wilder claims in a manner that was consistently fresh, skeptical, insightful, supportive, and helpful, all at the same time. I'm certain of very few things, but I'm certain that no other supervisor would've been as good for me. Chen-Pang Yeang's influence on me has been diverse and greatly productive. Studying the history of physics with him planted the seeds of this entire work, exposed me to some of the greatest books I've ever read, and imbued me with a love of historiography. What I'll remember most, however, is building a replica of Hertz's spark-gap transmitter/receiver apparatus with him in my backyard, the best edutainment I've ever had. So, thanks to him, for all of that. Thanks as well to Lorraine Code for her writing, thinking, and the directed reading course we did together. I don't address her work here directly, but suffused throughout my project is her insight that subjective factors must be accounted for in our epistemologies. I've internalized that insight so deeply that I now struggle to adequately express its influence on my thinking, other than to simply acknowledge my debt here. Many professional academics gave me varying degrees of help, advice, insight, input, and support over the years:

The Tragic History of Theoretical Physics

This article contains no mathematical concepts, since this article is primarily intended for non-scientists. The reason is that mainstream physicists are not likely to read dissident papers because they are deeply indoctrinated by the relativity dogma. Today theoretical physics is in a bad state as indicated by paradoxes and other absurdities. A critical analysis of special relativity seems to be needed, and this article discusses development of physics over a period of about 140 years.

Harald Lesch, a well-known astrophysicist in Germany, said in an interview that he sees no contradiction between science and faith. My credo is that science begins where you call your faith into question and find new answers to these questions. The following article is written exactly for this purpose. It questions three beliefs of modern physics and finds astonishingly simple answers. The Contradiction Between Modern and Classical Physics Classical physics ended with the introduction of Relativity by Albert Einstein and Quantum mechanics by Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr. What was the merit of these scientists? They incorporated the observer into the experiment and raised the visual result of observation to the subject of physics. This was a revolutionary new step in the history of physics and was enthusiastically received from a part of the scientific community. Do could be explained a series of observed effects. However, they used two different techniques. While Einstein argued that there was no difference between the object and the observer, Heisenberg relied on data compaction without professing statistics. As a result, the desire to combine both different modes of thought under the concept of quantum gravitation was developed. In the further development of physics, however, considerable difficulties arose which led to a split-up of physics into a classical and a so-called modern physics because the conclusions from Relativity and Quantum mechanics were not brought into harmony with classical physics and also Quantum theory and Relativity could not find a common basis. Here offers up my following criticism. Modern physics does not distinguish between reality and the image of reality and attempts to draw conclusions from imagined models and tried to prove them by means of "experiments" which are interpreted in the sense of the conceived. In other words, the will is supposed to dominate reality. In the following, this thesis will be explained by examples. If we take a textbook about physics, we find that we instead hold a textbook of mathematics in hands. It is indisputable that mathematics is an indispensable tool for physics, but it is only a tool. Physics is still primarily an empirical science based on observation, and one must be able clearly to distinguish between observational effects caused by the movement of the observer like the optics on one hand and physical processes, the movement of matter on the other hand. The observation of the three-dimensional nature produces an image in our eyes on a two-dimensional retina. But this image does not penetrate to consciousness. It is filtered by our beliefs and our faith. So what we observe is not even a photographic image, but much less. We only see what we understand. If we make a model of this, it is not the reality, but a reduced distorted image

Essays in Philosophy

Being asked to review a book like this one is somewhat akin to being invited to someone else's family reunion-and then handed the microphone and being asked for your opinion, not only of the event, but of all the various family members to whom you have just been introduced and the patriarch who has made it all possible. This selection of Bunge's work covers a lot of ground-ground carefully selected not only by the editor (and colleague of Bunge), but by Bunge himself, whom we are told has written and revised many of the pieces specifically for this anthology. A total of thirty essays in nine categories are included, on: metaphysics; methodology and philosophy of science; philosophy of mathematics; philosophy of physics; philosophy of psychology; philosophy of social science; philosophy of technology; moral philosophy; and finally social and political philosophy. Published to mark Bunge's 80th birthday, this book provided the opportunity for Bunge to select which of his ideas to highlight for the future generations of scholars and teachers unable or unwilling to plough through the myriad publications of a prolific scholarly career, a selection in which Mahner is obviously complicit. So, like the unfortunate guest at the family reunion, I need to distinguish certain areas for comment, and phrase that commentary very carefully.

viXra, 2016

In this paper, which is author's extended published paper [32], the substance of gravity and inertial forces is debunked. The substance of mass is recovered. The nature of time in physics is revealed. The reality of the double-slit experiment is revealed. This paper shows that Quarks and Higgs boson hardly exist. This paper documents that, for past four hundred years, there is no distinguished physicist who would not have recognized the existence of the ether. It shows that filling the space of the Universe with swirling ether is all that is needed for the self-evolution of the Universe. It further provides an overview of the opposition of the physicists against the mainstream physical image of the world for the past hundred years. And finally, it documents the basic historical, philosophical and physical reasons for denial of the main physical theories of the 20th century.

2004

Being asked to review a book like this one is somewhat akin to being invited to someone else's family reunion-and then handed the microphone and being asked for your opinion, not only of the event, but of all the various family members to whom you have just been introduced and the patriarch who has made it all possible. This selection of Bunge's work covers a lot of ground-ground carefully selected not only by the editor (and colleague of Bunge), but by Bunge himself, whom we are told has written and revised many of the pieces specifically for this anthology. A total of thirty essays in nine categories are included, on: metaphysics; methodology and philosophy of science; philosophy of mathematics; philosophy of physics; philosophy of psychology; philosophy of social science; philosophy of technology; moral philosophy; and finally social and political philosophy. Published to mark Bunge's 80th birthday, this book provided the opportunity for Bunge to select which of his ideas to highlight for the future generations of scholars and teachers unable or unwilling to plough through the myriad publications of a prolific scholarly career, a selection in which Mahner is obviously complicit. So, like the unfortunate guest at the family reunion, I need to distinguish certain areas for comment, and phrase that commentary very carefully.

2003

Fine, and the members of a number of graduate seminars i I have addressed these issues for helpful discussion, suggestions, and comme material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundatio Grant No. SES-0094001. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recomme expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily re views of the National Science Foundation (NSF). 'Two anonymous referees rightly note that I here follow the regrettably practice of characterizing the relevant sorts of success at a painfully vague or level, though I am happy to accept the appealingly commonsensical account success (grounded in the potential for solving practical problems of pr and intervention) offered by Kitcher (in "Real Realism: The Galilean Strate

Revista Ideação, 2021

The purpose of this article is to present the debate established by realistic and anti-realist interpretations in the field of quantum mechanics. On the side of anti-realism, we chose Niels Bohr's interpretation of complementarity given its precursor character, as well as because of the great influence it had on other orthodox interpretations of quantum mechanics. Known as Copenhagen interpretation, its anti realism is characterized, among other things, by conceiving the impossibility of the existence of entities that are not captured by the subject through measuring instruments. On the other hand, realistic interpretations conceive that such entities are real objects, whose existence is independent of the mind. Such interpretations arose in response to the anti realism of entities and were established for representing a counterpoint, as well as a rupture with the Copenhagen monocracy. We will present here as examples of this counterpoint: the EPR paradox, D. Bohm's hidden variables, J. Bell's inequalities and H. Everett's relative states. In general terms, the purpose of this article is not to present the defense of a thesis, nor will we discuss in depth the arguments against the so-called Copenhagen interpretation. We will propose a presentation about the main interpretations that are contrary to the monocracy of the Copenhagen interpretation and we will deal with the developments that affected the fall of that same interpretation.