Edward A. Remler

Department of Physics

The College of William and Mary

Williamsburg VA 23185

August 2003

Physics constructs the foundations of reality and truth for the physical sciences. In doing so, it serves as a uniquely sharp and deep probe of the meaning and limits of knowledge. Understanding how it goes about this should be a basic part of a liberal education, and it should be taught by physicists.

Although reality and truth are problematic concepts in philosophy, they are not so in physics. Physicists operate with relatively clear and simple, albeit implicit, criteria for deciding what is real and true in physics (and thus in all other physical sciences). In large part this is because they study simple systems, and because they can exercise almost complete experimental control over them. In contrast, the social and biological sciences deal with complex systems that are far less experimentally controllable. As a result, interpretations of experiments in the latter sciences often pose serious questions of epistemology, a topic that physicists rarely discuss.

Physicists discuss ontology even less. This is because what exists, according to physics (which I call physical reality) is determined for them by their theories in a manner that is contrary to philosophic or reasonable expectations. In short, they have been taught some subtle lessons about how philosophical prejudices can interfere with the progress of physics--lessons that had to be multiply administered. Thus, for example, Galileo, Newton, Poincare, and Einstein, over a period of three centuries, had to address the prejudices of various physicists as well as philosophers. Now, finally, probably due to the metaphysical shock administered by quantum mechanics, the message seems to have been fully received by the physics community.

It has not been elsewhere--neither by the educated public nor by the philosophic community (as 'post-modern' attacks on physics have demonstrated). But it should be: it is important that the criteria physics, and by extension, all the sciences, use to determine reality and truth, the ontological and epistemological bases of modern science, become widely understood. Major reasons will be briefly noted and then discussed more fully subsequently. They point to a new and greatly expanded role for physics in a liberal education.

The study of criteria determining reality and truth in physics can be compared to that of Euclidian Geometry, which, since its formulation over two millennia ago, has served as a model of logic for generations of students. Physics now also provides a model, a set of related criteria for judging reality and truth that, like that of geometry, also has wide significance. For just as the study of the formal logic of geometry has been basic training for the informal logic of everyday life, so also can physics' criteria of reality and truth inform one's judgement in such matters beyond science. Reality and truth in science may not be directly applicable to matters of morality, spirituality, art, and so on, but neither is existence so fragmented that they can be irrelevant to them.

Such study can also inform and rationalize belief in science, which now, most often, stems solely and narrowly from the success of scientific technology. But does this success necessitate belief in physical theory? Although technology is based on theory, the latter is far removed from most applications, and is based on far-reaching, counter-intuitive assumptions the most important of which are, that the natural world can be represented solely in the language of mathematics, and that that representation evolves autonomously in time.

If these assumptions and theories are unique in that they are the only rational way we have of explaining scientific technology, and thus, if scientific technology's success plus rationality does necessitate their acceptance, then a dichotomy apparently arises: either humans are natural systems completely obedient to physical law, in which case widely held concepts of soul and free-will are untenable, or, humans are supernatural beings.

The dichotomy is very difficult for those who claim to possess free will, rationality, and freedom from (supernatural) 'superstition'. Most of them escape by being simply unaware of, or ignoring it; others, by postulating that soul and/or free-will are naturally 'emergent' qualities; yet others eliminate the problem by redefining free-will at the cost of gutting its meaning.

History suggests and analysis verifies, that although it is possible to argue plausibly, it is actually impossible to argue definitively for or against the existence of the soul and free-will. Physics need and should not involve itself in such philosophical speculations, but can and should show how its criteria of reality and truth relate to them. Understanding this relationship is critical to an enlightened attitude towards science. For example, biological evolution is a necessary consequence of the autonomous evolution of all physical systems, except if biological systems have eternal souls and/or free-will. So on what basis is the autonomous evolution of physical systems deemed 'true' by physicists?

Because autonomous evolution 'works'? Physicists often justify the truth of their theories by simply pointing out that "they work". Not good enough; witch-doctors justify their theories in the same way, and they theorize that their herbal and psychological cures work through the help of spirits. Of course herbal action can also be explained by western science. Is not one's choice of explanation is just a matter of taste? That is the meaning of the Sophist's "Man is the measure of all things". Similarly, physics has developed many theories, and if one is 'more beautiful' than another, is that not just a matter of taste?

Many philosophers feel that having many theories is a good thing too because it advances human freedom. Thus, the very popular Paul Feyerabend proclaimed that in theory "anything goes": any theory should go--should be acceptable however it goes about explaining what works. Thus I have encountered students, fresh from anthropology class, proclaiming that the magic rituals used during boat building in the South Pacific "is good science" because, in fact, the builders build good boats.