Science and Certainty

So, we’re back in the warm and cosy arms of Winchester University, having somehow survived the workload, feeling brave and ready to face the pressure of second year. It just got serious. We’re now working on WINOL…well not quite yet, but we know what our roles are and it won’t be long before we take off our training wheels and try our hand at being serious journalists.

What better way to kick start the second year than with a healthy dose of HCJ? You can’t deny it, everyone has been missing their weekly confusion of philosophy. So, here it goes…

Science and Certainty
Science is the search for truth.

Kant would argue that the universe is ultimately unknowable. Kant and many other modern theoretical physicists hold the view that the cosmos (the universe as a whole) is more like a computer game where the objects, landscape, space and time are created in consciousness and then fade away again. First into the distance where you can still see them, and then they disappear completely. The objects in themselves “noumena” are still there and are unchanging, it is our perception of the objects “phenomena” which changes. What you are looking at will alter depending on your point of view. A simple example of this is the fact that things look smaller when they are far away but, as the majority of people acknowledge, the object has in fact not changed size. Schopenhauer agreed with Kant in the sense that he noted the difference between noumena and phenomena. However Schopenhauer believed there was only one universal noumena: the “will of the universe” as a thing in itself.

From Kant Schopenhauer and Nietzsche we inherit the idea that existence is not a predicate of any possible objects as nothing “causes” existence. Existence is a necessary precondition of our perception and consciousness. This is regarded as one of the big breakthroughs of the scientific revolution but it remained submerged during the 19^th century by the empiricists, derived from Aristotle. It wasn’t until the 20^th century when Einstein’s revolution in physics awakened the West from the ideas of Aristotle, and Newton’s “clockwork universe” (universal laws of causation, Newton believed the world was ordered and knowable).  Einstein’s theory of relativity lead to an increase in doubt and uncertainty in what were regarded as the most reliable principles of scientific experimentation.  There was an explosion in technological innovation as people were beginning to work on the basis that we know virtually nothing, but humanity has the ability to strive to know more.  

Logic – Deduction VS Induction
Deduction :
All swans are white
This is a swan
Therefore it is white

If your axiom (all swans are white) is wrong then your argument will fail. This is an example of a flawed deductive argument as in fact not all swans are white, there are black swans too. An example of an axiomatic truth is “cogito ergo sum” I think therefore I am.

Newton’s law of motion describes motion as being from one point to another, but then this raises the question, can there be any motion if there are infinite distances? Newton was regarded as objective fact for over 200 years. The laws of motion were seen as true independent of perception, and were said to be read off nature like a mirror.   

In Einstein’s theory of relativity he abandons the idea that the universe has a time. Time is a mental phenomena and is a part of our perception. According to Einstein’s experiments there are different types of time and this has been confirmed by space travel. For example, time elapses at different rates not only in different theoretical points in the universe (such as black holes), but also in empirically observable points such as at the top of a tall building or during space travel. This means that astronauts are hours younger than they should be because time is going slower.

In Wittgenstein’s “The Tractatus” he stated the “world consists of facts”, there is no objective truth only language games. Even logic itself is regarded as a language game. The Verification Principle argues that the truth of any proposition is the way in which you verify it. If a proposition cannot be verified then it is neither true nor false it is merely vocalisation, like the quacking of a duck. However Karl Popper later constructed the argument that the Verification Principle itself cannot be verified therefore the core of the principle is flawed. The Falsification Principle goes on to argue that something isn’t true unless it can be both verified and falsified.