Raymond Tallis - How Does Philosophy Illuminate the Physical World?

We think we understand the physical world but we do not. For example, some features of the world are derived from others, which makes the latter more fundamental and the former less so. Some scientists believe that only science can tell us how things work. Philosophers do not agree. Do philosophers see things that scientists cannot?



Raymond C. Tallis is a a retired physician and neuroscientist from Great Britain. His resume boasts titles like philosopher, poet and novelist. He is also a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal College of Physicians and Royal Society of Arts.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[charlesvandenburgh]

I rarely hear Lawrence stumble and get caught off guard, but he did and was in this interview.

[wayneasiam]

Great interview. Thanks! Scientists are somewhat stuck in chasing reductionism, and Philosophers are somewhat bound to an overall pessimistic deeper understanding. And there's room for both to advance in their respective fields.

[davidmangus]

Maybe the guest should read about Donald Hoffman's theory about evolutionary biology selecting for compressed perceptions that can deviate from reality, implying we most definitely do not perceive reality but rather just an inaccurate (yet highly useful) representation.

[theophilus]

Bravissimo my dear Tallis, bravissimo! In any case, a physicist has to believe in a world of macro objects in order to find their way each morning to the particle accelerator.

[Damn-Age]

The way the interview is being conducted, must say this the exact nature of gentlemen we need to probe and discuss things! This only improves our probability of finding the answer, however small it may yet be!

[Jalcolm]

Philosophers will tell you what everybody knows and charge you for it. Physicists are not stating that there are no tables. That is just silly. He just changes the subject and then claims to have defeated physics. But physics is indispensable to answering "what kind of creatures are we? that is, what are we made of and how do we work?" Considering that he is a trained medical doctor, you would think he would give science a larger place in his worldview.

[MattAngiono]

What about how Donald Hoffman used evolutionary theory to demonstrate that there's exactly ZERO probability that we perceive reality?

He seems to be forgetting that fitness is not synonymous with reality... they are related for sure, but not the same thing.

The computer desktop analogy goes a long way here

[heresa_notion_]

As an example of a philosophical position that ANALOGICALLY illuminates "science" as a human activity vis a vis a physical real world, I can say something like this: Physics studies the hardware; every science on up from physics studies the software. Note that just because you understand HOW your computer does what it does when it shows you a Lady Gaga video or does your taxes, understanding that HOW -- really well -- won't do a very good job of explaining WHAT your computer is doing. The universe is analogically similar; it has an infra-structure for running "programs" and a set of possible "programs" that it can run. The sciences study both how programs can possibly run in the first place, and secondly what programs are currently running. Nothing precludes mapping out causal paths from how-to-what. However, pragmatically speaking, it pays to study both independently, at least in the near term, as figuring out how-to-what is much harder problem.

[georgedoyle]

“The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. I have even been suspected of being insincere- of denying what nobody in his senses would doubt.
But in fact the belief that we can start with pure observation alone, without anything in the nature of a theory is absurd” (Karl Popper)

“I tried to bring home the same point to a group of physics students in Vienna by beginning a lecture with the following instructions : 'Take pencil and paper; carefully observe, and write down what you have observed!' They asked, of course, what I wanted them to observe. Clearly the instruction, 'Observe!' is absurd. (It is not even idiomatic, unless the object of the transitive verb can be taken as understood.) Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem. And its description presupposes a descriptive language, with property words; it presupposes similarity and classification, which in their turn presuppose interests, points of view, and problems”.
(Karl Popper)

[Allen-equf]

“Mankind is equally incapable of understanding the nothingness that he has emerged from as the vastness that he is engulfed in. “

[OBGynKenobi]

Love the "wave function chasing you" imagery.

[JungleJargon]

Science has failed miserably in mental illness and the study of the mind. After about 4 years, I recovered from schizophrenia without drugs or counseling. It’s horrible. It’s the delusions or having extreme false beliefs that is the root cause. You have to not believe what you believe. It’s not easy. You have to change every habit of thought that you have. You have to rewire your entire mind. You have to ignore all of the hallucinations delusions and thoughts of grandeur thinking that you are the greatest person that ever lived and or thoughts of being the worst person that ever lived. You have to reject your belief that you have supernatural abilities.

It’s torment that never goes away day or night if you can’t not believe what you believe. Each person is different and not everyone affected is able to recover especially not immediately or overnight. I was able to recover and then also retire after working at a high security airport for 30 years believe it or not. Now I’m actually able to smile. I just feel bad for people that still live in torment. I’m still waiting for a doctor to care about my complete and total recovery.

[sarim]

Maybe someone can clarify for me, is Ray's take that considering we're by products of an evolutionary process that prioritizes survival and reproduction, the holding to the evolutionary theory as being actually true, would undermine our capacity to actually find truth in the world (since our brains themselves just like any other organ is evolved to enhance survival and reproduction)?

[jamesruscheinski]

Does a sense of time demonstrate existence beyond physical reality and time? Can science describe time on it's own, or is something beyond science needed to describe time, maybe causation or something else?

[stevecoley]

X-Files
The real Mission Impossible

Humanity needs to fill a giant black hole in space called ignorance (greed) with light (love)...so that its darkness (misery, murder, mass shootings, suicides, war, etc.) goes away and its heavy gravitational pull stops sucking the joy out of life and destroying the planet.

We face some major obstacles though.

1) Light and truth (love) cause vampires (greed) great pain and suffering. That's why the words compassion, understanding, society (socialism), community (communism), "care for all" and "green new deal" cause the capitalist counting corpses that rule US such misery.

2) Vampires (greed) are blind and cannot see the ignorance of transforming heaven (peace) into hell (war). The capitalist counting corpses are also blind and cannot see the ignorance of destroying the planet.

3) The evangelical monsters are extremely "desperate" to control a darkship called the Whitehouse. Because working in the dark to suck the joy out of life and destroy the planet is the only way that the loveless, lifeless parasites can survive and thrive.

It's also how the hostile alien invaders keep their human capital (cattle) corralled.

Unlike earthling poets, artists, musicians, mystics, human beings and creators of joy...the capitalist counting corpses that rule US can't create harmony (real intelligence) because vampires (greed) are far worse than stupid.

The loveless, lifeless parasites are ignorant (dead).

Vampires (greed) who suck the joy out of life have joined the zombies who eat the futures of their children.

Zombie Apocalypse is here and happening now.

Question. Why are the evangelical counting corpses using the bible as a springboard to perform somersaults to do the exact opposite of "love their neighbors" and "treat others like they want to be treated"?

Answer. This is sick. Because these simple concepts are too far out there to grasp for vampires and zombies.

Lead into gold
Tears into roses
Weapons into ploughshares

Darkness (business) exists so that stars (light and warmth) have a place to shine in heaven (joy, beauty and harmony).

Stars like US don't exist to be sucked out of heaven by a giant black hole in space called "greed" and its ignorance (hate).

Also, Love spent billions of years creating this paradise planet lifeboat so that her miraculous works of fine art called "life" have a beautiful place to "be".

Good (god) didn't spend so much time creating this paradise planet lifeboat to be depreciated, polluted and destroyed in a brief moment by hostile alien monsters and their ignorance (hate).

[leonoradompor]

Goddess is a philosopher and a scientist***

[Dion_Mustard]

Science will NEVER explain WHY the universe exists NOR will it explain consciousness.

End of debate.

[christophercousins]

Kinda head scratching argument... There are some physicists who question whether or not quantum field theory is fundamental and it's certainly a small minority that see it as an entire description of the natural world. Clearly, even though we haven't successfully merged sud-atomic theories with macro theories, that does not mean that sub-atomic physics negates macro-physical "realism, " so I don't really understand the conflict.

These are models that we use to try and understand reality. We consider their predictive power to be the metric for how well the "correspond to reality, " not a measure of what is "real." 

There is no real value in using quantum models to talk about macro events (at least, not in the context of our current understanding) like evolution, perception, etc., IMO, so why try to fit a round peg into a square hole? I completely agree withTallis about his argument for "realism, " but I also feel he is mischaracterizing the general position of most physicists by positing that they see quantum theory as the ultimate model for explaining the physical world.


I certainly agree that physics is in a great muddle (maybe even mess) and that interdisciplinary cooperation could be very useful.

[oliviamaynard]

I don't get the point. His premise is wrong. I am not aware of anywhere physics says jaguars aren't real. Or the macroscopic doesn't matter. Is he personally offended we are all just perturbation in the field?
Philosophy maybe needs to catch up. What are the ethics of multiverse?
Anyway. Who am I to question a great philosopher.

[jamesruscheinski]

Evolution describes collections of parts?