Jack Dikian
Thoughts and Comments
The Grand Design
Bantam books 2010
According to one internet based dictionary, “Real” is being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verified existence; not illusory; "real objects"; "real people -not ghosts" etc…
When philosophy is leaned-upon, things become, expectedly a little more murky. Despite the seeming straightforwardness of the realist position, in the history of philosophy there has been continuous debate about what is real. In addition, there has been significant evolution in what is meant by the term "real".
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. Philosophers who profess realism, therefore, also typically believe that truth consists in a belief's correspondence to reality.
Model-dependent realism as discussed by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their 2010 book The Grand Design is a scientific method of exploration based on how well a model does at describing the physical reality of the situation. Among scientists, this is not, necessarily a controversial approach. This, however, implies that it is somewhat meaningless to discuss the reality of the situation and, rather, the only meaningful thing you can talk about is the usefulness of the given model. One quote from this book…
"There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality. Instead we will adopt a view that we will call model-dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations. This provides a framework with which to interpret modern science."
The authors seem to have developed a theory familiar to philosophers since the 1980s, namely 'perspectivalism'. Perspectivism is the view developed by Friedrich Nietzsche that all ideations take place from particular perspectives.
So according to Hawking and Mlodinow, not only does science fail to provide a single description of reality, they say, there is no theory-independent reality at all. Here, we are told not to expect a unifying theory of everything, rather a set of theories (such as M-theory) that overlap at their boundaries. They argue that the scientific obsession with formulating a single new model may be misplaced, and that by synthesising existing theories we may better provide a picture of unification (my words).
Also, according to the authors, enough is known about M-theory to see that God is not required to answer for the existence of all, instead the existence of a multiverse, à la string theory will suffice.
The authors point out that the laws of nature seem to be tuned incredibly precisely to allow life to exist. Tweak them every so slightly, and there might not even be suns and planets, let alone living things. So the vast majority of those different universes would be uninhabitable.
The author’s argument against divine creation is based on string theory and one associated interpretation, multiverse – however, both strings and multiverse are ideas lacking, obviously, empirical evidence and consistent interpretation.
When philosophy is leaned-upon, things become, expectedly a little more murky. Despite the seeming straightforwardness of the realist position, in the history of philosophy there has been continuous debate about what is real. In addition, there has been significant evolution in what is meant by the term "real".
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. Philosophers who profess realism, therefore, also typically believe that truth consists in a belief's correspondence to reality.
Model-dependent realism as discussed by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their 2010 book The Grand Design is a scientific method of exploration based on how well a model does at describing the physical reality of the situation. Among scientists, this is not, necessarily a controversial approach. This, however, implies that it is somewhat meaningless to discuss the reality of the situation and, rather, the only meaningful thing you can talk about is the usefulness of the given model. One quote from this book…
"There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality. Instead we will adopt a view that we will call model-dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations. This provides a framework with which to interpret modern science."
The authors seem to have developed a theory familiar to philosophers since the 1980s, namely 'perspectivalism'. Perspectivism is the view developed by Friedrich Nietzsche that all ideations take place from particular perspectives.
So according to Hawking and Mlodinow, not only does science fail to provide a single description of reality, they say, there is no theory-independent reality at all. Here, we are told not to expect a unifying theory of everything, rather a set of theories (such as M-theory) that overlap at their boundaries. They argue that the scientific obsession with formulating a single new model may be misplaced, and that by synthesising existing theories we may better provide a picture of unification (my words).
Also, according to the authors, enough is known about M-theory to see that God is not required to answer for the existence of all, instead the existence of a multiverse, à la string theory will suffice.
The authors point out that the laws of nature seem to be tuned incredibly precisely to allow life to exist. Tweak them every so slightly, and there might not even be suns and planets, let alone living things. So the vast majority of those different universes would be uninhabitable.
The author’s argument against divine creation is based on string theory and one associated interpretation, multiverse – however, both strings and multiverse are ideas lacking, obviously, empirical evidence and consistent interpretation.
A thoroughly lucid and accessible book, nicely illustrated and thought provoking.
