Mathematics was originally the servant of physics. It has gradually come to be the master. Every natural phenomenon is now measured in terms of mathematical equations. This approach has created numerous paradoxes which are, curiously, left unexplained, with the assertion that phenomena appear paradoxical only from the viewpoint of a particular observer, and that human reason holds no right to question what can be definitively proven by means of mathematical equations.
Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia). He never travelled more than ten miles from his hometown in all his life. His father was from Memel (present-day Klaipėda, Lithuania). Kant founded the doctrine of transcendental idealism according to which space and time are the media by which we perceive things. Before Kant, Leibniz had said that space and time were not real things but only relations between things, whereas Newton maintained that they were real things.
Kant said that the ultimate nature of a thing was essentially unknowable; we only perceived certain properties of things through our senses.
Today an extreme Positivism (the view that holds that the scientific method is the best approach to understanding reality) holds sway and this says that to understand the universe we have to rely on our senses through a physical measuring apparatus. This extreme Positivism faces no problems as far as classical physics is concerned, but with quantum physics the general tendency has been to go to a viewpoint of extreme Relativism (the view that holds that what we observe has no absolute truth but depends only on differences in perception and consideration).
The Theory of Relativity presents us with frustrating paradoxes. For example, if one of a pair of twins goes on a spaceship and travels at speeds approaching that of light, and the other twin remains behind on Earth, time is supposed to pass at a slower rate for the first twin. So if he returns to Earth he will then find that his twin has aged more than he. But the paradox here is that from the viewpoint of the twin in the spaceship he is himself stationary whereas his twin on Earth is moving. So which twin has aged more than the other? How can this be a matter of relative perception? Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle says that since we cannot measure accurately, reality itself is inaccurate. Modern physics trashes the idea of a real external world independent of our perceptions and places instead a world of illusions and appearances.
Modern scientists seem to believe that we can explain the universe through 'beautiful equations' and mathematics. The solid philosophical basis of science is lost in our modern world.
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| Statue of Kant at Kaliningrad, Russia |
Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia). He never travelled more than ten miles from his hometown in all his life. His father was from Memel (present-day Klaipėda, Lithuania). Kant founded the doctrine of transcendental idealism according to which space and time are the media by which we perceive things. Before Kant, Leibniz had said that space and time were not real things but only relations between things, whereas Newton maintained that they were real things.
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Klaipėda, Kant's hometown |
Today an extreme Positivism (the view that holds that the scientific method is the best approach to understanding reality) holds sway and this says that to understand the universe we have to rely on our senses through a physical measuring apparatus. This extreme Positivism faces no problems as far as classical physics is concerned, but with quantum physics the general tendency has been to go to a viewpoint of extreme Relativism (the view that holds that what we observe has no absolute truth but depends only on differences in perception and consideration).
The Theory of Relativity presents us with frustrating paradoxes. For example, if one of a pair of twins goes on a spaceship and travels at speeds approaching that of light, and the other twin remains behind on Earth, time is supposed to pass at a slower rate for the first twin. So if he returns to Earth he will then find that his twin has aged more than he. But the paradox here is that from the viewpoint of the twin in the spaceship he is himself stationary whereas his twin on Earth is moving. So which twin has aged more than the other? How can this be a matter of relative perception? Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle says that since we cannot measure accurately, reality itself is inaccurate. Modern physics trashes the idea of a real external world independent of our perceptions and places instead a world of illusions and appearances.
Modern scientists seem to believe that we can explain the universe through 'beautiful equations' and mathematics. The solid philosophical basis of science is lost in our modern world.
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