Most of the time, scientists naturally avoid metaphysics. By that I mean that they don't generally concern themselves with the difference between the world as we directly experience it and the world as it is presumed to exist in itself. It just treats both of them as "material", and since phenomenal material objects behave the same as the presumed noumenal material ones, it makes diddley squat difference to the scientist which sort of entity he is talking about. Only metaphysicians care about that.

There are at least two commonly-occuring breaches of this general rule. I can think of two areas where scientists regularly end up talking about metaphysics by accident. The first of these is consciousness, and the reason is that this issue requires that we make a distinction between the world as we experience it (phenomena) and the mind-independent world of the brains which are hypothesised to give rise to consciousness. The second is quantum mechanics, which currently has 20+ different metaphysical "interpretations", which differ in their accounts of what an observer is, and what unobserved reality is like.

My question is this: are there any other obvious areas where scientists tend to get tangled up with metaphysics like this, or are these the only two?

I'd question whether quantum mechanics interpretations are intentionally metaphysical. Certainly I think that the scientists hope that they will not retain that status. That is, what those scientists are doing is trying to build a framework which answers the question of how it is that the observations that have been made are the way that they are. Given a choice I don't think that there is a scientist in the world that wouldn't want to be able to develop a framework for these observations which was itself testable. To me, what we have at the moment is the early stages of that sort of process. They are trying out different models which could explain the data, and then scrutinising these models to see if there is some way of testing them. (For example, a recent issue (this year, though I forget the exact issue) of New Scientist contained coverage of several proposed methods for testing the many worlds interpretation.)

So currently, yes, as unsubstantiated models which seek to explain our current level of physical observations the interpretations can be considered metaphysics, but the intention all along is to find a way to scientifically test these models and bring one of them within the scope of physics proper.

Of course, no sooner than that is done, someone will start to wonder why it is that we have that model instead of one of the others and we will be back to square one.

UndercoverElephant wrote:I can think of two areas where scientists regularly end up talking about metaphysics by accident. The first of these is consciousness, and the reason is that this issue requires that we make a distinction between the world as we experience it (phenomena) and the mind-independent world of the brains which are hypothesised to give rise to consciousness.

Where does direct realism fit into this? Embodiment? Is the fact that we don't see the whole universe at once really cause for drawing Kant's distinction?

The second is quantum mechanics, which currently has 20+ different metaphysical "interpretations", which differ in their accounts of what an observer is, and what unobserved reality is like.

You will know more about QM than me, so: are these interpretations really necessary while doing the maths? We don't need to make sense of QM so long as it works, surely. Even if having a metaphysics in the back of their minds helps scientists understand it better, it's not as if it's set in stone - they can just drop the unfalsifiable stuff when it ceases to be useful, i.e. the 20+ interpretations are just handy metaphors.

What about cosmology? Particularly when scientists start talking about the actual origin (and end) of the [physical] universe.

Also, medicine/chemistry/biology/psychology: whereby science seeks to explain 'our' behaviour/disposition/circumstance via purely physical means.

Krull wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:I can think of two areas where scientists regularly end up talking about metaphysics by accident. The first of these is consciousness, and the reason is that this issue requires that we make a distinction between the world as we experience it (phenomena) and the mind-independent world of the brains which are hypothesised to give rise to consciousness.

Where does direct realism fit into this? Embodiment? Is the fact that we don't see the whole universe at once really cause for drawing Kant's distinction?

Direct realism is a position in philosophy of perception which claims we are directly aware of real objects. How does direct realism fit with Kantianism? Not very well...

You will know more about QM than me, so: are these interpretations really necessary while doing the maths? We don't need to make sense of QM so long as it works, surely. Even if having a metaphysics in the back of their minds helps scientists understand it better, it's not as if it's set in stone - they can just drop the unfalsifiable stuff when it ceases to be useful, i.e. the 20+ interpretations are just handy metaphors.

It would be handier just to have one or two. Are the interpretations necessary? Not for scientists who are strictly sticking within scientific boundaries. They matter for anyone who wants to ask questions about what QM might be telling us about the nature of reality.

jamest wrote:What about cosmology? Particularly when scientists start talking about the actual origin (and end) of the [physical] universe.

Yes, that's another one. The Big Bang and the origin/nature of the laws of physics.

Also, medicine/chemistry/biology/psychology: whereby science seeks to explain 'our' behaviour/disposition/circumstance via purely physical means.

That leads us to a discussion about whether pyschology is really science at all. I personally consider much of psychology to be random guesswork.

UndercoverElephant wrote:Direct realism is a position in philosophy of perception which claims we are directly aware of real objects. How does direct realism fit with Kantianism? Not very well...

Do you think QM has falsified direct realism?

Krull wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Direct realism is a position in philosophy of perception which claims we are directly aware of real objects. How does direct realism fit with Kantianism? Not very well...

Do you think QM has falsified direct realism?

No. I think some versions of QM are compatible with direct realism.

OK, so can there be a non-metaphysical, direct realist interpretation of both consciousness and QM?

QM is no more open to differing interpretation than classical mechanics. It's just that the non-standard interpretations of the latter have largely been beaten out of existence for a good few centuries, whilst the former is still in something of a state of flux.

Krull wrote:OK, so can there be a non-metaphysical, direct realist interpretation of both consciousness and QM?

Direct realism is a metaphysical position.

Matt_B wrote:QM is no more open to differing interpretation than classical mechanics. It's just that the non-standard interpretations of the latter have largely been beaten out of existence for a good few centuries, whilst the former is still in something of a state of flux.

I think you are massively understating the nature of the problem. Also, if what you are saying was true then the number of interpretations would be decreasing instead of ballooning.

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Matt_B wrote:QM is no more open to differing interpretation than classical mechanics. It's just that the non-standard interpretations of the latter have largely been beaten out of existence for a good few centuries, whilst the former is still in something of a state of flux.

I think you are massively understating the nature of the problem.

I think you're overstating it. I've certainly yet to engage in any metaphysics with another scientist on a professional level. Quite disappointingly it's more the talk of coffee rooms and sites like this.

Also, if what you are saying was true then the number of interpretations would be decreasing instead of ballooning.

Not really. Most of the "ballooning" number are variations on a relatively small number of themes and have very few adherents. I'd think that most physicists who express a preference (and there are far many more who "shut up and calculate") would go with either MWI/Decoherence, which is now half a century old, or Copenhagen, which is even older; the newer variations don't seem to get much of a look in.

UndercoverElephant wrote:Direct realism is a metaphysical position.

In name only. Other than its agnosticism I see no practical difference between metaphysical scepticism and DR. Do you think there are problems that DR can't solve, e.g. the Hard Problem?

Krull wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Direct realism is a metaphysical position.

In name only. Other than its agnosticism I see no practical difference between metaphysical scepticism and DR. Do you think there are problems that DR can't solve, e.g. the Hard Problem?

There is no hard problem for DR for exactly the same reason that there is no hard problem for idealists. The person I know who is most closely associated with a defence of DR (A. David Smith) is an idealist. The problems that DR has to solve are the arguments of anti-realists i.e. the argument from hallucination and the argument from illusion. You say DR isn't metaphysical, but I think you mean that it doesn't involve entities beyond those we are directly aware of. In this respect it is related to empiricism, but any attempt to defend DR will get you so deep into metaphysics that you may never get out again!

How do you defend direct realism from the argument that we could just be brains in vats?

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Matt_B wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Matt_B wrote:QM is no more open to differing interpretation than classical mechanics. It's just that the non-standard interpretations of the latter have largely been beaten out of existence for a good few centuries, whilst the former is still in something of a state of flux.

I think you are massively understating the nature of the problem.

I think you're overstating it. I've certainly yet to engage in any metaphysics with another scientist on a professional level. Quite disappointingly it's more the talk of coffee rooms and sites like this.

Also, if what you are saying was true then the number of interpretations would be decreasing instead of ballooning.

Not really. Most of the "ballooning" number are variations on a relatively small number of themes and have very few adherents. I'd think that most physicists who express a preference (and there are far many more who "shut up and calculate") would go with either MWI/Decoherence, which is now half a century old, or Copenhagen, which is even older; the newer variations don't seem to get much of a look in.

All I can say in response to this post is that you might benefit from reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.

UndercoverElephant wrote:The problems that DR has to solve are the arguments of anti-realists i.e. the argument from hallucination and the argument from illusion.

Like most people around here I'd say those doubts are overstated. They assume the ontology of whatever it is we're experiencing should be delivered simultaneously with the experience itself - that we should "clearly and distinctly" know what it is we're seeing. But we live in a world where some things can come to resemble other kinds of things. I fail to see how having crummy, low-res sensory organs and a capacity to misinterpret what we percieve should be cause for positing such an extreme position as Kant's, as I assume you are doing.

How do you defend direct realism from the argument that we could just be brains in vats?

Those kinds of questions don't exist in a vacuum. Descartes didn't start doing scepticism for just no reason, on the contrary he had very good reasons for doing so. But foundationalism has failed, so there's no need for that sort of thing anymore.

UndercoverElephant wrote:All I can say in response to this post is that you might benefit from reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.

I've already read it. Perhaps you'd care to spell out what you think I'm missing?

Krull wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:The problems that DR has to solve are the arguments of anti-realists i.e. the argument from hallucination and the argument from illusion.

Like most people around here I'd say those doubts are overstated. They assume the ontology of whatever it is we're experiencing should be delivered simultaneously with the experience itself - that we should "clearly and distinctly" know what it is we're seeing. But we live in a world where some things can come to resemble other kinds of things. I fail to see how having crummy, low-res sensory organs and a capacity to misinterpret what we percieve should be cause for positing such an extreme position as Kant's, as I assume you are doing.

You asked me about direct realism. If we are going to say we are DIRECTLY aware of real objects, how can our crummy sense organs have anything to do with it? It sounds to me like you are defending indirect realism, not direct realism. Direct realists tend to reject indirect realism as incoherent, because the indirect nature of the supposed connection means that that the objects one is directly aware of can't possibly be real.