Every branch of knowledge has its own field of subject-matter. What is the proper field of scientific knowledge engaged in by the empirical sciences? The observable Universe with all its varieties of living and non-living entities that can be observed by our senses and experimented with verifiable means is the proper field of scientific knowledge. Beyond this, to claim that there is nothing other than the observable by our senses and limited to this visible Universe is ultra vires or beyond the scope of the empirical sciences. For, how will such a claim be justified? It cannot be justified either way by the empirical sciences as it cannot overstep its own method that is restricted to the observable and the question here is going beyond it. Here only Philosophy can say something sensible as we have seen in the last Post how it is armed with the first Principles of all inquiry and knowledge. Out of those Basic Principles what the empirical sciences use is the Principle of Causality that is but a subset of the Principle of Sufficient reason. Thus we see that Philosophy is the suitable candidate to say something about what is beyond the observable as it is invested with the Principle of Sufficient reason. It is not that Philosophy necessarily discovers truths over and beyond those discussed in empirical sciences and humanities, but because Philosophy clarifies concepts belonging to all fields of knowledge bringing out false coins that get mixed up with genuine ones is it relevant for human knowledge. Philosophy achieves it through its powerful weapon called Logic that cannot be denied by any reasonable human being. Logic is used in all branches of knowledge, and yet it is Philosophy that has taken upon itself the task of fine-tuning it in accordance with the very first Principle of Sufficient Reason. Besides, what Aristotle called Metaphysics (the very word means 'after or beyond Physics') is at the threshold reality of Physics where Physics has nothing to say because it can say nothing about its own foundations. It is evident that the subject-matter of Metaphysics cannot be in the same order as that of Physics, as it has no problem to take into account the observer-dependence of human knowledge. However, it is not the task of Metaphysics to lay foundation for Physics as it only points to the wider dimension of reality inaccessible to Physics and other empirical sciences.
Since the empirical sciences have to restrict themselves to what is observable by the senses, they cannot sit in judgement over what is counted as knowledge in general especially after the theory of relativity of Albert Einstein. Einstein describes the space-time field in his Unified Field Theory. There Einstein accepts a non-physical field as the basis for matter. What is more, it is applied to reality in general bringing sciences closer to the truth and yet he did not attend to the discrete digital properties of space and time. Einstein was stuck with space and time as the primary energy field, neglecting the role of consciousness as the primary energy field. His student, David Bohm along with the Quantum Mechanics theorists Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Eugene Wigner accepted consciousness as the primary energy field and yet they missed out on the digital connection that stumped them from proceeding any further in the quest for truth. This shows that any credible and objective conception of reality must include subjective experience that can reliably lead to a useful method of investigation that can be accessed by anyone interested in truth and reality. Here is the relevance of Philosophy, especially of Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, Philosophy of Mind etc. in advancing human knowledge that is wider than merely scientific knowledge. Since the method of empirical sciences is based on quantitative measurements and mathematical formulas, independent of subjective experiences, they are stuck with ignorance of the nature of their own foundations, let alone the nature of reality and truth! This ignorance is not due to any negligence from their part, but flows from the necessity of observer-dependence that is part and parcel of the nature of human knowledge, but missing in empirical sciences.
As observer-dependence is crucial to our argument to deny the empirical sciences the coveted role of arbiters of valid human knowledge, let us see a little more about the scientific basis to our contention. How do we explain the second postulate of relativity of Albert Einstein? It concerns the constancy of the speed of light. Now the constancy of the speed of light is nothing but a consequence of how we have defined time and space. This definition of ours proceeds from the way we have experienced the Universe. What does it mean? It means that our science is nothing but a science of what we experience and not of a Universe "out there" independent of our observations. It follows that we have defined the speed of light as constant relative to us and this is a consequence of how we experience the Universe. We shall continue this reasoning in our next Post on 'The primacy of Consciousness'.
Since the empirical sciences have to restrict themselves to what is observable by the senses, they cannot sit in judgement over what is counted as knowledge in general especially after the theory of relativity of Albert Einstein. Einstein describes the space-time field in his Unified Field Theory. There Einstein accepts a non-physical field as the basis for matter. What is more, it is applied to reality in general bringing sciences closer to the truth and yet he did not attend to the discrete digital properties of space and time. Einstein was stuck with space and time as the primary energy field, neglecting the role of consciousness as the primary energy field. His student, David Bohm along with the Quantum Mechanics theorists Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Eugene Wigner accepted consciousness as the primary energy field and yet they missed out on the digital connection that stumped them from proceeding any further in the quest for truth. This shows that any credible and objective conception of reality must include subjective experience that can reliably lead to a useful method of investigation that can be accessed by anyone interested in truth and reality. Here is the relevance of Philosophy, especially of Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, Philosophy of Mind etc. in advancing human knowledge that is wider than merely scientific knowledge. Since the method of empirical sciences is based on quantitative measurements and mathematical formulas, independent of subjective experiences, they are stuck with ignorance of the nature of their own foundations, let alone the nature of reality and truth! This ignorance is not due to any negligence from their part, but flows from the necessity of observer-dependence that is part and parcel of the nature of human knowledge, but missing in empirical sciences.
As observer-dependence is crucial to our argument to deny the empirical sciences the coveted role of arbiters of valid human knowledge, let us see a little more about the scientific basis to our contention. How do we explain the second postulate of relativity of Albert Einstein? It concerns the constancy of the speed of light. Now the constancy of the speed of light is nothing but a consequence of how we have defined time and space. This definition of ours proceeds from the way we have experienced the Universe. What does it mean? It means that our science is nothing but a science of what we experience and not of a Universe "out there" independent of our observations. It follows that we have defined the speed of light as constant relative to us and this is a consequence of how we experience the Universe. We shall continue this reasoning in our next Post on 'The primacy of Consciousness'.
No comments:
Post a Comment