Do Physicists Bullshit?
To be precise, my question is whether or not there are any written specimens of bullshit produced by physicists. I submit that there are such examples. Herewith, one example. Simple point of logic: To show that there are Fs, it suffices to adduce one F. And note: a person who produces a specimen of bullshit is not thereby a bullshitter. (A person who gets drunk a few times in his life is not a drunkard.)
(show)
The logically prior question of what bullshit is was treated in an earlier post. Briefly: a bullshitter is not a liar, although both are engaged in the enterprise of misrepresentation. The bullshitter's intention is not to misrepresent the way things are in the manner of the liar; his aim is to misrepresent himself as knowing what he does not know or more than he actually knows for some such purpose as impressing others, hearing himself talk, or turning a buck by scribbling.
Here is what John D. Barrow writes in Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation (Oxford 1991), p. 47:
. . . for centuries philosophers and theologians have attempted to settle by pure thought the issue of whether the Universe could or could not be infinitely old. That is, some have attempted to show that there is some logical contradiction inherent in the notion of a past infinity of time. And some still do. Such ideas have some association with cosmological arguments for the existence of God, which not only seek to demonstrate that there must have been an origin to the Universe in time but go further in showing (or, in practice, assuming) that this requires there to have been an originator.
Let's pause here. Barrow raises the question whether the universe's past is finite or infinite. He then "associates" this question with cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Then he explains what cosmological arguments purport to do, namely, (1) show that the universe had an origin in time, and (2) show that an origin in time requires an originator. As a bonus, he suggests quite tendentiously that all such arguments are circular.
The fundamental mistake here is to think that a cosmological argument, an argument from the existence of the universe to the existence of God, must either prove or assume that the universe had an origin in time. This is false since some comological arguments remain neutral on the question whether the universe has an infinite past or a finite past. I'll expand on this point in a moment.
Barrow continues:
This [the cosmological argument] is a slippery argument . . . . A common form of this argument points to the fact that everything that we see has a cause, and hence the Universe must have a cause. But this argument has a dangerous bend in the middle of it. The Universe is not a 'thing' in the sense of all the other examples that are being cited. It is a collection of things, or as Wiggenstein put it, 'the world is the totality of the facts.'
Now anyone who has studied the first page of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus knows that this is a misrepresenation of what Wittgenstein says. Wittgenstein, distinguishing facts (Tatsachen) from things (Dinge) says the opposite: The world is the totality of facts NOT of things. (Emphasis added) Die Welt ist die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen, nicht der Dinge. (TLP 1.1)
Barrow is not lying, but he is bullshitting: he is passing himself off as someone who knows what he is talking about when he does not. The fact that he does not give a reference to Wittgenstein shows that he is not particularly concerned about the truth of what he is saying, and that is a mark of a bullshitter. But wouldn't it be more charitable to say that Barrow made a mistake, rather than churlishly accuse him of bullshitting? Well, read on:
Our argument [the cosmological argument] is thus seen to be analogous to arguing that all members of clubs have mothers, and therefore all clubs have mothers.
What Barrow is saying in effect is that the cosmological argument commits the fallacy of composition. Suppose each member of a whole W has a property P. It does not follow that W has P. To think otherwise is to commit the fallacy of composition. So if it is true that each member of the universe has the property of being caused, it does not follow straightaway that the universe has the property of being caused. But no cosmological arguer worth his salt commits the fallacy in question.
Suppose the universe U always existed, and suppose that the universe is not something above and beyond its members, but is merely their collection. Suppose that every event in or state of the universe is explained by earlier states or events. Even on these three assumptions, a cosmological argument can be mounted. For one can still ask: Why does this universe, this particular collection of events, exist rather than some other collection, or no collection at all?
To say of X that it always existed is not to explain why it exists. (Compare: Why do you keep the hammer in the refrigerator? Because we have always kept it there.) And it is no better to say that the universe exists because each of its members is caused to exist by prior members, the universe just being the collection of these members. For this still leaves unexplained why there is anything at all, why there are any events to stand in causal relations.
Someone who seeks this ultimate explanation need not be arguing: each member of U is caused, so U is caused. There are much more sophisticated ways to argue. But they are too complicated to explain here. You will find one in Barry Miller, From Existence to God (Routledge, 1992) and there are others including mine.
My point for the nonce is that Barrow is bullshitting about the cosmological argument: blustering self-confidently about something he understands very imperfectly and in so doing misrepresenting himself as an authority.
To be precise, my question is whether or not there are any written specimens of bullshit produced by physicists. I submit that there are such examples. Herewith, one example. Simple point of logic: To show that there are Fs, it suffices to adduce one F. And note: a person who produces a specimen of bullshit is not thereby a bullshitter. (A person who gets drunk a few times in his life is not a drunkard.)
(show)
The logically prior question of what bullshit is was treated in an earlier post. Briefly: a bullshitter is not a liar, although both are engaged in the enterprise of misrepresentation. The bullshitter's intention is not to misrepresent the way things are in the manner of the liar; his aim is to misrepresent himself as knowing what he does not know or more than he actually knows for some such purpose as impressing others, hearing himself talk, or turning a buck by scribbling.
Here is what John D. Barrow writes in Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation (Oxford 1991), p. 47:
. . . for centuries philosophers and theologians have attempted to settle by pure thought the issue of whether the Universe could or could not be infinitely old. That is, some have attempted to show that there is some logical contradiction inherent in the notion of a past infinity of time. And some still do. Such ideas have some association with cosmological arguments for the existence of God, which not only seek to demonstrate that there must have been an origin to the Universe in time but go further in showing (or, in practice, assuming) that this requires there to have been an originator.
Let's pause here. Barrow raises the question whether the universe's past is finite or infinite. He then "associates" this question with cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Then he explains what cosmological arguments purport to do, namely, (1) show that the universe had an origin in time, and (2) show that an origin in time requires an originator. As a bonus, he suggests quite tendentiously that all such arguments are circular.
The fundamental mistake here is to think that a cosmological argument, an argument from the existence of the universe to the existence of God, must either prove or assume that the universe had an origin in time. This is false since some comological arguments remain neutral on the question whether the universe has an infinite past or a finite past. I'll expand on this point in a moment.
Barrow continues:
This [the cosmological argument] is a slippery argument . . . . A common form of this argument points to the fact that everything that we see has a cause, and hence the Universe must have a cause. But this argument has a dangerous bend in the middle of it. The Universe is not a 'thing' in the sense of all the other examples that are being cited. It is a collection of things, or as Wiggenstein put it, 'the world is the totality of the facts.'
Now anyone who has studied the first page of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus knows that this is a misrepresenation of what Wittgenstein says. Wittgenstein, distinguishing facts (Tatsachen) from things (Dinge) says the opposite: The world is the totality of facts NOT of things. (Emphasis added) Die Welt ist die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen, nicht der Dinge. (TLP 1.1)
Barrow is not lying, but he is bullshitting: he is passing himself off as someone who knows what he is talking about when he does not. The fact that he does not give a reference to Wittgenstein shows that he is not particularly concerned about the truth of what he is saying, and that is a mark of a bullshitter. But wouldn't it be more charitable to say that Barrow made a mistake, rather than churlishly accuse him of bullshitting? Well, read on:
Our argument [the cosmological argument] is thus seen to be analogous to arguing that all members of clubs have mothers, and therefore all clubs have mothers.
What Barrow is saying in effect is that the cosmological argument commits the fallacy of composition. Suppose each member of a whole W has a property P. It does not follow that W has P. To think otherwise is to commit the fallacy of composition. So if it is true that each member of the universe has the property of being caused, it does not follow straightaway that the universe has the property of being caused. But no cosmological arguer worth his salt commits the fallacy in question.
Suppose the universe U always existed, and suppose that the universe is not something above and beyond its members, but is merely their collection. Suppose that every event in or state of the universe is explained by earlier states or events. Even on these three assumptions, a cosmological argument can be mounted. For one can still ask: Why does this universe, this particular collection of events, exist rather than some other collection, or no collection at all?
To say of X that it always existed is not to explain why it exists. (Compare: Why do you keep the hammer in the refrigerator? Because we have always kept it there.) And it is no better to say that the universe exists because each of its members is caused to exist by prior members, the universe just being the collection of these members. For this still leaves unexplained why there is anything at all, why there are any events to stand in causal relations.
Someone who seeks this ultimate explanation need not be arguing: each member of U is caused, so U is caused. There are much more sophisticated ways to argue. But they are too complicated to explain here. You will find one in Barry Miller, From Existence to God (Routledge, 1992) and there are others including mine.
My point for the nonce is that Barrow is bullshitting about the cosmological argument: blustering self-confidently about something he understands very imperfectly and in so doing misrepresenting himself as an authority.
Mensagens
