Shut Up and Calculate: Exploring Feynman's Ideas on Physics

[GeorgCantor]

Georg, the problem you seem to be raising is that motion is deemed to be a continuous action and yet our models presume that motions are constructed as a succession of discrete steps. This leads to familiar paradoxes.

As usual, I would point out that all metaphysical concepts are derived as dichotomies, and dichotomies are limit state descriptions. So the metaphysical model here is discrete~continuous. Or constructed motion vs constrained action. And we can model from either point of view.

We can construct a motion mechanically as a series of discrete steps (which is the classical Newtonian approach, points along a line). Or we can constrain an action to a least mean path (which would be the top-down QM sum over histories approach, a collapse of possibilities to a single crisp path).

Which is more real? Well the dichotomy tells us that neither the discrete nor the continuous is real. They are the limits of what can be achieved (and so are not themselves achievable). But we can get infinitesimally close.

Yes, good point. We at last agree on something truly fundamental - reality cannot be neither continuous nor discrete. That's actually why i raised the point with you about motion, since you seem to like dichotomies and models not being the world.

If this point - reality cannot be neither continuous nor discrete is fully appreciated by physicists and philosophers alike, the interconnectedness/nonseparability issue of quantum theory will begin to pale. It's just that the majority isn't ready for the manouver yet.

 

[brainstorm]

Such a model would say nothing about relative distances and so nothing about the variable speeds of objects. It might be possible to make such a model, but a failure to represent motion would not throw doubt on motion would it?

Only because the "model" utilized in everyday perception construes objects in terms of relative position. Everyday perception also construes the ground as stationary and flat, while the sun and moon are perceived as rising and falling along with the stars. I forget why this issue came up here in the first place, though.

 

[Pythagorean]

I think I prefer:

shut up and analyze mathematical statements in a qualitative way

 

[brainstorm]

I think I prefer:

shut up and analyze mathematical statements in a qualitative way

Yes, and please translate them into other languages too, e.g. English, so the math illiterate or semi-literate among us can understand more about science than we could otherwise.

 

[Pythagorean]

Yes, and please translate them into other languages too, e.g. English, so the math illiterate or semi-literate among us can understand more about science than we could otherwise.

A lot of my foreign friends claim that English is their preferred language for technical detail, because their native language just isn't descriptive enough. Though, they like to use their native language for emotional expression because it's more suited (maybe it's just a personal preferences though, since they were raised with that language, and thus developed emotionally around it).

I feel the same way about math vs. english. Math is a very descriptive language. When we translate it to English, concepts can be lost and misrepresented. Which is why, for instance, everyone still things Wave-Particle duality exists. The only reason we use wave in wave mechanics is because it utilizes a wave equation. This shouldn't be confused with ocean waves, for instance.

 

[brainstorm]

Which is why, for instance, everyone still things Wave-Particle duality exists. The only reason we use wave in wave mechanics is because it utilizes a wave equation. This shouldn't be confused with ocean waves, for instance.

So how do particles shift frequencies if they don't move in waves with wavelengths?

 

[SixNein]

A lot of my foreign friends claim that English is their preferred language for technical detail, because their native language just isn't descriptive enough. Though, they like to use their native language for emotional expression because it's more suited (maybe it's just a personal preferences though, since they were raised with that language, and thus developed emotionally around it).

I feel the same way about math vs. english. Math is a very descriptive language. When we translate it to English, concepts can be lost and misrepresented. Which is why, for instance, everyone still things Wave-Particle duality exists. The only reason we use wave in wave mechanics is because it utilizes a wave equation. This shouldn't be confused with ocean waves, for instance.

I feel much of the same about math vs physics. I sometimes wonder if physicists are not interpreting mathematical problems and descriptions as physical problems and descriptions.

 

[Pythagorean]

I feel much of the same about math vs physics. I sometimes wonder if physicists are not interpreting mathematical problems and descriptions as physical problems and descriptions.

Generally, physicists don't work on "mathematical problems". They use math in physical problems.

So how do particles shift frequencies if they don't move in waves with wavelengths?

quantum particles don't "move".

Ok... so an ocean wave is classically simulated as a bunch of hard little pellets that move continuously through space according to a wave equation. In other words, the motion of each particle is described by the superposition of several waveforms (i.e. multiple frequencies).

A single quantum particle's position, velocity, energy, etc are described by operations on the probability wave function. Completely different application, it just happens to use the same shape of equation.

please shut up and calculate, then come back and we'll have a philosophical discussion based on relevant arguments.

 

[brainstorm]

quantum particles don't "move".

Ok... so an ocean wave is classically simulated as a bunch of hard little pellets that move continuously through space according to a wave equation. In other words, the motion of each particle is described by the superposition of several waveforms (i.e. multiple frequencies).

A single quantum particle's position, velocity, energy, etc are described by operations on the probability wave function. Completely different application, it just happens to use the same shape of equation.

please shut up and calculate, then come back and we'll have a philosophical discussion based on relevant arguments.

How foolish does someone have to be to expend time and effort performing calculations for a model that they don't understand qualitatively? It would be like telling someone to make a sacrifice to the volcano to get a good harvest. Then when the person asks how or why it's supposed to work, you tell them "shut up and sacrifice and you'll see." It's utterly anti-scientific to approach research this way. Ironically there's a scene in Madagascar 2 where someone asks how a volcano sacrifice works and it is actually explained to the point of being critically accessible; which is more than can be said about people who think, "shut up and calculate."

 

[Pythagorean]

How foolish does someone have to be to expend time and effort performing calculations for a model that they don't understand qualitatively? It would be like telling someone to make a sacrifice to the volcano to get a good harvest. Then when the person asks how or why it's supposed to work, you tell them "shut up and sacrifice and you'll see." It's utterly anti-scientific to approach research this way. Ironically there's a scene in Madagascar 2 where someone asks how a volcano sacrifice works and it is actually explained to the point of being critically accessible; which is more than can be said about people who think, "shut up and calculate."

But that's a complete misrepresentation of how it works. It' s not like we sit around with calculators and just punch in numbers and get a result. That seems to be the mentality being projected here.

You work qualitatively with the equations in about 90% of the work you do pursuing a physics degree. It's highly stressed in the physics curriculum that you understand the concepts. We don't even use numbers or calculators in the advanced physics courses because it's all algebra and calculus analysis on the general equations themselves, as variables.

It's symbolic manipulation. Each variable has a real, significant meaning. They are logic statements that you can manipulate to find other logic statements. In fact, we're criticized by mathematicians when our concepts outweigh our mathematics. For instance, consider any inverse square law. What happens when the distance between two charged particles is 0? According to the law, the force between them is infinite... but this is impossible of course. Obviously, the equations don't match observation at that point, but that's fine. We're more interested in the qualitative behavior.

 

[humanino]

How foolish does someone have to be to expend time and effort performing calculations for a model that they don't understand qualitatively? It would be like telling someone to make a sacrifice to the volcano to get a good harvest. Then when the person asks how or why it's supposed to work, you tell them "shut up and sacrifice and you'll see." It's utterly anti-scientific to approach research this way. Ironically there's a scene in Madagascar 2 where someone asks how a volcano sacrifice works and it is actually explained to the point of being critically accessible; which is more than can be said about people who think, "shut up and calculate."

The only place I know of where one can experiment on a system for which we do not have mere quantum "corrections", but rather where the system is dominated by wild quantum relativistic fluctuations : hadrons.

It so happens that we pretty much have the exact theory describing those beasts : mostly QCD + electroweak corrections.

It turns out that there are pretty much as many hadronic models as there are people trying to model them : we know the relevant fundamental degrees of freedom (quarks and gluons) but we do not know how to calculate the observed properties of the effective degrees of freedom (mesons and baryons).

So an entire community has developed during the last 1.5 decade or so, doing non-perturbative calculations on the lattice. They hope to gather some insights on the effective models, compare their brute-force calculations with predictions which cannot be compared with experiments (either not yet or not in principles), offer guidance in the perturbative to non-perturbative transition.

Those are literally thousands of highly qualified computational scientists. You just dismissed their entire enterprise from a line you picked up in a cartoon ?

The level of the philosophy sub-forum never ceases to amaze me. It is just plain wrong to have a superficial and distant understanding of what people do (like 99% of the participants of this forum do with Bohr) yet display openly contempt and random judgement on a lifetime's work of Nobel prize winners.

 

[Pythagorean]

Humanino, maybe you can help me out with another example. I remember learning about a case where a physicist "jumped" from one equation to another using physical intuition.

It sent up red flags for some prominent mathematicians at the time, who immediately jumped into show formally why he (she?) was wrong... but after pages of tedious calculation, discovered that the expressions were in fact equivalent.

I may be representing over flourishing from my unreliable memory, but do you know what I'm talking about? There may be several such cases for all I know.

 

[GeorgCantor]

The only place I know of where one can experiment on a system for which we do not have mere quantum "corrections", but rather where the system is dominated by wild quantum relativistic fluctuations : hadrons.

It so happens that we pretty much have the exact theory describing those beasts : mostly QCD + electroweak corrections.

It turns out that there are pretty much as many hadronic models as there are people trying to model them : we know the relevant fundamental degrees of freedom (quarks and gluons) but we do not know how to calculate the observed properties of the effective degrees of freedom (mesons and baryons).

So an entire community has developed during the last 1.5 decade or so, doing non-perturbative calculations on the lattice. They hope to gather some insights on the effective models, compare their brute-force calculations with predictions which cannot be compared with experiments (either not yet or not in principles), offer guidance in the perturbative to non-perturbative transition.

Those are literally thousands of highly qualified computational scientists. You just dismissed their entire enterprise from a line you picked up in a cartoon ?

Did he really mean to degrade the work of those computational scientists? I thought he meant to expose the common false pretense that a few relations written in mathematical equations(shut up and calculate) give one a picture of what is really going on.

The level of the philosophy sub-forum never ceases to amaze me. It is just plain wrong to have a superficial and distant understanding of what people do (like 99% of the participants of this forum do with Bohr) yet display openly contempt and random judgement on a lifetime's work of Nobel prize winners.

You probably misunderstood what he said. The level of the other sub-forums isn't better at times. If every disagreement that arises in a tread is a testament of someone being wrong, then most threads are filled with at least 50% junk, but that's to be expected at the cutting edge of science.

 

[GeorgCantor]

Which is why, for instance, everyone still things Wave-Particle duality exists.

If we stick to "shut up and calculate" wave particle duality doesn't exist. But i thought people here in the philosophy forum would flat out denounce such an "interpretation" or more appropriately -- such lack of interpretation.


It's more polite to say that fundamental 'particles' display charateristics that don't fall into the realm of comprehensible processes and we have a mathematical model that works but we have no idea why it works. We are trying hard to derive the SE from a more basic and fundamental theory(and make sense of it) but we are unsuccessful.

 

[humanino]

Did he really mean to degrade the work of those computational scientists? I thought he meant to expose the common false pretense that a few relations written in mathematical equations(shut up and calculate) give one a picture of what is really going on.

No, I think I neither misread what he wrote, nor what this implies. Lattice QCD people "shut up and calculate", even more precisely they "expend time and effort performing calculations for a model that [nobody] understand qualitatively".

I find it offensive that people who not only are not professional but do not even know how to calculate dismiss these efforts as "utterly unscientific", and it applies just as well to the Copenhagen school.

Remember Newton knew very well that his "action at a distance" was unsatisfactory ?

I have read as much of Bohr's original texts as I could, and I do not agree that his "shut up and calculate" attitude was inadequate, and I am quite sure that those who believe Bohr was uninterested in philosophy and interpretation are misinformed.

I am not sure about which event Pythagorean is referring to. Again in the topic of hadronic physics, I can mention Yang-Mills theory. When one of them (either Yang or Mills, I am unsure) first presented his work with Pauli in the audience, Pauli used his authority to dismiss it at utter non-sense : there is no other long range force carried by a massless boson. Pauli mentioned that he knew all that business for 30 years, but did not care to publish it. Well, unfortunately for Pauli, massless gluons are confined and Yang-Mills name sticked to the fundamental interaction. It's too bad that the obvious interpretation everybody trusted was flawed. It took about 20 years to understand this aspect, and it was just mathematics missing.By the way, Pauli also dismissed Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck proposal for spin 1/2.

 

[brainstorm]

I find it offensive that people who not only are not professional but do not even know how to calculate dismiss these efforts as "utterly unscientific", and it applies just as well to the Copenhagen school.

Taking offense to methodological criticism is also "utterly unscientific." A disciplined discussion about methodology should explore the reasons for how and why to utilize certain methods in pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge without degenerating into an interest-driven defense of certain methods over others on the basis of their inherent value as methods loose from the specific function they fulfill in specific research endeavors. Generally elevating qualitative or quantitative methods, or any specific method for its own sake is "utterly unscientific" or perhaps "anti-scientific," imo - or actually I think this goes beyond my personal opinion and involves basic issues of reasonability and value/interest-neutrality.

To do good science, you have to know more than just how to perform operations and follow recipes. Technical proficiency has its own value, but it is not inherently good science in itself. Good science involves knowing and reasoning why a particular method is used, quantitative or qualitative (i.e. mathematics or something else); and methodological reasoning cannot be done purely with mathematics, as far as I know. Someone please correct me with an example if I am mistaken.

 

[apeiron]

It so happens that we pretty much have the exact theory describing those beasts : mostly QCD + electroweak corrections.

It turns out that there are pretty much as many hadronic models as there are people trying to model them : we know the relevant fundamental degrees of freedom (quarks and gluons) but we do not know how to calculate the observed properties of the effective degrees of freedom (mesons and baryons).

You seem to be describing a special situation, (much like string theory?), where you have what seems like a concrete beginning (a model of the components), but then no clear path to the next level of description. So a bit like being faced by a combination lock, the only choice seems to be to try every possible combination until one finally clicks.

If this is what you mean by "shut up and calculate", then it sounds like a last resort.

But did the components themselves (QCD) not involve important conceptual leaps? Were the physicists not guided by vague analogies that suggested paths to follow. And then perhaps came the "shut up and calculate" phase where they had to make good on their hopes and intuitions.

 

[Evo]

Is humanino still the only scientist posting in here?

 

[Pythagorean]

Is humanino still the only scientist posting in here?

It depends on how you define scientist. I consider myself a scientist, I'm just not a published scientist (yet). I am, however, doing publishable research through an accredited university, but I don't have a PhD. You could call me a baby scientist without offending me too much. I still have much to learn.

 

[Evo]

It depends on how you define scientist. I consider myself a scientist, I'm just not a published scientist (yet). I am, however, doing publishable research through an accredited university, but I don't have a PhD. You could call me a baby scientist without offending me too much. I still have much to learn.

I define a scientist as someone that is degreed and employed in that science or doing post doctoral work in that science. A BS does not a scientist make, if you are not employed in that field, it is a step in that direction though, IMO. More to the point, this thread is aimed at physicists.


My sister's (now ex) boyfriend has a PhD in astrophysics, both of his parents are tenured professors at a prestigious University. He's never worked a day as an astrophysicist, he delivers pizzas for a living. So is he a scientist or a pizza delivery boy?

My point is that humanino is brilliant in his field, he has refused to accept a Science Advisor medal, but the entire mentor staff acknowledges his brilliance. And then I see posts of members arguing wih him as if they have similar credentials and knowledge.

 

[Pythagorean]

I define a scientist as someone that is degreed and employed in that science or doing post doctoral work in that science. A BS does not a scientist make, IMO. More to the point, this thread is aimed at physicists.

I agree that a BS is insufficient; I consider myself a (baby) scientist because I'm employed in the sciences, not because of the paper.

 

[apeiron]

More to the point, this thread is aimed at physicists.

What the heck is it doing in the philosophy forum then?

 

[humanino]

Generally elevating

What am I elevating ? I am not elevating anything. You are the one elevating :

To do good science, [...] it is not inherently good science in itself. Good science involves knowing and reasoning why a particular method is used, quantitative or qualitative (i.e. mathematics or something else)

I guess you may agree that good science also involve honesty. Sometimes we have methods which provide good answers when compared with data, yet the models do not answer some of our philosophical questions. In that case, it's not that we do not ask the questions, it's just that we are being honest. Some questions are ill-formulated in a given theory. I accept and enjoy criticism. You mention methodology : the method is to understand what people do and then criticize.

You seem to be describing a special situation, (much like string theory?), where you have what seems like a concrete beginning (a model of the components), but then no clear path to the next level of description. So a bit like being faced by a combination lock, the only choice seems to be to try every possible combination until one finally clicks.

Yes.

If this is what you mean by "shut up and calculate", then it sounds like a last resort.

Yes, it is a last resort. There is a difference between not asking a question, and admitting that the theory cannot answer the question.

But did the components themselves (QCD) not involve important conceptual leaps? Were the physicists not guided by vague analogies that suggested paths to follow. And then perhaps came the "shut up and calculate" phase where they had to make good on their hopes and intuitions.

They were guided by precise analogies, the same principles which lead to QED, and a straightforward (in retrospect of course) extension from abelian to non-abelian groups.

 

[Evo]

What the heck is it doing in the philosophy forum then?

The OP is about physics, but doesn't have enough substance for the physics forum. We still need to have some level of scientific merit here. We are lucky enough that a real physicist is sharing here, perhaps we should listen to what they say since they actually work in this field.

That's all I am saying.

 

[apeiron]

The OP is about physics, but doesn't have enough substance for the physics forum.

This is unclear thinking. The OP is clearly about the philosophy of science and the nature of creative genius. Physics might be the domain, but the epistemological questions are more general.

We are lucky enough that a real physicist is sharing here, perhaps we should listen to what they say since they actually work in this field.

Yes, thank-you Humanino.

 

[brainstorm]

The OP is about physics, but doesn't have enough substance for the physics forum. We still need to have some level of scientific merit here. We are lucky enough that a real physicist is sharing here, perhaps we should listen to what they say since they actually work in this field.

That's all I am saying.

I can only really speak for myself, but I don't think anyone wants to alienate or celebrate anyone else on the basis of their professional status as a physicist or otherwise. I thought this thread was just about discussing the relative validity of the logic behind the approach, "shut up and calculate." I would think there would be plenty of seasoned professional physicists with a distaste for people who think they can do physics just by being proficient in mathematics. Aren't there any mathematicians deserving of criticism for insufficiently applying their math skills in terms of theoretical approach? Only a physicist who is truly math proficient themselves would be in the position to evaluate this. Those of us illiterate or semi-literate in math can only bow to the stuff that goes over our head.

 

[Pythagorean]

@ Evo

Calculations apply to, for instance, mathematical biology as well. Not just physics. :P

To do good science, you have to know more than just how to perform operations and follow recipes. Technical proficiency has its own value, but it is not inherently good science in itself. Good science involves knowing and reasoning why a particular method is used, quantitative or qualitative (i.e. mathematics or something else); and methodological reasoning cannot be done purely with mathematics, as far as I know. Someone please correct me with an example if I am mistaken.

You're not mistaken, that's indeed how science is taught. The mistake is the mentality that qualitative and quantitative somehow live in separate realities. You seem to be implying that by studying the equations, no qualitative or philosophical understanding will come of it. That's what is wrong, imo..

Also, the assumption that the academic study of physics blindly plugs and chugs numbers without thinking about the meaning of their models is equally bogus.

It's not like there's a "formula" (hehe) to learning the material either. You don't study qualitative first than quantitative. There's a dynamic relationship between the two, they supplement, feed, and feed off of each other. You study qualitative and quantitative aspects in parallel over the course of your degree. Some subjects may focus more on one aspect than the other, but 1+1=2 for instance, is meaningless in physics without units or a description of what we're adding up to equal two. And "I have some apples" is not accurate enough. There's a balance between qualitative and quantitative aspects.

"shut up and calculate" is a response from non-physics to a response from physics geared towards people who want to have the qualitative without the quantitative.

 

[humanino]

<rant>

Yes, thank-you Humanino.

I take no pride in being employed as a physicist. This is not fake humility, it just so happens that I imagine it much harder for instance to raise a child (to decency) than to reach an academic position. Louis Pasteur had a quote about pride of academic positions : "The profession does no honor to the man, but the man ought to honor the profession."
</rant>

 

[Evo]

This is unclear thinking. The OP is clearly about the philosophy of science and the nature of creative genius. Physics might be the domain, but the epistemological questions are more general.

Is that an agreement that this can't hold up in the hard physics section, since there is no hard physics?

 

[apeiron]

Is that an agreement that this can't hold up in the hard physics section, since there is no hard physics?

I don't really understand that comment. But the OP is about how scientists should do science, which is epistemology.

 

[apeiron]

They were guided by precise analogies, the same principles which lead to QED, and a straightforward (in retrospect of course) extension from abelian to non-abelian groups.

A serious question: isn't the "getting more mathematical" aspect here about the systematic relaxation of constraints so as to move to a more generalised view. So you move from geometry to topology by relaxing constraints (such as the need to define distances, for instance) and so end up in a realm that "looks" more rarified or abstract as a result.

Non-euclidean geometry relaxed the constraints on Euclidean flatness. String theory relaxed constraints on dimensionality. Non-abelian groups relaxed the constraint of commutativity. Progress is about finding what we were assuming to be pinned down, then unbuttoning it and discovering what structure still remains to be described.

But then there is a new problem of how to recover particular physical solutions from the newly created, less physical-seeming, landscapes. We now need a theory about constraints themselves - one that can pick out the right solution for a reason. Either that, or we are reduced to clicking through every possible combination, every possible set of constraints, in the hope one is the unique solution.

So maybe we have no choice but to grope blindly and hope eventually to strike lucky as a result of just grinding the calculations. Or possibly still, a theory of constraints would give us qualitative reasons for say yes, I can see why that feels like the correct choice.

I would think in fact that people even in your field are trying to imagine the correct constraints that would narrow the search for an answer? There is still an important conceptual aspect, even if the level of thinking is rarified.

 

[brainstorm]

You're not mistaken, that's indeed how science is taught. The mistake is the mentality that qualitative and quantitative somehow live in separate realities. You seem to be implying that by studying the equations, no qualitative or philosophical understanding will come of it. That's what is wrong, imo..

This is the way I've thought about scientific math all along. The problem, imo, is when scientists claim that they can conceptualize models purely in terms of equations and math. When people say this, it is fundamentally naive, yet such people often purport to be right purely on the basis that they are experts in their field. Put more simply, they think scientific expertise automatically makes them experts in philosophizing and/or other meta-knowledge of what they're doing. Then the question should be how someone can have a PhD (doctor of PHILOSOPHY) in their field without understanding what they are doing beyond the technical level of the nuts and bolts of instrumentalism. This is not to say that people aren't extremely good at what they do or that their expertise is not real expertise. I would just say it is often more technical than scientific.

Also, the assumption that the academic study of physics blindly plugs and chugs numbers without thinking about the meaning of their models is equally bogus.

Great. So why do people resist communicating about them except in maths then?

It's not like there's a "formula" (hehe) to learning the material either. You don't study qualitative first than quantitative. There's a dynamic relationship between the two, they supplement, feed, and feed off of each other. You study qualitative and quantitative aspects in parallel over the course of your degree. Some subjects may focus more on one aspect than the other, but 1+1=2 for instance, is meaningless in physics without units or a description of what we're adding up to equal two. And "I have some apples" is not accurate enough. There's a balance between qualitative and quantitative aspects.

In one sense you study them in tandem, and in another sense they are parallel discourses. Ultimately, I think a mature scientist should be able to distinguish between quantitative and qualitative issues. I also think people should be able to see how quantitative issues emerge into qualitative ones and vice versa.

"shut up and calculate" is a response from non-physics to a response from physics geared towards people who want to have the qualitative without the quantitative.

How can you automatically assume that because someone isn't skilled in mathematics that they can't understand at least some aspect of science? It sounds like what you're arguing is that if someone can't or won't do the math, they should be relegated to studying creationism as their primary explanation of everything in the universe.

 

[humanino]

...

We have a theory for systems under constraints, or systems in which the symmetries are larger than they appear as you have grasped. That's gauge theories. The appearance of infinities plaguing quantum gauge fields is related to this aspect : we are doing redundant integrals including "directions" in which "the integrand is constant" (which spits out infinity).

There has been recently tremendous progress in calculating amplitudes involving many (massless, which means high energy limit) particles in non-abelian gauge theories. The integrals are re-written over a twistor space. The crucial step was published by Witten in 2003 but it took a few years to digest. The initial construction of general twistor was due to Penrose in the 70s. These twistor constructions allow us to incorporate gauge constraints at a very early stage in the formalism. So Penrose (a general relativist) has put forward a general proposal long time ago that spacetime is emergent from more fundamental geometrical entities (twistors), from general arguments and hints that the formalism should naturally incorporate quantum mechanical counter-intuitive features (such as non-locality). He always had very seducing discussions around, beautiful motivations, elegant and convincing analogies. But note that for about 30 years the majority of people have not really listened to those general quasi-philosophical arguments. It is only once we had down-to-earth concrete calculations (not involving such general arguments) that people follow the lead and get to publish important papers. I can not tell for sure how much Witten cared about the geometrical beautiful aspects of twistors when he first decided to work on this. But it remains clear that only the efficiency of the calculation was convincing.

I think this illustrates well that people do care about discussions and permanently reflect over the philosophical interpretations, but that only calculations matter when it comes to convince one another for which direction to explore. This is always what I understood of "shut up and calculate" : calculate first, and then discuss the interpretation of the calculation.

 

[humanino]

Then the question should be how someone can have a PhD (doctor of PHILOSOPHY) in their field without understanding what they are doing beyond the technical level of the nuts and bolts of instrumentalism.

The reason the attribution of an academic title in science relies on nuts and bolts is because the difficult step is to understand the nuts and bolts. Once this is understood, it is easy to discuss about the interpretations. If nuts and bolts are not understood, the discussion is vacuous. It is very difficult to discuss about colors with someone who never opened their eyes.

This answer is following a background expressed in the previous message.

 

[yossell]

I'd like to emphasise that instrumentalism is itself a view about methodology, and thus is a kind of philosophy. The view that all we can know or meaningfully argue about is that which is observable - including the discussion of what exactly is observable - is a strong version of empiricism, and many influential philosophers have supported this view. (e.g. Hume, Locke, Quine)

`Philosophical' has come to be a perjorative term, meaning hopelessly metaphysical, speculative, even mystical. But it's a misrepresentation of the subject matter to make out that philosophy precisely is a matter of getting deeply involved in difficult and possibly intractable interpretative issues.