Physics and Philosophy of Knowledge

[jeffn1]

TL;DR

Physics and Philosophy of Knowledge

I am curious whether undergrad physics students take courses on the philosophy of science. For example, does your syllabus include reading the seminal book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. Physics is sort of the cutting edge for these type of issues. Of course, Newton to Einstein was a classic example of a Kuhnian "paradigm shift". I might tend to argue that particle oriented quantum mechanics to field-based quantum field theory represents a similar shift. Thoughts?

 

[BillTre]

The Kuhn book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions came out in 1962. I read it and liked it in high school. I was a zoology major in college (no biology degree there) but took several courses on philosophy of science and medical history in the early 1970's. By then Kuhn's book was considered not cutting edge by the philosophy people where I was but he was not a philosopher originally, so... In the philosophy of science course they didn't even cover it much at all. In stead they had several philosophical responses to it dealing with inconsistencies in some of his definitions and some other philosophers vastly different refinements of it with out explaining his basic ideas. Not great.
Many scientists like his description of how science works and its easy to understand concepts to this day.

I don't think it is normal for any science students to take philosophy classes. There were none in mine.

 

[iste]

TL;DR: Physics and Philosophy of Knowledge

I am curious whether undergrad physics students take courses on the philosophy of science. For example, does your syllabus include reading the seminal book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. Physics is sort of the cutting edge for these type of issues. Of course, Newton to Einstein was a classic example of a Kuhnian "paradigm shift". I might tend to argue that particle oriented quantum mechanics to field-based quantum field theory represents a similar shift. Thoughts?

Yes, its definitely a Kuhnian shift as it introduces something that implies a new ontology or metaphysics that didn't exist before. I think another poster Bhobba said something like you cannot get non-relativistic quantum mechanics out of relativistic quantum field theory, only a relativistic field theory. This would be a another good argument that this is a Kuhnian shift as it shows that you cannot recover quantum mechanics from field theory without some extra implied ontology or metaphysics that wasn't originally there.

 

[jeffn1]

My impression is, for practicing physicists, the major difference between ordinary quantum physics and quantum field theory is the relativistic component. But, I think there is a very big difference in terms quantum interpretations. From a big picture perspective, things tend to make "more sense" if you view quantum behavior through the lens of quantum field theory ("there are no particles, just fields"). Art Hobson argues (at least how I understand him) that if you view quantum behavior from a QFT perspective, there simply is no need for all the different interpretations of quantum phenomenon (he mostly critcicizes consciousness-based theories and MWT). He even argues that the reason Feynman's said "nobody understands quantum mechanics" was because he was a "particle guy".

 

[Demystifier]

Hobson is wrong. QFT does not remove the need for quantum interpretations. And of course, Feynman was one of the developers of QFT, he even got the Nobel prize for that.

 

[Matterwave]

Art Hobson argues (at least how I understand him) that if you view quantum behavior from a QFT perspective, there simply is no need for all the different interpretations of quantum phenomenon (he mostly critcicizes consciousness-based theories and MWT). He even argues that the reason Feynman's said "nobody understands quantum mechanics" was because he was a "particle guy".

Feels just untrue to me. Do you have a concrete reference?