My wife and I moved across town last weekend, and it gave me the opportunity to retrieve several big boxes of books from storage, that I may prominently display them in my new home! A friend of mine was helping me shelve them and (poor guy) he had to endure me telling him all about every book I unpacked. I realized that I have myriad books to read and re-read. Life is good.
Speaking of books, I recently read Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd. Lloyd is a professor at MIT, and he has built one of the few quantum computers in existence. He does an excellent job of explaining much about quantum theory at a lay person's level (except for a few sections involving lots of math). He attempts to draw certain philosophical conclusions from quantum theory, however, that are not tenable. The one I will mention here is his proposition that quantum physics allowed the universe to come into existence out of nothing, for no reason. This, he says, is similar to counting from zero to one. A long time ago, a qubit (shorthand for "quantum bit": a bit of information that can be 0, 1 or 0 and 1 at the same time) registering 0 flipped to 1, and that is how the universe began. He seems to confuse zero with nonexistence, though. A qubit in the zero position still exists, even though it registers "zero" information. How did the qubit come into existence in the first place? His counting analogy only begs the question. He does not decisively answer how the universe began, given his naturalistic worldview.
This brief, non-exhaustive commentary raises a point. I have noticed a trend that many scientists are superb at science, but pathetic at philosophy. Given that science (and every other discipline) has basic presuppositions and philosophical commitments, the lack of good philosopher-scientists concerns me. For example, regardless of one's religious commitments, Darwinian evolution has major philosophical problems that need to be addressed publicly, yet very few scientists seem to realize or admit this.
When will philosophy become important again? Or, maybe we should ask, when will good philosophy become important again?
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2 comments:
I really like your blog!
Jon you said:
"When will philosophy become important again? Or, maybe we should ask, when will good philosophy become important again?"
I beleive this will happen when/if it is done in such a manner as can be absorbed by the popular culture... We are not as good a that as we should be, I think we need to engage them where they are, like Paul did, and also like Paul we must stick to Biblical orthodoxy when we do it.
Good post
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