Heisenberg on Science

Werner Heisenberg, famous for his Uncertainty Principle, proposing that science be understood not as a single conceptual framework, but rather a collection of ways of examining the world:

The most important new result of nuclear physics was the recognition of the possibility of applying quite different types of natural laws, without contradiction, to one and the same physical event. This is due to the fact that within a system of laws which are based on certain fundamental ideas only certain quite definite ways of asking questions make sense, and thus, that such a system is separated from others which allow different questions to be put.

Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science, 1952.

Comments

[Theo]

The philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend said that being responds differntly and positively to different approaches. I wonder if he had this in mind when he wrote that.

[Chris]

As you may know, I'm a big fan of Feyerabend. :) It helps that I find absolutist positions stiflingly unhelpful when they are imposed on the world at large, as he appeared to believe as well.

Feyerabend seemed to recognise that science in the twentieth century had somehow hurdled the requirement to establish firm foundations and skipped ahead to premature certainty. :) It's not that one needs those secure underpinnings to conduct research - just that the scientific community sometimes acts as if it has reached an epistemological perfection that, realistically, may not even be achievable.

Best wishes!

[John]

Hi Im from Melbourne. Please check out this radical criticism of scientism as an adolescent power and control seeking ideology.

http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-science.aspx

Plus a related essay about Reality & The Middle available via this page.

http://www.dabase.org/s-atruth.htm

An essay which points out that all of forms of knowledge are essentially power and control seeking hunter-gatherer endeavors.

[Chris]

Another Adidam link... Was it you that linked to this before? I appreciate the links, and the summary of the content therein.