Antecedentes locales de reconfiguración de redes

best be understood through understanding its hidden causes.

Philosophy of science: discussing the search for hidden

causes

As I have shown, the development of understanding in physics is tightly connected to a specific philosophical worldview. The field entertains a number of ideas about the nature of reality and the ways in which this reality can be understood. These issues have been discussed by philosophers also. I will conclude this chapter with a short overview of their viewpoints.

In his Phaedo, Plato already pointed out that the visible state of the physical is not sufficient to explain why a specific event occurs. If Socrates is sitting in an Athenian prison, the visible, physical state of his body helps us to explain why he is able to sit. But it does not explain why he is sitting, instead of standing or running. Like the case of the forest fire, a full explanation must be sought beyond the visible.

Plato believed that everything in the world had a specific purpose and was ‘driven’ to act out its purpose. Socrates was sitting

because, at that moment, sitting was the action that best served him in acting out his goal or purpose. Maybe this comfortable posture allowed him to think more clearly and better prepare for what was coming (Plato, trans. 1966).

Aristotle believed that the purposes of different things could ultimately be reduced to just a few basic purposes. In a machine, every small screw has a specific purpose. This specific purpose can be explained in terms of the specific component it is a part of. And the purpose of this component, in turn, can be explained in terms of the purpose the machine is serving.

In a similar vein, the purposes of specific objects, animals, plants and people could be explained in terms of the purpose of the

materials they consisted of. And the purposes of these different classes of matter, in turn, could be explained in terms of their purpose within the universe. Aristotle described these basis causes in his classical work De Caelo, among else (Aristotle, trans. 1922).

34 Aristotle thought that these basic purposes were necessary truths, which could be known by intuition. For him, this intuition provided a model for explaining the world. The occurrence of specific events could be deduced from our existing knowledge of the general. To understand an event, was to understand why it followed from these basic purposes. In the medieval Western world, his ideas became the dominant model for seeking understanding (Ladyman, 2002).

After the Middle Ages, people’s ideas about seeking understanding slowly began to shift. In his Novum Organum, (1620) Francis Bacon criticized Aristotle’s ideas. Bacon was not convinced that

Aristotle’s ‘natural purposes’ were necessary truths. There could be other explanations for the occurrence of physical things also. This meant that the method of explaining things from pre-given purposes was deeply flawed. When you accept these purposes as a given, you will not consider the possibility that there might be other explanations for things, let alone look for them. You would never find out whether your initial ideas are justified or not, because you only develop explanations that confirm them. Therefore, Bacon argued, if you follow Aristotle’s method, you will never be able to learn anything new.

If we want to learn about the world, we should stop explaining it in terms of our own pre-conceived ideas. We should see the world as it really is, not as we think it is. To observe the world in an

objective manner, we should clear our minds from-pre-existing

judgments. Only then are we able to observe what is really going on there.

Therefore, in order to develop true understanding, Bacon proposed that people should start with a careful and objective observation of the physical phenomenon. The scientist would base her ideas on her observations of the phenomenon only. Received wisdom, cultural

norms, moral values or commitment to an existing idea should play no role here. The scientist had to be prepared to throw all her

carefully developed ideas about a phenomenon out of the window as soon as the phenomenon seemed to contradict them.

35 By a careful and objective observation of a phenomenon, at different occasions and under different circumstances, people could develop an idea of the true mechanism behind it, which Bacon called ‘forms’. According to Bacon, the invisible, true form of things produced the phenomena we observe in the world. By discovering the nature of these invisible forms, mankind would be able to explain and control the physical world.

These ideas provided the basis for our modern conception of natural science. As I have shown, the practice of inferring the visible from the invisible is still very present in modern physics. Over the years, the Baconian idea of doing science has received fierce criticism. This method is often presented as a method to ‘let the facts speak’, free of superstitious assumptions. However, as I have shown in this chapter, this method is based on quite some

assumptions itself.

This method seeks to explain physical phenomena by claiming that they are caused by an invisible mechanism. Because this mechanism is invisible, its existence can never be proved or disproved by ‘the facts’. Therefore the Baconian scientist has to assume that there is a mechanism behind everything we see in the world, despite the fact that no one has ever actually seen such a mechanism. That is quite an assumption, for a method that claims to be based on verifiable facts. David Hume (2003) among others, has criticized this form of science, for making unwarranted metaphysical assumptions.

Apart from issues with metaphysical assumptions, ‘letting the facts speak’ turns out to be harder than suspected in general. Bacon advocated a science based on objective observation. The actual behavior of the phenomenon should be guiding our judgment, instead of our pre-existing ideas. But according to several philosophers, such objective judgment may not at all be possible (Ladyman, 2002). Hanson (1965) argues that our ideas of the world shape the way we perceive it. This means that are not able to perceive things ‘as they are’, without our view of the world getting in the way to some extent. Kuhn (1970) argued that scientific theories are never the product of pure, disinterested observation only. They are always

36 influenced by something else, such as the scientist’s personal

background, the beliefs of his community, historical circumstances and many other things. For Kuhn, science is anything but a

disinterested, objective observation of the facts.

These criticisms, all pertain to science’s ability (or inability) to provide us with objective truths. However, the philosophical school of pragmatism has pointed out that understanding does not need to be objectively true in order to be useful (Hookway, 2016). More

recently, Boon endorsed a similar viewpoint (2009). Even if a theory does not accurately represent the true state of affairs, it still can yield accurate predictions. And if a theory enables us to accurately predict the behavior of phenomena, it can serve to explain and control these phenomena.

Bacon hoped that his new science would one day enable us to explain and control the world. The technological and scientific marvels of our modern world, suggest that, for a large part, we have succeeded in doing this.