On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 3:58 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 11 Jun 2011, at 16:51, Rex Allen wrote: > >> Instrumentalism, anyone? > > It is not because a theology fails that we have to abandon all theologies. > That would lead indeed to instrumentalism, and this would kill all > inquiries. It leads to shut up and calculate.
I wouldn't think that this would necessarily be the case. There's always a demand for faster, more accurate ways to calculate. Surely that would be sufficient to drive progress. Why bring theology and faith into it? Maybe there's less fame and glory to be had in an instrumentalist approach? Is realism in science driven by a desire for higher social status amongst professional scientists? Is that what stops them from more aggressively promoting the "instrumentalism with a pinch of common sense" view of science? Robin Hanson should be all over this. Rex "There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature." -- Niels Bohr -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
