Conversation 8

 

: Many people in science believe that the world (existence itself) is a completely knowable system, determined by finite universal laws that can be grasped and rationally directed to serve our own interests. Many scientists believe that the world follows certain fundamental laws of physics. Most physicists have a scientific outlook that is at least monistic materialistic, trying to prove that everything complex in the world is just different manifestations of a common thing, and that numerous explanations eventually converge on simpler and simpler principles. Scientists always want to give purely physical explanations for all phenomena in our world, rather than metaphysical meanings.

 

: We cannot find the ways of sharing human experiences, nor can we describe in words what are universal human experiences and what is beyond human culture and history. Physics alone cannot explain values, meanings and other subjective phenomena.

 

: Let's continue the discussion. What is the relationship between physics and philosophy in explaining the basic principles of physics?

 

: Man's understanding and interpretation of the world is divided into metaphysics and physics. We can consider philosophy, humanities and religious teachings as metaphysics, and physical science or applied science as physics. When we explain various things, such as worldview, values, logic, scientific verification, etc., they can be divided into metaphysics and physics. At each level of scientific development, we interpret some things as appearances and others as essences, but as we go deeper into the next level, the previous essence becomes the manifestation and we take the more general principles as the essence. In any case, many scientific explanations will eventually converge on simpler and simpler principles.

 

: We can compare physics to a tree, and fundamental principles to its root. The tree grows bigger and bigger from its root.

 

: No matter how far human knowledge develops, there will always be fundamental questions that cannot be answered by physics. This is the boundary between metaphysics and physics. What we call the "essence of phenomena" or the fundamental principles of physics is the boundary between metaphysics and physics. Physics cannot be separated from metaphysics or philosophy at the fundamental level.

 

: The fundamental principles of physics cannot be derived by physical methods, because there are no broader and deeper physical principles to underlie them. We can call the fundamental principles of physics the boundary of physics, and on the other side of the boundary is metaphysics.

 

: Scientists always want to give purely physical explanations for all the phenomena of our world, without metaphysical meanings, and the only exception is the fundamental principles of physics. In other words, if the "fundamental principles" of physics can be explained in a purely physical way, then they must not be "fundamental ".

 

: Anything, once it is "fundamental", must not be explained within the self-system.

 

: To sum up today's discussion: the boundary between metaphysics and physics is determined by the basic principles of physics, and the deepening or development of the principles of physics will change the position of this boundary. The fundamental principles of physics cannot be separated from metaphysics or philosophy.

 

: This is the relationship between physics and philosophy. The unification of physics also builds the underlying logics for philosophy.

 

: The development of physics has never been persuaded by philosophers, am I right?

 

: It seems so.

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Key Words:   metaphysics,  physics

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