The Quest for Reality:

  Bohr and Wittgenstein

  two complementary views

  Stig Stenholm

  (p.iv)

  Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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  © S. Stenholm 2011

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  First published 2011

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  ISBN 978–0–19–960358–9 (Hbk.)

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Contents

  Title Pages

  1 Prelude

  2 Twilight of the gods

  3 The view from Copenhagen

  4 Epistemological interlude

  5 Wittgenstein enters the scene

  6 Shaky foundations

  7 Physics interface

  8 Philosophical consequences

  9 Metaphysics and reality

  10 Concluding epilogue

  References

  Index

  1. Prelude

  The modern stance

  1.1. A time of change

  Philosophie dürften man eigentlich nur dichten1

  The centre cannot hold2

  Medieval man lived in a universe of certainty. The Church delivered truth, nay it was the only truth. If one queried science or issues of conduct, the scholars could provide an answer. This was always to be found in Aristotle or the Church fathers respectively. Deviations from this received judgement were incinerated in the auto‐da‐fé, consuming both the individuals as well as their writings. No deviating answers emerged because the questions could not be asked.

  The first break in this bulwark was caused by science. The movement initiated by Galileo Galilei could not be stemmed and eventually deprived the Church of its authority in scientific matters. The process was slow but its outcome was inevitable. Sustained by progress in technology, modern physics and chemistry proved their worth.

  Concomitantly with the scientific developments, the reformations ended the supreme sovereignty of the Catholic Church and opened up the freedom of the individual to think. The French Revolution finally put its seal on modernity; even in the matter of administration, the popular opinions of the crowd could no longer be neglected. The modern society is still living as the heir to these movements.

  But physics did not provide the ordered world expected of it; nor did any brand of democracy lead to the greatest happiness for the largest number of people. All that happened was that we were thrown into a state of perplexity, which only grew with increasing knowledge. The increase of knowledge certainly did not increase happiness.

  In science, the mastering of heat engines and electricity forged the foundations for most of modern technology. It was, consequently, expected that the phenomena of nature could be catalogued and chained. Things did not turn out this way; the ultimate theory of matter and radiation, quantum theory, took the form of an abstract set of recipes, which gave no basis for a visualizable picture of everything. Still the theory has been profoundly successful when applied to real (p.2) phenomena; both technology and fundamental understanding have benefitted enormously. But it has not solved any riddle of our lives nor revealed the essence of the empirical world.

  When philosophy aimed at certainty it turned to mathematics. Surely, it was taught, the result of a calculation is necessarily true. The statement “The circumference of a circle is π times its diameter” has to be an absolute truth. But no, the arbitrariness of Euclidean geometry made the statement undecided at best. With a closer investigation, more difficulties emerged: How do we assign a numerical value to the diagonal line and the curved line of the circle itself; how do we compare these numbers? What is that mysterious symbol “π” and what is its status of being; how are its digits determined and what is their distribution?

  In addition to the questions of defining the mathematical concepts and their mutual relations, there turned out to be unavoidable features of incompleteness. Not all theorems can be proved and not all numbers can be computed. These results do, of course, refer only to formal processes in closely defined systems, but they suggest a need to doubt the truth and relevance of mathematical manipulations.

  The consequence of these complications turned out to be the insight that all knowledge must be captured in words belonging to our common language. Because this is not a closed formal structure, it is dependent on human life in the everyday world. It contains limitations deriving from our limited intellect and historical developments as social beings. There can be no universal language game describing all of reality including human consciousness. The use of language works only in limited situations and in incomplete ways.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein started his thinking by trying to provide a complete description of all that can be stated uniquely in language. The rest cannot be discussed and thus lies outside of communication. He thought that he had finished the task of philosophy, which thus had reached its ultimate end. Later he recognized that language is more intricate than he had assumed. His subsequent work was to be based on communication within limited systems, considered as language games in which concepts have their meaning. Even the activity of mathematicians falls into this category of games.

  In physics, Niels Bohr came to be the advocate of a new approach to the physical investigation of reality. He recognized that the theories of physics also derive their communicative power from the use of language, even if we need to extend it with the tools of mathematics. This is then to be taken as complementing our common language. The theory is purely formal, and communication has to be conducted in terms of classical concepts, because these apply to the world where we live. The only way to make the exchange of physical information unambiguous is to extract classical pictures from the processes of nature. According to Bohr, the full description from initial preparation to final recording of the outcome, is the basic physical phenomenon. This is the unit of description, just as Wittgenstein's language game is his playground for meaningful communication.

  (p.3) I have singled out Wittgenstein and Bohr for a comparison, because they represent the best examples of the modern approach to the fuzziness resulting from progress in understanding the human position in the world. Each one had to replace apparent order and certainty by an understanding based on limited concepts in constant flux.

  Bohr and Wittgenstein worked in very different fields and locations. I certainly do not claim that they influenced each other directly; they may not even have known about each other. Their parallel endeavors derive from the cultural atmosphere of all civilized Europe. They reacted in their separate characteristic ways to the prevailing zeitgeist. Hence their achievements are symptoms not mutual causes. And still, their influence on their contemporaries became unforeseeably large. This is part of the magic they radiated into the realms of their activities.

  Bohr and Wittgenstein are complementary in treating human communication from abstract formalism to empirical methods. But both realized that the problem lies not in nature nor in our scientific methods but in our use of language. This implies that they even tend to use identical ways to express themselves.

  Niels Bohr:

  We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein:

  We are struggling with language.

  This defines the tools, the goal can only be defined by a poet [1]:

  What are the roots that clutch,

  what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?

  Son of man.

  You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

  A heap of broken images, where th e sun beats.

  1.1.1. Outline of argument

  The aim of my writing is to consider the breakdown of a certain world view during the twentieth century. This is mirrored in the treatment both of science and philosophy. As these form the foundation of the human position in the world, a major reorganization of the body of knowledge had to take place. I have chosen Bohr and Wittgenstein as the main actors to represent this revision. My conclusion is that the modern synthesis is far from satisfactory. By leaving the story unfinished in its present state, I hope to provoke a renewal of the discussion and the eventual emergence of a reformed clarity and understanding. Reality is to be left as it is, but the human mind is also to be left as it is. The problem is to find a way to effect a harmonious combination of these.

  (p.4) The content of this book is essentially one argument. However, because it encompasses such a broad range of human activities, it will consist in various pieces which together, hopefully, suggest the unified picture I aim at.

  Chapter 1: The modern stance

  This outlines the motivation I have had for undertaking this work. I also argue that, acknowledging the remarkable progress of science, it is essential to dissect the modern world view from the aspects of physics. The physicist may be the outsider here, but he may also bring new light on a confusing situation. In order to combine the thinking in physics with that of philosophy, I choose to deal with the lives and achievements of Bohr and Wittgenstein in some detail.

  The total analysis is based on my personal experience and subjective feelings; it thus remains a fiction: The Myth of Physics and the World. Only when definite conclusions are someday reached, will it be the time for formal analysis and tracing of roots. For the moment we are not yet there.

  Chapter 2: Twilight of the gods

  Here I describe the loss of intellectual certainty characterizing the nineteenth century. Vienna as well as Copenhagen was dominated by the cloud of despair characterizing the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the disastrous First World War. In spite of all progress, the former catastrophe created an atmosphere designed to anticipate the second one. In retrospect, many symptoms of this were to be seen, but the most influential one was, no doubt, the emergence of the Dane Sϕren Kierkegaard. In his native Copenhagen he initiated the existentialist movement influencing all Europe, and he was well known in Vienna at Wittgenstein's time.

  Chapter 3: The view from Copenhagen

  This summarizes the life and work of Niels Bohr. It presents his view of modern physics and possible influences on him, and the impact of his activities. In particular, I discuss the role of his philosophy mentor Hϕffding and colleague Rosenfeld. Finally I compare Bohr's approach to the pragmatism of William James.

  Chapter 4: Epistemological interlude

  In this Chapter, I summarize my personal view of existence as a human being in empirical reality. Much is speculative and many things are highly subjective. However, I consider it intellectually honest to inform the readers about my own standing. This bias may induce me to superimpose my views on those I present later. It should be up to the reader to decide to what extent Bohr and Wittgenstein support my approach. This chapter treats: epistemology, consciousness, language, and the methods of science. All these form central issues in the later discussions, and this introductory story should be conceived as a preliminary background. In conclusion it states that what we experience of nature, is never (p.5) enough to lay down the basic elements of reality and their essences. Metaphysics is empirically underdetermined but essential for a harmonious world view.

  Chapter 5: Wittgenstein enters the scene

  Here I summarize the life and achievements of Wittgenstein. I trace the philosophical background of his activity, stressing especially the role of Boltzmann. Wittgenstein never became his student but was, obviously, strongly influenced by him. I also contend that the opinions of Boltzmann were very similar to those of pragmatism, even if it is highly unlikely that Boltzmann knew any works by William James. Here I also summarize the conventional description of Wittgenstein's thoughts, the early and the later ones. There are, in fact, lots of similarities between them: Wittgenstein's problems remained largely the same, but the early certainty was replaced by an extensive skepticism and feeling of helplessness in view of the immense problems offered by life and logic. The chapter is concluded by the discussion on Certainty originating from lectures delivered by the philosopher George Edward Moore.

  Chapter 6: Shaky foundations

  Here I summarize the effort to reach absolute certainty in mathematics. This endeavor ended in failure, because no absolute truths can be found even in formal systems. The underdetermination of all such systems is taken to imply that not even the best theory can reach an absolute truth. In view of this, Wittgenstein devotes a lot of discussion to the very activity of doing mathematics: What can we know and what can we do even without a solid foundation? If the world of mathematics is posited, what life can live and develop in this world?

  Chapter 7: Physics interface

  It is argued that the Tractatus is an analogy of the classical description of physical reality. We know that this had to be replaced by the much more ephemeral quantum theory. It is argued that many of the features of Wittgenstein's later work could have been applied to quantum physics, if only he had known about this. The argument at some points refers directly to modern physics in a way Wittgenstein could not have done; he did not know modern science.

  Chapter 8: Philosophical consequences

  We return to the issue of pragmatism and its relevance to modern physics. It is argued that Husserl's Phenomenology is the last attempt of nineteenth‐ century thinking to impose conventional order on the realm of philosophy and its manifestations in our empirical picture of reality. I argue that this enterprise failed, and after this the European continental philosophers confined themselves to the world of human life and its written products. Thus existentialism has given up the attempt to understand and control the real environment. This separates them unequivocally from the philosophy of science in any of its possible forms.

  (p.6) Chapter 9: Metaphysics and reality

  Here I discuss the implications deriving from the epistemology that has served science so well. Our technical mastery of the empirical world still does not uniquely determine either the ontology of the ultimate reality or the potential interdependences of it elements. What we can know we may know, but our understanding allows, nay demands, that there are things we cannot know. Thus we are free to populate these posited worlds as we like, assuming only that we do not create inner contradictions into our fantasies or external conflicts with empirical facts as we know them. This situation leaves open the opportunities even to incorporate religious arguments. To avoid misunderstanding: religious concepts are in no way implicated by our knowledge but, on the other hand, it cannot exclude them. It is pointed out that Wittgenstein was apt to refer to God, especially in his early writings.

  Chapter 10: Concluding epilogue

  This chapter comments on the opinions presented. I concede that many arguments presented have been expressed earlier; only the combination of issues may offer a novel perspective. However, a detailed declaration of relations to other works would only have proved lengthy and boring. The writing itself is supposed to convey the necessary information to the reader.

 

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