Physics versus Philosophy

Philosophy, the Mother of All Knowledge, has millennia of seniority in describing and explaining reality. So why are scientists, especially physicists, always kicking sand in its face?

Philosophy is getting sand kicked in its face because, although it harbors the deepest roots of every major scientific discipline, it has grown stale and stagnant, perfusing the intellectual atmosphere with the odor of decay. Meanwhile, science has steadily been making headway and stealing the show, especially when it seems to promise new and lucrative technology for the pleasure and profit of those in a position to commercialize and consume it.

But the situation is not so one-sided after all. For even though scientists have been trying to expand their horizons by tackling what have always been seen as inherently philosophical problems, they face insuperable difficulties in such endeavors. Perhaps their worst disadvantages are missing conceptual foundations and the inadequacy of empirical and/or axiomatic methodology to address the true fundamentals of reality, and their resulting lack of support for their increasingly ambitious and far-reaching speculations. In consequence of these difficulties, they often find themselves spinning their wheels with no more traction than the philosophers.

As always, I spend most of my time thinking and writing on such issues. The following is an excerpt from one of my current manuscripts.